The GFG Blog
2009Oct
Marching to the edge of eternity
Charles
Oct
07
No Comments
The purpose of a funeral is to express and reaffirm beliefs that make sense of a death in terms of, both, the tenets of the dead person and those of the living. We don’t see a lot of common purpose in an age in which faith has fragmented. All funerals
Going back for the – er, erm…?
Charles
Oct
06
1 comment
There isn’t a name we all use for the gathering after a funeral, is there? Once upon a time there was the funeral feast, with bakemeats and all the booze you could drink—a good way of ensuring the dead person would be remembered fondly. But the feast petered out and
Feeding the elderly
Charles
Oct
05
No Comments
Here are some extracts from Nigel Slater’s essay Feeding the Elderly, taken from Eating for England. It is December 2004, and I am sitting in an old people’s home just outside Birmingham. I am holding my aunt’s hand. My aunt is ninety-nine, my eldest surviving relative on my father’s side
Something for the weekend
Charles
Oct
03
No Comments
This Way Up – Click here for more amazing videos
Going Out Green
Charles
Oct
02
1 comment
Rupert Callender made this observation of Dan Cruickshank’s The Art of Dying: I was surprised by how little thought Dan had apparently given the matter. I thought everyone mused endlessly about their own deaths. I don’t know that they do, Rupert. When, over in the US, Bob Butz was asked
The Art of Dying
Charles
Oct
01
No Comments
Is death really a taboo in our society? It’s a strong word, taboo, and I don’t know that it’s the right one. If there is a reluctance to confront death it is just as likely that it is because we are all having such fun being alive and feeling healthy.
Prison hospice
Charles
Oct
01
1 comment
Prisons are places where people are defined by the worst thing they’ve ever done. The stigma sticks for the rest of their lives. We, free people define ourselves by the best we can be. If we hate sinners it is because we are not as they. But we are. There
2009Sep
Two Feet in the Grave
Charles
Sep
30
No Comments
Eagerly awaited by many in the death industry and its attendant commentators—the croaking classes?—was Richard Wilson’s Two Feet in the Grave on BBC last night. It marks an encouraging evolution in the media’s handling of death and dying away from fixations with wackiness—way out coffins, seriously outrageous funeral songs—to a
Local hero
Charles
Sep
28
No Comments
In the matter of household shopping we look back nostalgically to the high street of yesteryear. Ah, those were the days. The butcher, the baker, the grocer. Ooh, hello, Postman Pat! In every shop a cheery greeting. And great personal service. Gone. For ever. Whatever happened to them? You bankrupted
