Pulling the plug
I know I go on about this, but I think it important. Long, long life is getting to be a problem. Thirty years ago dying was a relatively brief, often unexpected episode. Clever medics can now prolong it – intolerably and expensively. That last goodbye for most of us just keeps getting put off and […]
Death’s a bummer
I am indebted to Nurse Myra over at Gimcrack Hospital (where the nurses are pretty and the doctors are pissed) for telling me about JBS Haldane (1892-1964). Nurse Myra does a fine line in rare people, most of them bonkers, and JBS Haldane is an outstanding specimen. Find out more at the Usual Suspect. In […]
Smashing news
Here’s how a recent piece in the Daily Mail began: Being freeze dried and smashed into little pieces sounds like the stuff of sci-fi horror movies. But it is one of two methods of dealing with our dearly departed that could soon be available from a funeral director near you. And in keeping with sci-fi’s […]
Bringing death to life
Like you, I haven’t a clue what this ‘ere Big Society is all about. They say, I think, that it’s all about empowerment. It sounds more like the government walking off the job. It certainly means less of everything and of course it’s entirely like politicians to try and kid us that less = more. […]
Endgame
Interesting, isn’t it, how myopically self-absorbed people become when glancing forward to their demise. “Stick me in a binbag and put me out with the rubbish,” they say, men mostly. It’s right up there now in the top ten death clichés alongside “He’s gone to a better place,” “It’s only a shell,” and “She will […]
Famous last moments
Here is a minuscule excerpt from a wonderful, sonorous account of the death of ex-President Ulysses S Grant. It’s not what we get any more, is it, the last deathbed moments of celebs and justifiably famous people? How, when we think of it, we wish we did. Public figures die so much more privately in […]
Materialism gone mad and the what’s-it-all-about question
Here’s an interesting piece by Peter Popham in the Independent, first published in May. I’ve only just found it. He begins by talking about Christopher Hitchens, who has oesophageal cancer, and how impending death has reconfigured his identity: “…when the bitter laughter dies away, there is Hitch, locked away from healthy us, in a land […]
The sacred and the propane
It was a deepseated thing, this duty we felt we owed our dead. A sacred duty – literally. It goes back to the beginning of time. Throughout human history the dead body has always been treated in accordance with sacred diktat, its valedictory hullabaloos performed by shaman or sorcerer, soothsayer or priest. For the full […]
Normalising death
Back in 2008 neuropsychiatrist Peter Fenwick, in his book The Art of Dying, made this observation: ‘There are plenty of papers about palliative care and pain control, but very few about the mental states during the dying process.’ It’s something that’s often discussed, the un-joined-upness of dying and death, even in hospices. The National Council […]
Demos report: Dying for Change
There’s a report just out from Demos on death and dying (why don’t we get chronological and say dying and death?). It’s by Charles Leadbeater, somewhat of a hero of mine, and Jake Garber. It’s called Dying for Change. It comes out at the same time as the National Council of Palliative Care’s The Missing […]
