Game over
In our thoughts today, the family and friends of sports fan and chartered accountant Conrad Readman, 49, who booked two weeks off work to watch the Olympics, bought tickets to all manner of events, and died yesterday of a heart attack while watching the bicycling in the velodrome. Full story here and here.
The birds and the FDs
A story that’s been doing the rounds of local newspapers has made it to today’s Telegraph. Dear reader, what is it about this tale of alleged mundane office sexual shenanigans which elevates it to the status of juicy newsworthiness? Skye Knight, 38, alleged that Billy Shannon, an embalmer, molested her after grabbing hold of her […]
View from the Westboro Baptist Church
Fred Phelps Jr offers his interpretation of the shootings at the Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Tweeted on August 5th at 6.40 pm.
Faithful grudgebearer
From the Times of India: A bull bided its time and gored an old man to death when an opportunity came a day after the latter had thrown hot water on it. The bull followed the man when he was being taken to a hospital and later reached the crematorium during his funeral in little-known […]
Dunnarunna
The team at the GFG-Batesville Tower has decamped to the seaside, where it is presently sitting on a deckchair in a vest, eating whelks and supping strong lager, and keeping a fatherly eye on the pallid little interns as they hoot and caper in the surf. We are very grateful to the wider (still, and […]
Good to go
DEAD GOOD GUIDES Autumn School 22-25 October in Frome Gilly Adams & Sue Gill The intensive 4 day course will examine the Hows and Whys of ceremony and celebration in a practical and experiential way. We will investigate how both positive and negative life events can be distilled into myth and poetry and create meaningful […]
Let’s hear it for extravagant funerals
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Since the Dispatches exposé, we’re all sounding like Jessica Mitford, the ‘red sheep’ of an aristocratic British clan who naively embraced wretched communism while settling in comfortably capitalist California, and wrote The American Way of Death (1963), which accuses the US funeral trade of exploiting vulnerable grievers. First, let me say I’m […]
New life for dead house
For sale, a beach hut fit for an undertaker, Goth or melancholic. It’s the old mortuary at Saltburn-by-the-sea, it comes with its original slab, it’s Grade 2 listed and it’s on the market, guide price unknown. For further details, contact Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council. Hat tip Tony Piper
Diss-ceased
No sooner had we berated George Tinning, the beleaguered Nick Buckles figure who totters atop Co-op Funeralcare, for his use of the word ‘deceased’ accompanied by the indefinite article, than a commenter, commenting on this post, asked Jonathan, a human cat among pigeons of the very liveliest sort, “How many Deceaseds have you handled?” Perhaps […]
Embalmer required
Excitement is building around the GFG Funeral Industry Awards – the first ever held for the Dismal Trade. There’s been a lot of press interest and, so far, stories in Metro and the BBC website. Sky are interested in featuring the event as part of a feelgood series about nice things happening to nice people. […]
