Here’s one of those faithful dog stories you all love so much. This one’s in Argentina. The dog is Capitan. Read all about him in the Mail here.
“If, as we get on each day living in the present, we spend some time seriously thinking about [death]; if we talk about it now and then – here, perhaps, and with friends and relatives; if we seek out and read what others have written about it; if we ponder it quietly from time to time –
Then one day we will realize it has come to pass that we understand; that leaving this world is the completion of the circle of life and that we will welcome it, in its time, as the next great adventure.
And we will realize then, too, that we will have arrived at our equanimity each in our own time as necessity presents itself.
At least, that’s how I hope it happens.”
It’s billed as ‘an investigation into the unregulated world of the funeral industry, with some shocking undercover footage.’ From what we understand, it’s going to be that and more.
The ITV exposé of deplorable behind-the-scenes practices is set to send buy cialis australia online shockwaves through the industry, once again exposing the impotence of industry trade associations to protect consumers by policing their members.
The working title is The British Way of Death and it’s on ITV on 26 September Wednesday at 10.35 pm.
A charming email arrives from Phil Smith. Phil is the founder of Soundtracktoyour.com.
“Soundtracktoyour-dot-com??” we hollered at the hunched and desperate-eyed GFG galley-slaves. Answer came there none. Never heard of it.
Phil says:
We at Soundtracktoyour.com are pleased to be announce that in October this month our site moves to Open Beta! The reason I mention it, apart from paternal pride, is that we are the website where people can tell us all what songs they want to be remembered by at their funerals and check out what others want or have had. You might be as surprised as we were, for instance, when you see that the funeral songs Boris Johnson wants for his funeral were replicated at Heath Leger’s funeral.
Go see for yourself here.
What do you think?
The story:
Scores of Viking warriors descended on the shores of Lough Neagh last weekend, where they engaged in battle and bade farewell to one of their own on a blazing funeral pyre, watched by hundreds of people, young and old.
The full story:
It was a re-enactment.
Good fun, though — great spectacle.
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
David Twiston Davies, formerly chief obituary writer at the Daily Telegraph, gave a brilliant talk about his onetime trade at the Joy of Death Festival 2012. Here’s a snippet
Whatever the truth, everybody wants to know why somebody has died. Unfortunately the reasons given immediately after a death are often proved to be wrong. Max Hastings used to harry the Telegraph obits about this until a particular incident occurred. I was away that day, but there was a jazz trumpeter, whose name I have forgotten. Hastings had just sent a memo demanding we obey his instruction. So Hugh Massingberd, the obits editor, obediently wrote about the unfortunate fellow who, in those pre-Viagra days, had been operated on to restore the strength between his legs, only for the stitches to come apart in an explosion. We didn’t hear so much about giving reasons after that.
Read the whole of his talk here.
From the Indian Express
Contrary to the usual norm of life, one gypsy tribe from Rajasthan actually rejoice and revel in deaths in their family counting them as one of the happiest events in their lives while treating births as occasions of great grief … what distinguishes the Satiyaa community from the other tribes is after a death in the community, the funeral and cremation of the deceased becomes an event of celebration.
“We wear fresh garments, buy sweets, dry fruits and local liquor on the occasion,” says Jhankya Satiyaa, a Satiyaa. The dead body is taken to crematorium in a procession of dancing and twisting groups of near and dears on the tune of drums. After the funeral pyre is lit, members from the tribe arrange a feast, consume locally brewed liquor and dance with vigour until the body is completely reduced to ashes.
“Death is a great occasion for us as it liberates the soul from the physical prison,” says another member from the community who points out “birth and living life is a great punishment by God to sinful souls”.
Arun Kumar Saxena, a senior journalist who has researched the tribe says Satiyaas consider life to be a curse from God.
“However, the girl child is given more attention and care in the community as she becomes a source of earning for the family through prostitution,” he says.
When someone is born in the Satiyaa community, it becomes an event of mourning and grief with the new born receiving curses from everybody and the family of the baby does not even cook their daily meals at home.
Even though they reside alongside the “hustle and bustle” of cities, the tribe is extremely withdrawn and mistrust outsiders.
The Satiyaa community comprising about 24 odd gypsy families scattered across the state live in temporary shelters along roadsides and in empty spaces rely solely on disposing off the dead bodies of cattle from the roads.
Mostly illiterate, these tribes are notorious for their addiction to liquor. With their deep brown complexion and athletic physique, women of the tribe have been known to indulge in prostitution.
Kota Anwar Ahemad a social activist points out that despite providing members of the Satiyaa tribe houses under the Indira Residential Scheme (Indira Awas Yojana)around a decade ago, the members allegedly sold them off. Also, he says children in the Satiyaa tribal community are also not sent to schools and grow up illiterate.
From Benjamin Black’s latest novel of suspense, Vengeance. The scene is a funeral:
“The vicar droned, his eyes fixed dreamily on a corner of the sky above the trees, a hymn was raggedly sung, someone let fall a sob that sounded like a fox’s bark.”
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
Not Richard III this time but the remains of the woman believed to have inspired Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Lisa Gherardini.
A dig at the now-derelict Convent of St Orsola in Florence is said to be getting close to discovering the buried remains of the noblewoman with the enigmatic smile. But why? To reconstruct her face in order to see if her features match that of the painting at the Louvre, according to Silvano Vinceti, grandly titled the president of the National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage.
So much for Rest In Peace. More here
