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 …or are these ones true?

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

No. 3: A company offering the expensive service of deep freezing and preserving corpses of wealthy folk who hoped that future generations would be able to revive them back to life, went in liquidation. Because of unpaid bills the electricity supply was cut off and the bodies went into a similar state to that of the company.

No. 4: A woodland burial site, which banned metal-lined coffins and embalmed bodies for ecological reasons, was confronted with the dilemma of a man, already buried there, being joined by his wife, who died while holidaying abroad. Air safety regulations require a sealed coffin and embalmed body.

No 5: A crematorium which linked up a CCTV camera to the internet so services could be watched by those mourners unable to attend, charged a family £75 for the password that enabled friends to log on. The local paper ran the headline, ‘Funeral pay-per-view storm’.

No 6: Church of England officials are in talks with the Ministry of Justice about relaxing regulations placed on memorial design in churchyards to move in line with secular cemeteries. Torn between modernisation and heritage, they can’t make up their mind if it’s the decent thing to do to allow teddy bears, toy cars, kerb stones, chippings, wind chimes, battery-operated lanterns, memorial photos contained in cartouches, and multicoloured plastic gravestones emblazoned with the word, ‘Mum’.

Dear Ian and Frank, 

It was good to see you commenting once more on the blog. It shows that people of all shades of opinion read it, not just a clique. 

I hope you appreciate the way I allow you to say whatever you like, however abusive (so long as it isn’t also libellous).   

Do you ever wonder why I don’t just bin your more abusive comments as soon as they appear? After all, they are often personal, they can be pretty hurtful, they are usually very negative and they contribute nothing to the debate. 

I let you comment because I believe in free speech and because I am interested in what you have to say. I know that you speak for many people in the industry. 

I hope you have some respect for the way in which I expose everything I say to comment. This is because I don’t think I am always right, and because I like to be put right where I have got it wrong. I hope you’ll agree that it takes guts and open-mindedness to do that. 

I hope you respect the way that I do not hide my identity or shelter my contact details. I take personal responsibility for everything I say, and I make myself vulnerable by doing so.   

Which is more than I can say for you. 

The funeral industry is a service industry. Service users have a right to talk about it. So I want to suggest to you that your aggressive defence of the industry you clearly love is unhelpful and mistaken. You make it look small-minded and nasty. 

So come on. Step up. Let’s have reasoned debate and a constructive dialogue. Stop being so angry. 

We all want what’s best. 

With best wishes, 

Charles

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

Some readers might recall Roal Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected on TV. ‘William and Mary’ was a particularly beastly story about an academic having his brain and one eye transplanted from his body after death, and attached to an artificial heart so they both continue to function.

William can see and think but nothing more. He is a mind incapable of being a person. His widow, Mary, takes the brain home in its protective capsule, but instead of caring for it by giving it learned books to read, she promptly takes revenge by doing all the things that met with William’s disapproval when he could communicate – things like smoking and watching trash TV. He’s helpless and in hell.

As animals, our deaths are defined by the end of the vital processes that sustain our existence as human beings. As minds, our deaths are constituted by the irreversible extinction of the vital processes that sustain our existence as minds. But if persistence is determined by our retaining certain psychological features, then does the loss of those features constitute death?

Extract from the blurb for The Fixer, BBC2, Tuesday 26 Feb, 8pm-9pm: 

David Holmes runs a family business that’s one of the few industries to buck the current economic trend. Yet Holmes and Sons in Fleet, Hampshire, is almost dead and buried. If you haven’t guessed, they’re funeral directors. David’s young sons Olly and Toby are bored to death; David’s a soft touch (his nickname is Giveaway Dave), while colleague Sheena is sulkily and stubbornly resistant to change.

We give you advance notice of this with a heavy heart. The GFG gave hours of unpaid advice to the makers of the programme. We parted company when they rejected that advice and went trotting gaily down the well-worn path of formulaic tellytosh. The next sentence of the blurb tells you precisely why: 

The meeting with a wedding planner to get ideas how to organise an event is nearly the final nail in the coffin for [Sheena].

