“It’s the people who aren’t comfortable with their life that can’t talk about their death.”
I had an email this morning from Chuck Lakin. The name rang a faint and distant bell. I unleashed Google, who soon ran him to ground. Chuck makes coffins. Beautiful, simple coffins. Here’s a story about one of them: Last September, Barbara Baker learned that breast cancer had spread to her bones and she […]
Putting something back
What’s in a coffin? Okay, a dead person. What I meant, as you perfectly well know, is what is important in the eyes of the people who choose them? There’s a huge range, now – it has multiplied over the last ten years – catering for a very wide range of needs and tastes. Does […]
All hands to the pulp
I wonder what you will think of this new coffin from Denmark. It is pressed from recycled paper pulp. Here are the key features, helpfully translated by Mr Google. 1. The coffin is made of molded pulp 2. The coffin weight is approx. 6kg against wooden coffins from approx. 20kg and over 3. The coffin […]
Seeing doppel
The toiling wretches at GFG Central were arrested in their labours the other day by the discovery of a doppelganger in New Zealand — Good Funeral Guide NZ. They uttered a heartwarming if parched cheer as the overseers, puzzled by the commotion, moved in with their whips. GFG NZ is the brainchild of Tamara Linnhof, […]
Coffin price war on eBay?
Coffins have been coming up for sale on eBay from time to time for a few years, but not in a dependable flow. That may be about to change. Carl Marlow’s Coffin Company has a nice selection at keen prices and I guess he’s in there to stay. You can always tell which is a Carl […]
Shouldering responsibility
You will have your own feelings about a coffin being carried on shoulders of undertakers. It unsettles me. I don’t like to see those big men in black macs in such a close relationship with the body. It wouldn’t do for any of mine. I don’t want men I’ve never met carrying anyone of mine. […]
What to pack for hospital
There’s an engaging little story in January’s Funeral Service Journal describing the custom at Norwich Great Hospital, back in the medieval day, requiring those who had fallen into indigent, aged decrepitude (50+ female BBC presenters, for example) to bring with them, as their entry pass, a coffin. Not so different perhaps from today when you would […]
Coffins on the shopping channel
Newcastle undertaker Carl Marlow has, by his own accounts, been quiet for the last five years — busy building his business. For his fellow undertakers this was too good to last. Carl has never been one to take the view that the best way to achieve change is to work within the industry, and this is […]
Cheap boos
Real ale made by boutique brewers has at last begun to drive down sales of lager for the first time in half a century reports yesterday’s Observer. Intriguingly, the Society of Independent Brewers (Siba) reports that while its 420 members enjoyed a combined sales rise of 4 per cent last year, its smallest and boutique-iest […]
Is it curtains for cardboard?
There are lies, damned lies and carbon footprint stats. Their most impressive feature is that they are so often counter-intuitive. Here’s an example: Researchers at Lincoln University in New Zealand…recently published a study challenging the premise that more food miles automatically mean greater fossil fuel consumption… [T]hey found that lamb raised on New Zealand’s clover-choked […]
