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 […]
Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye
Me and the missus are getting down to some serious death planning. There’s no best time of life for doing this, of course, so long as you get it done afore ye croak. And the more I think about it, the more clearly I can see that it’s not an activity whose end result is, […]
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 […]
Relieved to be British
Many American funerary practices are so barking mad I don’t bother writing about them. This blog is Britcentric not because it is xenophobic or incurious but simply because it confines itself to goings-on of relevance to Brits. Sure, we’ve picked up one or two bad habits from the US. Embalming may or may not be […]
The only way round is through
Once upon a time people dreaded dying. They couldn’t be sure it would be painless. They dreaded being dead, too. Some feared the unknown. Others lamented the end of their existence. A very few people had no fear whatever of being dead because they trusted in a joy-drenched afterlife. But even these people dreaded dying. […]
The difference between you and it
Jonathan Taylor, the mercurial genius who from time to time gilds this dull little blog with his inspired intelligence, glorious whimsy and beauty of spirit, once observed that the time between death and the funeral gives people the time to get the heads around the difference between ‘you and it’ – between a living person […]
Hardening of the heart
What happens to the minds of those who deal with death every day? How do they cope with the endless procession of grieving people and dead bodies? Is it emotionally healthy to specialise in death? Isn’t undertaking something best combined with a therapeutic something else – a little landscape gardening or, in the case of […]
Hollowing out hallowed ground
Some interesting reflections here on humankind’s relationship with the dead human body and the forces of nature. I especially enjoyed the observation that the prairie dogs happily digging in this cemetery are no respecters of social status: they have even dug up a state governor. What deplorable absence of deference so far down the food chain! Hat-tip […]
Dead right
“I regard this body of mine as being mine in life and it is for me to say in what way it should be disposed of after my death. I regard that as an absolute … For example, I would have the gravest reservations about any organs from my body after my death being used […]
