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 […]
Blessed are the bad?
There’s an interesting piece (if you find this sort of thing interesting) in the Australian magazine Eureka Street, a very interesting looking publication promoted by the Australian Jesuits, but remarkably non-doctrinaire and broadminded in its treatment of things. The piece, by Andrew Hamilton, a theologian from Melbourne, debates the sort of funeral appropriate for child […]
Facing the music
Another gangster funeral today. No apologies for this. Gangster funerals are such ticklish affairs: it’s so difficult to gild a gangster when he’s dead. Eamonn Dunne, special subject drugs, responsible for the murders of at least a dozen people including some of his own associates, was blown away while drinking in a Dublin pub. His […]
Fatboy grim
Another gangster funeral story. Why another? Because gangster funerals are the other side of the coin of state or royal funerals. They offer spectacle. Freshly interred in Australia is Carl ‘Fat Boy’ Williams. The convicted drug smuggler and murderer was just six years into a minimum 35-year sentence when he was beaten to death with […]
Blessed are the wicked
We all acknowledge the link between sex and death – but what is it that links crime with death? A really good gangster funeral is a sight to see. These guys do not go incognito into that good night. Having shunned any sort of limelight all their lives, this is when they step out from […]
Helluva guy
“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below…”Thus wicked King Claudius in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. He was speaking of his own spiritual quandary, but in many burial grounds the memorials possibly feel he speaks for them, too. I’m not thinking of those blameless, plain stones whose simple inscriptions testify to sincere, humble faith and assert the […]