As it was for us. We had gone out of our way to explain that a funeral business is like no other; that generic solutions don’t apply; that a cosmetic makeover wouldn’t do the trick; you can’t turn a funeral into a good funeral by accessorising it with gewgaws. 

What we should have done next was withdraw permission for any footage of us to be shown. We didn’t — because we didn’t think it would be used. That was a very grave mistake and it calls for an apology. We had agreed a before-and-after format whereby we identified a problem… and then returned to rejoice in how wonderfully well it had been rectified. We got as far as filming the ‘before’ stuff and, regrettably, it looks as if it may be shown alone, wholly unbalanced by the praise and congratulation we looked forward to heaping on David and his crew at the end. 

Sorry Toby, sorry Olly. Our intention was good. 

Posted by our ornithology correspondent Richard Rawlinson

With its alliterative similarity to Shakespeare’s phrase ‘dead as a doornail’, the term ‘dead as a dodo’ also remains in usage.

The extinct bird has become a symbol of obsolescence. Unable to fly and laying just one egg at a time, this three feet-plus tall, 20-plus pound woodland forager didn’t have a chance once Man, or hungry Western explorers, discovered its habitat on the island of Mauritius.

The first recorded sighting was by Dutch sailors in 1598. Less than 100 years later, it was observed that the dodo had disappeared without trace, flagging up the previously unrecognised problem of human involvement in wiping out entire species.

Paintings and sketches of dodos vary considerably, implying some were drawn from hazy memory. Study of fossils in the 19^th century gave us a more accurate picture. Sadly, we’ll never know exactly how they waddled and quacked.

Extraordinary communiqué from Sir Basil Batesville-Caskett Bt, CDM, RLSS (Bronze)

I have just been handed a note. It reads: 

Yo Bazza

Hey, about that week’s holiday you’ve been promising me. Well, I’m taking it. I’ve gone to the seaside with my lovely missus. See ya next Monday!

Blog-ed x x

I of course apologise to readers for the interruption in service brought about by this deplorable dereliction of duty. We may talk of holidays here at the GFG-Batesville Shard, but we most emphatically do not take them. 

I have every hope that a chap called Richard Rawlinson and a fella known as Vole may attempt to sail a jury-rigged blog through the next seven days. 

Please be assured that normal service will be resumed as soon as possible — ie, after we have interviewed suitable candidates. 

This is the most infuriation I have endured since Mrs Mollington upped and died on us.

Bah!

Posted by Richard Rawlinson

No.7 : Cremation is greener than burial.

 The writer of Ilkley Moor Bar T’at was ahead of his time. Here’s a translation of the lyrics from the Yorkshire dialect:

On Ilkley Moor without a hat

You have been courting Mary Jane

You are bound to catch your death of cold

Then we will have to bury you

Then the worms will come and eat you up

Then the ducks will come and eat up the worms

Then we will go and eat up the ducks

Then we will all have eaten you

That’s where we get our own back

This is exactly why some scientists claim cremation is less environmentally harmful than burial. Back in the day, a rotting corpse was deemed excellent manure, a benefit to the food chain. Now humankind is almost as toxic when dead as when alive. Over a long period of time, we leak our noxious substances first into the water in soil, then into small organisms, then into larger animals until, somewhere down the line, they end up in the mouths and bodies of our descendants.

A decomposing body also releases methane gas as the carbon content breaks down whereas cremation oxidises this carbon content. But surely, decomposition continues to release nutrients, too? And cremation, aside from guzzling fuel, emits poisons in the smoke from cremator chimneys. Toxins from burning plastic drapes, for example. Granted, carbon capture technology (upgraded scrubbers etc) reduces the impact. Perhaps science favours cremation over burial as clever Man, not Mother Nature, is in control.

