The GFG Blog
2010Mar
Love Life and Death in a Day
Charles
Mar
03
No Comments
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
Spooky
Charles
Mar
03
No Comments
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
What does grief feel like?
Charles
Mar
02
No Comments
In 2004 the crime writer and anti-fascist journalist Stieg Larsson died of a heart attack aged 50. His lifelong partner Eva Gabrielsson has written a book about him. “It’s about what it’s like to lose someone like that, someone you’ve loved for so long. Everyone will encounter this [the shock
2010Feb
Death and dumb
Charles
Feb
26
No Comments
Over in Austria an undertaker, urged by his PR people, parks his hearse at a blackspot in order to deter sloppy driving. The hearse bears the gloating message: ‘We’re always ready for you.’ The object? Driver sees it, thinks ‘That’s jolly clever,’ slows down and uses that undertaker next time
Ambivalence 2
Charles
Feb
25
No Comments
If contrary ideas can sit happily alongside each other, contrary emotions can go one better: they can merge and become a potent blend. Love and hate, for example. Courage is nothing without fear. As a rule of thumb, would you say that it’s only possible to experience mixed emotions for
Ambivalence 1
Charles
Feb
25
No Comments
Interesting, isn’t it, how two contrary opinions need not be mutually exclusive? When one opinion does not displace the other you’re left either tonguetied with indecision or, if they merge, ambivalent. Ambivalence may be seen as fence-sitting, but I think that’s simplistic. To honour two opposed points of view equally
Bloggerel
Charles
Feb
23
No Comments
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
Boxing clever
Charles
Feb
22
No Comments
Mercedes coffin carved by Ata Owoo, now in the National Museum of Scotland Interesting, isn’t it – or is it – that coffins, after all this time, still look like nothing else, unless it’s other coffins? New materials – willow, seagrass, you name it – are easier on the eye,
Cryomation wins that Shell award
Charles
Feb
22
1 comment
Richard Maclean (Cryomation), Duncan Macleod (Shell) & Mike Morris-Watson (Cryomation) Congratulations to Cryomation on winning a Shell Springboard climate change innovation prize -a notable vote for this new process, a worthy rival to cremation. Don’t know what Cryomation is? Check out their website here.
Take it to them!
Charles
Feb
15
No Comments
It’s widely known in the funeral business that the prices charged by Co-operative Funeralcare and Dignity are on the whole higher than those charged by their independent competitors – the family businesses and new start-ups – so many of them passionate ex-Funeralcare employees who tell me they learned everything about
