The Good Funeral Guide

From the team here at the GFG, a very happy Christmas to you!

Thank you for reading us. Thank you for telling us what you think. Thank you for helping us bring death to life. 

Have a great holiday. 

A woman shows her tattoo of La Santa Muerte (The Saint of Death), a cult figure often depicted as a skeletal grim reaper, near her altar in Tepito in Mexico City.

Source

Meet Nigel ‘The Undertaker’ Heydon, master-dartist, the one the big boys dread meeting in the first round. Why ‘Undertaker’? Because when he’s not at the oche he’s, yes,  out burying the dead. He was formerly known as ‘The Butcher’ because before he became an undertaker he was, you guessed it, a butcher. Clearly it would not have been appropriate for him to have carried this epithet forward into his new profession. 

Which other undertakers, we wonder, have achieved eminence in sport? Do let us know if you can think of any. 

Last Thursday Nigel was at it on the telly, almost causing one of his upsets:

Defending champion Adrian Lewis was given a huge scare before beating world number 46 Nigel Heydon 3-2 in the first round of the PDC World Championship.

Heydon played some superb darts to lead 2-0 in the best-of-five-sets match.

The second seed struggled to find his range but somehow got himself back into the game and scrambled to victory. [Source]

Source: Postsecret

Crowds mourning the death of Kim Jong Il in North Korea this morning. According to the Korean Central News Agency:

People from all walks of life are visiting statues of President Kim Il Sung in different parts of Pyongyang including Kim Il Sung University to express their greatest sorrow over the demise of Kim Jong Il, the father of the nation.

Tears are streaming down the cheeks of the grief-stricken people. “We can never believe that leader Kim Jong Il passed away as even shortly ago he conducted energetic activities day and night for prosperity and development of the country and the happier life of the people.

“Have we ever thought of the country without Kim Jong Il, the Korean revolution without his leadership and our life without his loving care.”

At this moment of greatest sorrow and grief, people feel as if the sky were falling down. The hearts of all of them are now filled with stronger faith in victory, optimism and solemn pledge.

“I was just thinking about my funeral and stuff a couple days ago and thinking who would be at the funeral. People who I want to be in the funeral? I wanna have world leaders that were, like, affected, that said, you know, ‘Kanye gave me my shot here.’”

Kanye West

As you may have guessed, we are pretty short of stuff to say here at the GFG. The old year is waning and you’re distracted by getting ready for Christmas. We are all winding down. 

All except him, of course.

We’ll do our best to bring you news and views as they happen, but don’t expect the usual torrent. 

From the Chicago Sun-Times:

Dear Abby: “Saddened in New Jersey” (Oct. 2) complained that her sister’s 4-year-old daughter put stickers on the hands and face of her deceased grandmother during her wake.

Find out what Abby said next here. 

“But our machines have now been running 70 or 80 years, and we must expect that, worn as they are, here a pivot, there a wheel, now a pinion, next a spring, will be giving way; and however we may tinker them up for a while, all will at length surcease motion.”

Thomas Jefferson, 1814