Throughout our lives, we draw into our bodies elements from the environment and return elements to the environment. Some elements are consumed in our bodies and pass through them, and others remains with us until we die. Once we are dead we cease to borrow and start the process of returning to the environment what we have retained.

Gradual breakdown of the body when buried, or rapid breakdown by fire when cremated affects the rate and state in which elements are returned. But the same elements are released into the environment in one form or another.

The jury is still out on which is the greener.

Posted by Richard Rawlinson — in sparklingly shameless name-dropping form – ED

‘Thank goodness for inequality,’ quipped a friend with nonchalant disregard for political correctness as we casually admired inequality’s legacy of beautiful architecture lining the streets of Belgravia this weekend.

The plethora of blue plaques adorning these grand houses gave a degree of substance to this seemingly flippant remark: the display of wealth was arguably a consequence of remarkable people doing remarkable things, whether in politics, medicine, literature, art or any other accomplishment that gave them ‘celebrity’ status, or a place in history.

Sunday strolls in London often conjure up memories of those who have gone before, whether a martyr such as John Southworth, executed at Tyburn (now Marble Arch) or simply plaques noting that a Charles Darwin or a Virginia Wolf ‘lived here’. Even swinging through the revolving doors of Claridges might trigger a passing nod to the ghosts of notable guests, whether a Garbo or a Roosevelt.  

As I get older, my familiar haunts remind me not just of figures from the more distant past but offer up personal recollections of those who have died. With age, we become more nostalgic as well as know more people who have ‘shuffled off this mortal coil’. 

Before she became famous as one of The Two Fat Ladies, Jennifer Patterson and I crossed paths on two fronts: she was cook at The Spectator when I worked there in my 20s; she also lived in a mansion block near Westminster Cathedral that later became my home.

A traditional Catholic, Jennifer rode her motorcycle to Kensington for the Latin Mass at the Brompton Oratory because she disapproved of the Cathedral’s Novus Ordo mass. I attended mass at the Oratory this Sunday, so Jennifer sprung to mind as my friend and I walked to lunch afterwards through streets lined with plaques revealing they were once inhabited by everyone from philanthropist George Peabody to Nancy Mitford.

I recalled Jennifer’s funeral at the Oratory after she died of lung cancer in 1999. By then an unlikely OAP TV star, the ‘Spinster of Westminster’ attracted over 1,000 mourners. The floral tributes around her coffin included a bottle of whisky and her motorcycle helmet, and a speech alluded to her stiff-upper-lip jollity, even on her hospital deathbed. Asked by visiting friends how she was feeling, she’d reply matter-of-factly, ‘I’m dying, dear.’

Jennifer would arrive mid-morning at The Spectator’s Bloomsbury offices, always wearing a smock with a pouch for her Woodbines, helmet in one hand and cigarette in the other, and often still slightly inebriated from last night’s whiskies.

Before settling into the kitchen to prepare a ‘bunny casserole’ for editor Charles Moore’s lunch guests (who could be anyone from Prince Charles to then-Chancellor Nigel Lawson) she would swan around the offices as if she was hosting a cocktail party, offering a welcome distraction from work with her booming voice and madcap small talk.

When she got to my desk, she’d make me blush by grabbing my cheeks with her ringed fingers, then shaking my face while making ‘coo-chi-coo-chi-coo’ noises, as if I was a sweet child or cute puppy.

I was there when Jennifer threw crockery and cutlery out of the kitchen window because the accounts department had left unwashed coffee mugs in ‘her’ sink. Charles sacked her on the spot but reinstated her a few weeks later.

I shared an office with Rory Knight Bruce, another eccentric character and someone I worked with again when he became editor of Londoner’s Diary at the Evening Standard – which leads to other recollections of brushes with dead folk in public consciousness.

Rory, a fanatical huntsman of foxes as well as a newshound, might be considered a bully by today’s right-on standards. He had a bulging contacts book and he’d slam a scrap of paper bearing a well-known person’s number on your desk, and bark at you to call it and ask the most outrageous questions.

