Archive: February 2011

Conduct unbecoming

10 February 2011
Charles
16 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

I don’t want this blog to get moany and bitter. Had I a good news story to break today I would most certainly do so. To be honest, not much has happened for a few days — and it’s all too easy for me to become lazily reactive. And a bit moany, I’m afraid.

A number of readers have asked me, over several months now, what the story is about Eulogy magazine — has it gone down? I had reached the conclusion that it had indeed sunk until they suddenly popped up on Twitter earlier today drawing attention to a just-published article.

So I have written to them, and I shall tell you what happens next. This is my ‘letter before claim’ which I am bound to send them before I start an action against them in the Small Claims Court. Am I the first writer to have to resort to such tactics? I don’t think I am.

Eulogy Magazine
Unit A&D
Flat Iron Yard
Ayres Street
London SE1 1ES

10-02-2010

Dear Alfred Tong,

Re: unpaid fee for article: How to Have a Good Funeral

As it has not been possible to resolve this matter amicably and it is apparent that court action may be necessary, I write in compliance with the Practice Direction on Pre-Action Conduct.

On 28-06-2010 you commissioned me by email to write 1000 words about how to have a good funeral. You agreed to pay me £250 if the piece were published. I submitted my copy before the deadline and you subsequently published the piece online under the title How to Have a Good Funeral, with my name spelt incorrectly as Cowley.

On 17-12-2010 I sent you an invoice, reminded you that I had sent it on 10-01-2011, at which stage you referred me to messrs Ryan and Lewis. I sent an invoice to Lewis on 10-01-2011 and to both Ryan and Lewis on 29-01-2011. I have heard nothing.

I am therefore claiming my fee of £250 from Eulogy magazine.

The documents I shall rely on in my claim against Eulogy magazine are the emails we exchanged concerning your commissioning of the article and your subsequent responses to receipt of my invoice. I can make these available to you if you wish.

I can confirm that I would be agreeable to mediation and would consider any other system of Alternative Dispute Resolution in order to avoid the need for this matter to be resolved by the courts and would invite you to put forward any proposals in this regard.

In closing, I would draw your attention to section II (4) of the Practice Direction which gives the courts the power to impose sanctions on the parties if they fail to comply with the direction including failing to respond to this letter before claim. I look forward to hearing from you within the next 28 days. Should I not receive a response to my letter within this time, court action will be commenced with no further reference to you.

Yours sincerely,

Charles Cowling

Legal, decent, honest and truthful?

9 February 2011
Charles
13 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

This  advert appeared in the Liverpool Echo. This is what it says:

The Fairways Funeral Plan is individually tailored to meet your needs. Everything featured in the [yawn] Fairways Funeral Plan is fully guaranteed no matter how high prices rise and we’ve created flexible payment plans to suit any budget.

So even in uncertain times, you can rest assured [nice pun, boys!] everything will be taken care of.

The Fairways Funeral Plan is only available from carefully selected Funeral Directors which meet the highest standards of care and quality.These are funeral experts and are available to call 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

You can probably read the names of the handpicked familyalike undertakers underneath the text. Liverpool’s finest. The only ones who match the incredibly high standards set by those who administer the FFP. This is exactly the sort of information that funeral consumers need. There are lots of funeral directors in Liverpool. But only these made the grade. The rest are clearly sub-standard, below par, simply not good enough, quite possibly crap.

It is a matter of sheer coincidence that all the familyalike funeral directors named in the ad are members of the Fairways Partnership, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Co-operative Funeralcare and an organisation for which I cannot find a website. Odd, that.

I have a nice window sticker I send to GFG-recommended funeral directors with lovely calligraphy by my lettering hero Ieuan Rees, the man who taught me to love the Welsh. I think I shall have to ask him to do me another bearing the words DENOUNCED BY THE GOOD FUNERAL GUIDE.

The ad above has been reported to the NAFD and the ASA.


Perfect boutique undertaker’s for sale

8 February 2011
Charles
4 Comments
Categories: Uncategorised

In the same week that LM Funerals (“More than just a funeral service” — or less, depending on your point of view) decided to cash in their chips and put their chain of familyalike funeral homes on the market (yours for £100 million or so – go on, don’t be so tight), the GFG can announce another, much smaller sale: that of a wee undertaker’s in an urban area of the west country.

Actually, this is a re-announcement; I first told you about it a few months back. This business is perfectly suited to someone wanting to start up on their own, and it’s possible that such people read this blog. The present owner has good personal reasons for wanting to sell, and it’s not for me to reveal them. The business has a brilliant local reputation; occupies premises just a mile from the crem, so you can hire in your vehicles; and the rent is just £800 a month. It would ideally suit a couple, or a sole trader. The present owner is incredibly fussy about who takes over, but in a good way. Only those who are completely and utterly respectful of people who have died will get a look in. There are opportunities to increase business; this one presently does not advertise. And the reason why it’s been on the market so long as that the owner has been too busy to put it on the market!

If you’re interested and want to know more, drop me an email: charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk.

Down and dirty?

7 February 2011
Charles
3 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

One must be careful what one says. And before one says it, one must try and resist distraction.

I had intended to say a few words about Co-operative Funeralcare. Yes, again. Because they’re worth it. They are The Enemy. (Hello, Co-op lawyers, see if you can find anything actionable in what follows.)

