Funeral Link
Funeral experts by experience
Every now and then the GFG gets an invitation that it can’t turn down. Being invited to be involved in a research project exploring what matters to people when it comes to funerals was just such an invitation. We were delighted to help in a very small way, and it has been a privilege to […]
How much do funerals really matter?
Team GFG are honoured to have been invited to be part of an advisory committee to support a pioneering new study that is being launched today to try and discover how much funerals really matter. And we are happy to help spread the word about it to encourage people to sign up as participants.Please share […]
An afternoon of education at CDAS
Adam and Eve as portrayed at the Creation Museum Kentucky illustrating John Troyer’s presentation. There’s some interesting stuff going on in the world of academia which can go unnoticed in the frenzied world of Facebook updates and Twitterfeed, and yesterday the GFG took a few hours out to go and listen to some learned folk […]
Bring on the empty corpses
Book review: Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty Caitlin Doughty, graduate in medieval history and author of a sunny thesis entitled The Suppression of Demonic Births in Late Medieval Witchcraft Theory, rejects a promising career in academia in favour of one as a corpse handler and incinerator of the dead. Anticipating bewilderment she asks, […]
Historical perceptions of a disreputable trade
The following is extracted by a PhD thesis by Sarah E Bond. It describes the social status of funeral workers in earlier times, particularly in ancient Rome where, we discover, FSOs were often employed, also, as executioners. According to an inscription from Puteoli dated to the first century BCE: “The operae (workers) who shall be provided […]
Feasting on brains
Weekends? Ha! We don’t believe in them here at the GFG-Batesville Shard. Probably you don’t, either. Because, like you, I know that the number one regret of the dying is: I wish I had worked harder. So on Sunday, noticing my bank manager had nodded off in a deckchair, I slipped my fiscal leash and […]
Chowing down with the antecedents
Debate about attitudes to death, funerals and the commemoration of the dead has largely been colonised by a section of the liberally-educated chattering sector of the middle class. They’re the ones most likely to opinionate about this stuff; they’re the ones who like to think think they can get their heads around it. They are intellectual […]
Tattoo – A friend in death?
The Rise of the Maori Tribal Tattoo By Ngahuia Te Awekotuku University of Waikato, New Zealand Body adornment – swirling curves of black on shoulders, thighs, lower back, arms, upper feet, rear calves – has become an opportunity for storytelling as well. Some symbols represent children born, targets reached, places visited, and increasingly, memories of […]
What’s for afters?
Much attention has been accorded to Eben Alexander’s account of his recent near-death experience. While NDEs are two a penny, this NDE was experienced by a Harvard-educated neurosurgeon, no less. This lent Alexander’s NDE a clear edge in terms of credibility. It is easy enough to write off the NDEs of ordinary people as delusions. […]
