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I finally got to the bottom of it. The Isle of Portland is an area of severe signal deprivation. The Vodafone man confessed this shamefacedly when I demanded to know why his sainted dongle denied me the gift of utterance. “You’re in a 2G area,” he mumbled, “you need 3G at least for the internet.” “So why did Vodafone sell me this bloody dongle with the promise that it would connect me?” “Well, it does connect you, but very slowly.” “No, I crash before anything gets through.” “Oh.” The discussion is ongoing.

Me, the missus and three dogs are off for a week’s holiday. We can do email but that’s about it. No blog posts. Suspended animation, please note, not death.

See you soon! (And apologies for putting that tune in your head.)

No, I’m pleased to tell you. Reports are exaggerated. I remain sentient, mostly. Thank you, all those of you who have emailed to express concern. You’ve added to my guilt, but I am very touched.

I’ve been busy – busy with stuff and busy thinking. It’s the thinking that’s kept me away from the blog.

I’ve been preoccupied with paralysing existential brooding concerning the GFG.  I’ve suffered a major identity crisis. I’d be interested to know what you think.

My first and lesser concern has been sustainability. Can the GFG begin to break even at the very least? It runs at a lean and hungry loss at the moment, and that’s silly. ‘What was your business plan?’ I hear you ask. Never had one. I’m a believer in muddling through and seeing what happens. Even planners look back and agree that that’s the way it actually works. My guiding idea has been that if you can be of value to people then you can charge a little for that. I fancy the GFG to be of value to some FDs and providers of services and merchandise. I am proudest of all that it’s helped to keep Yuli Somme busy making her Leafshrouds. The GFG is of value to consumers, too. There ought to be a revenue stream there. Potentially, there is. The GFG just needs a better business head on its shoulders.

My principal concern has been identity. Does the GFG need to exist? What is it for? Last night I happened upon a Catholic blog which, it seems to me, expresses the idea of the GFG very well. The writer begins by saying, ‘I have had a morbid interest in that particular blog for some time,’ and goes on to say:

‘it is an excellent resource to get to grips with the confused secular world and its prevailing attitudes towards death and dying.’ [Source]

That’s it! That’s what we spend a lot of time doing here. So: the GFG is a little think tank. It is earnest, altruistic, mischievous, angry, sad, sometimes bonkers, always serious, never self-serving. It is rooted in things as they are. It seeks to compete with no one and to respect all (almost). It is capable of influence and even authority – and, dammit, we want to change things.

It is the contributions of its loyal commenters, the discussions they have, which bring, in a good month, upwards of 19,000 people to the site. Sure, not all of those get beyond the home page, and I don’t know how many actually go through to the blog. But the name of the GFG is well and widely known; it has readers in many countries. As they say in smart circles, its brand value is high.

But the GFG is presently not growing and maturing, which means, does it, that it’s dying? If it is to mature, how is it to do that? By transitioning from one-man-band to some sort of partnership which formalises what it already is?  Is that what it actually is? (I’ve never been big on egotism; it would be a relief if it were.) Were it to become a partnership, what would the organisational architecture look like?

Maybe I am toying with ideas above my station. Sure, I am ambitious. I’d like us to shout louder and make an impact on public opinion, not leave the field open to Funeralcare and SunLife. But I am possibly being hubristic, and if so you’ll holler ‘Back in your box, Charles’. I can take it. There’s always something next.

Whither?

The present life of man, O king, seems to me like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the hall wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.

The Venerable Bede (673-735)

Three views here about what a funeral is for by Christian holy people in response to this article here.

