What’s the youth of them?
First it was young women in the dismal trade who grabbed the prurient gaze of the media — that intriguing juxtaposition of beauty and beastliness, fragrance and foetor; the tantalising question: What makes a nice girl want to hang out with corpses? It makes for good photos. Slim young black-clad cane-wielding lovelies can induce a certain […]
Variants, please
There’s quite a good joke here — it must be an old one but I’ve not come across it before — in this week’s Spectator by Robin Oakley. It goes: Asked why he had sent a wreath in the shape of a lifebelt, a friend at the funeral of the man who had drowned replied, […]
One to see
There’s an exhibition on at Compton Verney, 13 November til 12 December, entitled Kurt Tong: In Case it Rains in Heaven. It’s a photographic celebration of the Chinese custom of burning paper consumer goods of all sorts — clothes, cars, iPods — in order to provide for the dead person in the afterlife. It’s a custom that probably […]
It won’t make you dead
Gail Rubin is a writer and blogger in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’ve just looked up Albuquerque on google maps. It’s a long way from a decent beach. Gail has written a book, A Good Goodbye: Funeral Planning for Those Who Don’t Plan to Die, which will be published at the end of this month. She […]
Happy tail
Charming story here from Australia about funeral director John Hopkins who brings his dog Finbarr to work every day. “He’s a great icebreaker,” John said. “Families come in here not knowing what to expect. “They often haven’t dealt with a funeral home before and they’re apprehensive. “He gives them a lick and will lie at […]