I once had to wake up an elderly Quentin Crisp in his New York garret for a quotation about some gay rights legislation. Despite the time zone difference, a reedy voice picked up immediately (‘Crisp here’), and he was charm personified, a lonely, gentle insomniac seemingly content to natter about anything to anyone at any time.

Another diarist was given a trickier challenge. Rory got it into his head that we must contrive an attack on the Turner prize by… Francis Bacon. Amazingly, Rory had the number, not just of Bacon’s agent but of the legendary, chaotic studio of our then greatest living artist. 

‘Call him now,’ hissed Rory to a bemused colleague, ‘and ask him if it is really acceptable that a collection of loathsome art-crowd inverts should use the name of Turner to lend substance to this appalling and valueless charade.’ 

He added for good measure, ‘You must use the phrase ‘loathsome art-crowd inverts’, is that clear?’.

We all watched nervously as the helpless young diarist dialled Bacon’s direct line.

‘Yes?’

‘Is that Mr Francis Bacon?’

YES?’

‘Erm, I’m calling from the Londoner’s Diary page in the Evening Standard…’

‘YEESS?’

‘Could you tell me, Mr Bacon, do you think it objectionable that a crowd of loathsome art-crowd inverts should abuse the name of Turner for their prize?’

There was silence. We all anticipated Bacon to scream, ‘Bugger off’, or worse. But instead he chuckled and simply said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t help you’ before replacing the receiver.

Bacon died a year later in 1992 and his last disturbing triptych from 1991 hangs at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Its ghoulish figures blur the divide between life and death. So too do our memories. I wonder if the artist was momentarily disturbed while working on this painting by some timid hack following outlandish orders.

There’s a small but growing number of funeral shoppers who are becoming increasingly determined to find funeral directors who will assist them, or partner with them, in arranging a funeral. Some simply want to roll their sleeves up and do their bit for the person who’s died; others want to keep the costs down.

It’s good to know that they don’t have too far to look. Funeral directors are pretty good at accommodating a DIY element — at the cost of some angst. DIY-ers cost hours of free advice and may be unreliable about getting to the crem on time. Funeral directors aren’t control freaks for fun. 

Until now, it has been very hard for DIY-ers to find anyone who’ll rent them a self-drive hearse. It’s easy to see the enormous emotional satisfaction to be gained from driving the person who’s died on their last journey on Earth. It’s just as easy to see that there could be insuperable insurance difficulties in the way of this. 

No carriage master that we know of has ever leased cars + drivers direct to bereaved people, let alone a self-drive hearse. While understandable, it’s also a pity. We know that a lot of funeral shoppers like to order and pay for their coffin direct from the maker. They’d probably like to source other goods and services, too. But funeral directors feel they must protect their commercial viability by being one-stop shops for everything, so they strongly encourage manufacturers and suppliers to deal with the trade only. 

There’s plenty of good news for funeral shoppers who want to buy their own coffin. The shelves are now healthily stocked. 

And now there’s good news for those who’d like to order a self-drive hearse. James Hardcastle at The Carriage Master can supply handsome hearses and limousines nationwide direct to bereaved people, with drivers or without. 

They give you a little tutorial before you get behind the wheel, of course. 

We can see a lot of forward-looking funeral directors offering their clients this option. 

Find The Carriage Master here. 

From The Star, Toronto: 

If Americans knew what bullets did to human flesh, they’d support gun control. So perhaps they should be shown in living colour what bullets do to small bodies. A mere description is insufficient for the literal-minded.

Noah Pozner, 6, was one of the 20 child victims in the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14. All the dead were shot between three and 11 times. Tiny Noah took 11 bullets. His mother, Veronique, insisted on an open coffin.

In his coffin, there was a cloth placed over the lower part of his face. 

“There was no mouth left,” his mother [said]. “His jaw was blown away.”

Full story here. 

Hat-tip: Tony Piper