Something that allows space for people of all faiths and none to recognise that our lives are about more than the acquisition of wealth and bigger than the sometimes compartmentalised lives we live … until we have a national language and a pattern for doing these things that all can relate to, it is simply not going to meet a very human desire for ritual action that all can take part in.  Rev Adele Rees London

A funeral service is neither a “time for thanksgiving” nor “the celebration of a life”, even though that certainly seems to be what many mourners nowadays think they have to have, thereby hurrying past the all-important grieving stages. But the principal focus of the rite is the dignified and appropriate disposal of a corpse.  Fr Alec Mitchell Manchester

Three really good things – a tribute by a family member, humour and applause … excluding language about God limits what you can say about the richness and depth of human life.  Canon Robert Titley Rector in the Richmond team ministry

Having spent last night listening to religious choral music by that well known atheist Mozart I am moved to suggest to Canon Titley that invocations to the Supreme Being do nothing to detract from a sense of wonder and mystery.

Ray Bidiss’s trike hearse world speed record got the newswires humming. When I heard it I paused and pondered. I think I said ooh. Maybe you did, too.

Didn’t hear about it? Read about it here.

Take nothing away from Ray, he blitzed down Elvington airfield at 114.1 mph with a coffin on board. But when the press says his is a motorcycle hearse they’re not technically correct. A motorcycle hearse is a hearse drawn by a 2-wheeled vehicle. A trike is not a motorbike.

By coincidence I’m off to have lunch with Paul Sinclair in a minute. I’d intended talk it over with him, and doubtless we’ll touch on it. But the blog he posted this morning answers all my questions, especially #1: “Haven’t you already done this faster, Paul? Aren’t you actually the record holder?”

Answer in a nutshell: Paul’s hearse has gone faster – 120 mph to be precise – but the Guinness Book of Records didn’t have a hearse category at the time so they didn’t chalk it up. Had they done… But it still wouldn’t have been like against like.

A head-to-head between Paul and Ray would make a great photo; bikers would love it. Any chance of a play-off? I’ll let you know.

Read Paul’s post here.

Happy Royal Wedding, everyone! The Board of the GFG is fleeing from it to a developing country (not enough gun carriages drawn by sailors to keep us here). Even the interns have been given little flags to wag and the weekend off, bless their little trustafarian hearts. We shall be back after the consummation.

Following the story of the tea-drinking, cake-eating undertakers which caused such ire a few days ago (read it here), here’s a US undertaker up to much of the same , if in a far more downmarket way.

Story here.

The Cadaver Calculator – Find out how much your body is worth.Created by OnePlusYou – Free Online Dating

If your curiosity is in idle mode, this being holiday time, you may be wondering what your dead body’s worth to those who would like to recycle its bits and pieces.

Make your way over to the Cadaver Calculator and discover. You’ll find a short questionnaire followed by a request to join an online dating site. You don’t have to join. Instead, click on the link at the foot of the page which takes you straight to your value.

I am worth (dead) $2755. I don’t suppose you’ll get anywhere near that.

Go to the questionnaire.

This blog is rolling up its trousers, fashioning a newspaper hat and taking itself off to the seaside for a week.

I shall try to do emails and stuff but I’ll be on a dongle and it’s a painfully slow connection on the island of dreams — they don’t want our chatter to interfere with that of the mariners who ply our waters with their cargoes of spices, apes, gold moidores, etc.

Have a great week!

Movie synopsis: The Funeral Director (2009) So far as I can find out, it never got distributed.

“A broken-hearted man, Kevin, finds company in a pet cricket. After ditching a lucrative advertising job, he signs on as an apprentice in a funeral home and finds himself not only working for a sexually starved pre-menopausal funeral director, but also rooming with her free spirited nymphomaniac niece. In a strange way, Kevin becomes like one of the old Renaissance masters by taking the dead corpses to study and advance his art by photographing them. While the nymphomaniac becomes addicted to the idea of helping him win back his ex-girlfriend they find themselves exploring loss, death, and resurrection. In a dark romanticism, Kevin attempts to artistically reincarnate the dead people by dressing them up in elaborate costumes and makeup, trying to recapture the memory of their best human quality and to defy the tragedy of their death.”

If only I could find you a clip or a trailer!