Eulogy magazine – the reason why
Dear Charles, Please accept my sincere apologies for the late payment of your invoice. Eulogy has recently undergone a major restructuring after the departures of our features editor and three non-productive directors. I became a director after their departures and have looked to sort out the mess they left me with. In addition, a close […]
To accept what cannot be helped
A very good account here by Ann Hulbert of her mother’s response to being told she had an incurable cancer: Two years ago this coming June my mother—“an 80-year-old in a 60-year-old’s body,” the pulmonologist told her—was ambushed by a diagnosis of Stage IV adenocarcinoma of the lungs … In the windowless examining room at […]
Cheap trills
A roundup of the week in tweets. GoodFunerals Charles Cowling Burmese ambassador killed his wife and built funeral pyre for the body on his lawn, claiming diplomatic immunity http://bit.ly/iaBlTK 7 Feb Favorite Reply Delete GoodFunerals Charles Cowling LM Funerals cashes its chips. Up for sale at £100 million. Dignity sniffing. Thunderbolt please, God, if you’re there http://bit.ly/hCL7cw […]
Afore ye go
If we live long enough, our dying will be punctuated by lasts which we may even be able to mark off, one by one — last time in the garden; last time I’ll see so-and-so. Even if we don’t mark off our lasts, our nearest and dearest probably will, retrospectively. Our most memorable last ought […]
Conduct unbecoming
I don’t want this blog to get moany and bitter. Had I a good news story to break today I would most certainly do so. To be honest, not much has happened for a few days — and it’s all too easy for me to become lazily reactive. And a bit moany, I’m afraid. A number of […]
Legal, decent, honest and truthful?
This advert appeared in the Liverpool Echo. This is what it says: The Fairways Funeral Plan is individually tailored to meet your needs. Everything featured in the [yawn] Fairways Funeral Plan is fully guaranteed no matter how high prices rise and we’ve created flexible payment plans to suit any budget. So even in uncertain times, […]
Perfect boutique undertaker’s for sale
In the same week that LM Funerals (“More than just a funeral service” — or less, depending on your point of view) decided to cash in their chips and put their chain of familyalike funeral homes on the market (yours for £100 million or so – go on, don’t be so tight), the GFG can […]
Down and dirty?
One must be careful what one says. And before one says it, one must try and resist distraction. I had intended to say a few words about Co-operative Funeralcare. Yes, again. Because they’re worth it. They are The Enemy. (Hello, Co-op lawyers, see if you can find anything actionable in what follows.) But, as I […]
Reet petweet
The week in tweets: GoodFunerals Charles Cowling Shop at the #Co-op and you’ll have time to bonk the missus. Yes, they really claim it! http://youtu.be/QiYW3gL3CN0 GoodFunerals Charles Cowling Professional wailing women and Scotch funerals. Great tradition subsumed by reticence, alas (Waaaaaaa!) http://bit.ly/hn2uHP GoodFunerals Charles Cowling Mobile #funeral home goes under having never caught onhttp://bit.ly/eZa6Df GoodFunerals Charles Cowling Are #funerals getting […]
Life is never seen so brief as when we die
The Digital Cuttlefish is the online alias of a person who, in his/her own words, is a “skeptic and atheist versifier”. DC has self-pseudonymised as such because: The cuttlefish will use its ink To hide itself – and so, I think Will I… The Digital Cuttlefish is a very skilful versifier indeed — stunning rhymes; […]
