Promising them the moon
Disturbing reports about China reach me from a contact in the US Pentagon who, for reasons which will become apparent, I cannot identify. The victory of the Communist Party in China marked a clean break with the past, a reinvention of the nation. But some traditions just wouldn’t lie down and die. One of these […]
Thank you
I know this blog has around 3,000 readers (and rising). I have no idea who any but a tiny fraction actually are. Google Analytics tells me that most of them are in the UK, and around 500 live in the US. The rest are scattered around the globe, and it’s these who, when I check […]
Heightened emotion
My Dead Girlfriend is a Canadian blog written by a man with a to-die-for name, Abra Cadaver. How we all wish we’d thought of that. He’s more of an occasional blogger, these days. But when he reaches for his keyboard he’s really worth reading. If you haven’t wandered through his archive, do. But start with […]
Bloggerel
Blogworld is enriched by (almost) every new e-scribbler with opinions to air, especially those with the skill and the intellect to put words to things we’ve often thought about. There aren’t that many bloggers in the death zone. I wish there were more funeral directors (like Pat McNally) with something to say and the urge […]
World without East Ender?
From the Independent on Sunday, 07 01 10: Eagle-eyed viewers of EastEnders have been left scratching their heads after spotting Archie Mitchell standing at the back of his own funeral. Archie’s murder on Christmas Day – he was bludgeoned, quaintly, with a bust of Queen Victoria – has been the source of […]
Norm
I don’t know if you have ever discovered Norm, humane, genial and wise, over at either of his blogs, Extraordinary Expectations or When Death Breaks in… The latter is suspended, now, or fulfilled. On EE, be sure to click all three tabs at the top. Here’s a taste of Norm. I hope he won’t mind. […]
Exhuming the past
Far and away the most powerful image of 1979’s Winter of Discontent, when one and a half million public sector workers went on strike, was that of the dead lying unburied. There’s a peculiar horror in that; it blends dishonour with decomposition most potently. Bloated rubbish bags, bloated corpses. Bluebottles. Stench. The unburied dead of […]
Season’s greetings
As the health of the old year fails and expiration beckons, the Good Funeral Guide is going to put its feet up for a few days and, with the assistance of good food and good whisky (Glendronach for choice), join the living in celebrating the solsticial festivities. Thank you, loyal and occasionally infuriated reader, […]
Christmas quiz
Do you work at a crematorium or a cemetery? Are you a priest or a secular celebrant or a funeral director who leads or collaborates in the creation of funeral ceremonies? If you are one of the above, you may like to lend your brain to science for as long as it takes to fill […]
Feeding the elderly
Here are some extracts from Nigel Slater’s essay Feeding the Elderly, taken from Eating for England. It is December 2004, and I am sitting in an old people’s home just outside Birmingham. I am holding my aunt’s hand. My aunt is ninety-nine, my eldest surviving relative on my father’s side of the family, and probably […]
