Robbing the dead while they’re still alive
Consumers are best served by people whose interests are their interests – people who want what their customers want. Ethics-driven natural burial ground operators are a good example. This is an equation, so it works the other way around. There’s not much understanding of this in the funeral industry. There are shining exceptions, but their […]
Looking like death
Most people don’t reckon to look their best when they’re dead, but this was not how the status conscious citizens of Palermo in Italy saw it. Starting in 1599 the Capuchin friars were mummified or embalmed, then displayed, standing, in the catacombs beneath their friary. The idea appealed to the wealthy citizens of Palermo, who […]
Blackened greens?
Is it just me or do you, too, feel that it seems like a long time ago since there was a consensus on climate change? I signed up to it because I met lots of people I liked and admired who had already subscribed and who read lots of books about it and quoted […]
The Co-operative reports 21% increase in funeral plan sales
No funeral director, however brilliant, can stimulate an appetite for their product – because we pass their way but once. But a funeral director can sign up tomorrow’s customers today by the ingenious means of selling them a pre-need funeral plan. Pre-need plans look like a very good bet. They’re inflation-proof. And they are easy […]
No service by request
One more go at Canada’s Times Colonist. A rich seam, this. There are 13 obits in the paper. Of those, 3 opt for no service; 3 opt for a celebration of life (I’m not sure exactly what that is, but at least one of them’s not a funeral); 4 opt for a memorial service; and […]
The great reveller
A Christian funeral proclaims the fierce, happy truth that ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’. As Christians see it, Sin corrupts and depraves, Death annihilates and nullifies. Both are the spawn of Satan, who is Evil, the mortal (lit) enemy of God who is Good and, the theology goes, the victor in the end. It’s […]
In praise of the lapidary epitaph
lap·i·dar·y—adjective: characterized by an exactitude and extreme refinement that suggests gem cutting: a lapidary style; lapidary verse. Of, pertaining to, or suggestive of inscriptions on stone monuments. I wandered over to the Times Colonist in Canada this morning. It’s a while since I’ve been. The obituaries are some of the best. They often embody a […]
Dicky tikka
THE proprietor of an Indian restaurant next-door to a proposed funeral parlour is concerned the development will turn diners off their pappadums and vindaloo. We see a lot of stories like this revealing how disconnected death is from life. It’s why the bereaved feel so disconnected from the living. If there is one truly […]
Love Life and Death in a Day
My thanks to Andrew Plume for pointing me to this excellent documentary on Channel 4, Love, Life and Death in a Day. First broadcast in Feb ’09 it follows births, marriages and funerals in Bristol on Midsummer’s Day, and features Rachel and Liz of Bristol South Funeral Service, whom I am booked to go and […]
Spooky
Here’s a synopsis for an upcoming movie, After.Life at imdb.com. “After a horrific car accident, Anna (Christina Ricci) wakes up to find the local funeral director Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson) preparing her body for her funeral. Confused, terrified, and feeling still very much alive, Anna doesnt believe shes dead, despite the funeral director’s reassurances […]
