Quote of the day
“Death can only be profitable: there’s no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.” Anton Chekov, 1894
Something for the weekend
We’ve had a request for what follows, and we don’t turn down requests here at the GFG, not on any grounds. If you’ve heard this one before, rejoice for all those who haven’t. An elderly Irishman lay dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death he suddenly smelled the aroma of […]
Chuckle of the day
A friend was in a minicab when he leaned over and gently tapped the driver on the shoulder. The cabbie screamed, lost control of the car, drove over the kerb and stopped inches from a large plate glass window. The driver said “I’m so sorry but you scared me”. My shaken friend apologised. The driver replied “It’s entirely […]
Monday morning smile
About ten years ago I had just introduced Father Thomas O’Hara, president of King’s College at the time, as speaker for the annual Our Lady of Mount Carmel Holy Name Society Smoker and took my seat at the head table next to Father Paul Mc Donnell. No sooner had Father O’Hara begun his talk when […]
Useful advice for senior citizens
Ever wondered about what to look for in a nursing home? We know. It’s a pre-need question and just like funeral planning we all like to think we wont need it. Or maybe we’ll get lucky and die first. But life expectancy is only another way to say hanging around. Street corners are too chilly […]
Eric Idle’s eulogy to George Harrison
Eric Idle’s eulogy to George Harrison at the memorial event at the Hollywood Bowl: When they told me they were going to induct my friend George Harrison into the Hollywood Bowl Hall of Fame posthumously: my first thought was – I bet he won’t show up. Because, unlike some others one might mention – but […]
Quote of the week
‘I won’t be Tutankhamun, I’ll be Tutanalan… the grandkids will be able to tell their friends their grandad’s a mummy.’ Alan Billis, whose body has been successfully mummified using ancient Egyptian techniques.
Mellified man and the wonder of Wikipedia
Posted by Vale Wikipedia – that glorious monument to collaboration and, sometimes, hearsay – has some marvellously strange pages. One of my favourites is the Mellified man. This is claimed to be an ancient process of preserving bodies through use of honey.Li, a Chinese pharmacologist reports that, “some elderly men in Arabia, nearing the end […]
Dying Large
Very nice piece here by Wendy Dennis in the Huffington Post. I must have crossed some kind of age threshold, because when I go to funerals lately, I start thinking about my own. It’s not the dying part that scares me. It’s the numbers I’ll draw for the service. I’m in the sanctuary and the […]
The Importance of Being Urnest
That Brits are born with an acute and possibly pathological sensitivity to absurdity is well known. The Great American Funeral has engendered great and gloriously funny books by Jessica Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, neither of which had more than minimal success in laughing Americans out of their (perceived) absurdity. There is method in the funerary lunacies of […]
