Somewhere between here and eternity
I enjoyed this piece over at Obit magazine: It’s good to be a dead leader. Not so for Ariel Sharon, the (arguably) most influential and the (certainly) most enduring politician in Israel. Sharon has never been memorialized, has never had a funeral, and is barely mentioned anymore in Israeli political conversations. He’s also not really dead. Into […]
The art of dying
There’s an interesting piece over in the New York Times about an artist, Tobi Kahn who, when his mother lay dying, filled her hospital room with his paintings of flowers. Out of that private, personal display for his mother, Mr. Kahn has built a body of work that aspires to bring solace, comfort, a kind […]
Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye
Me and the missus are getting down to some serious death planning. There’s no best time of life for doing this, of course, so long as you get it done afore ye croak. And the more I think about it, the more clearly I can see that it’s not an activity whose end result is, […]
Happy Christmas!
The entire team at the Good Funeral Guide thanks you, at this year’s end, for reading and responding — whether in exhilaration or exasperation — for your support, tip-offs, advice and good counsel. Together we form, I hope, a loose-limbed alliance of more or less fellow spirits with the shared aim of bringing death to […]
Cock-up
As the old year subsides into a snowdrift, readers will have observed that this blog has been doing the same. There’s not much going on. Forgive me, then, for getting out my baseball bat and once more shattering the kneecaps of the Co-op. Yes, it’s boring. But Ebenezer Google and his tribe of scribbling Cratchits […]
The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away
Here’s an extract from the blog of a religious minister (clerk in holy orders, he terms himself). I like his rigour. Very bracing. You wouldn’t expect me to enjoy humanist funeral services very much. Perhaps ‘enjoyment’ isn’t the right word for funerals anyway, but you know what I mean. I’ve been to a couple and […]
End of life care for the homeless
The NHS has just published this booklet: End of life care – achieving quality in hostels and for homeless people. It is “designed to provide a practical guide to support hostel staff in ensuring that people nearing the end of their life receive high quality end of life care.” The average age of death among […]
A job with QSA?
If you live in London you may be interested in this job. If you don’t, you’ll still be interested in what Quaker Social Action is doing. In its own words: Quaker Social Action exists to resource, enable and equip people living on a low income in east London. We work to tackle social exclusion, seeing poverty […]
Sleigh to go
If ever I am surprised by genius and give birth to a great idea I always offer it up for adoption at the mewling and puking stage. This is because I am a 99 per cent inspiration 1 per cent perspiration person. The last great idea I brought into the world was Viking funerals for […]
Burning issue
There was much excitement when Davender Ghai won his case for open-air cremation at the Court of Appeal in February 2010. It established the legality of the principle of open-air cremation but, as Rupert Callender noted at the time: “this is only a battle that has been won, not the war. The next impenetrable ring […]