But, as I say, I got distracted. First, my attention was wrenched to deplorable behaviour at the premises of Chittenden’s Funeral Service, Folkestone. Chittenden’s is owned by the Fairways Partnership. The Fairways Partnership is owned by Co-operative Funeralcare. Once upon a time the Chittenden name was a source of great good will, for which, doubtless, a great deal of good money exchanged hands. Why buy a good name only to bespatter it with shit, we must ask ourselves.

Six members of Chittendens were charged in Sept 2010 with all manner of misconduct. The usual sad stuff. Forgetting to take a baby to be buried. Driving a hearse at 130mph. Worse, I’ve heard. Enough. You can read about it here.

It makes it very difficult to keep topical tabs on these conglomerates when they trade under other people’s names.

In Wales, Rees Davies and Son were charged with the duty of taking Baby Gabriel into their care. They took the placenta instead, and a funeral was held, and a burial, and all the while Baby Gabriel was in a Moses basket in a fridge at the hospital. Rees Davies and Son are members of the Fairways Partnership, which disputed the conclusions in the hospital’s report into the matter. Read about it here.

Back to Funeralcare, proud owners of the Fairways Partnership. What do you think they thought of SAIF commissioning that price comparison survey in Feb 2010? Well, obviously they weren’t pleased. At the time, there were lawyers’ letters and talk of pressure being put on SAIF suppliers to consider their, er, best interests.

Once again the air is full of talk of this. How many SAIF suppliers have failed to renew their subscriptions?

I’m on to this, treading carefully. If there are any funeral directors out there, or suppliers, or anyone else who has personal experience of what’s going on, please contact me in strictest, guaranteed confidence and tell me more. Ring if you wish: 07946 714 063. Email:Charles@goodfunerguide.co.uk.

When will Funeralcare’s lawyers come for me? I often wonder. I have no money, so nothing to lose. And I have one great consolation. ‘If,’ says someone who has written to me, ‘they do come for you… they’ll probably pick up the wrong one!’

Reet petweet

6 February 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Tweets

The week in tweets:

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Shop at the #Co-op and you’ll have time to bonk the missus. Yes, they really claim it! http://youtu.be/QiYW3gL3CN0

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Professional wailing women and Scotch funerals. Great tradition subsumed by reticence, alas (Waaaaaaa!) http://bit.ly/hn2uHP

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Mobile #funeral home goes under having never caught onhttp://bit.ly/eZa6Df

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Are #funerals getting too personalised, asks the Church Times. Vote here: http://bit.ly/gsQbaT

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

The Ukulele Orchestra of GB playing ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.’ Sheer bliss. http://youtu.be/8gTJ3rb-dXg

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Olly Murs ‘Thinking of Me’ http://youtu.be/NRCi83P4-VY getting popular at #funerals http://bit.ly/gIqBcQ

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Scumbag drug dealer conducting humanist funeral ceremonies. Hope he doesn’t make a hash of it. http://bit.ly/ihKnoA

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Thre are three funeral photographers in the UK: http://bit.ly/fw5TfPand http://bit.ly/ifMbdy and http://bit.ly/fxzYaz

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Those Hmong really know how to do a #funeral. No bleak’n’miserable 20 mins at the crem for these boys and girls:http://bit.ly/hIK3JP

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

China is going to legally compel adult children to regularly visit their aged parents http://bit.ly/eMNDbx

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

@thefuneralco @nativewoodland http://bit.ly/i4bxVL Vicar says that shrines-and-antisocial behaviour a sign of adriftness from religion!

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Enormously satisfying diatribe against the damned Co-op Funeralcare here: http://bit.ly/dMp8Eg

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

RT @thefuneralco: The proper purpose of a funeralhttp://bit.ly/gd3Nz8

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Interesting account here by an Indian about his mother’s cremationhttp://bit.ly/eX0O3C

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Couple die a minute apart. Huge aaah! That’s how I want to go.http://bit.ly/e1QfqS

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Businesman J Joachim: If we can figure out how to create change in the #funeral industry we can do it anywhere. http://bit.ly/h7rY5x

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

RT @funeral_ideas: http://bit.ly/i1Zu8z Nice one, Lou!!

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

‘Burial will be in Dreamland Cemetery’. What’s in a name, eh?http://bit.ly/gVcTzE

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

‘She loved lawn bowling and to gamble and was, at times, feisty, but always with a zest for life’ http://bit.ly/gocjPV

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

‘He died peacefully, his wife and family with him, as his valiant heart finally ceased its beat.’ http://bit.ly/gDvdae

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

“On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross… Where the deer and the antelope play…” http://tinyurl.com/6j3f32o

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Going Home playing. “Why are they playing the Hovis tune, Dad?” “Because he’s brown bread, son.”

GoodFunerals Charles Cowling

Good stuff here on slave funerals in the US http://bit.ly/eVQmyk

Life is never seen so brief as when we die

6 February 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to death, Good books

The Digital Cuttlefish is the online alias of a person who, in his/her own words, is a “skeptic and atheist versifier”. DC has self-pseudonymised as such because:

The cuttlefish will use its ink
To hide itself – and so, I think
Will I…

The Digital Cuttlefish is a very skilful versifier indeed — stunning rhymes; dizzying rhythms – DC is a dactyl tamer, an anapaest whisperer. All DC’s verse has that insouciant unforcedness which is the hallmark of the master craftsperson. You might like to spend some time at the blog (link at the end of this).

The Digital Cuttlefish has written about death, of course, and those of you who are more than half in love with that easeful subject (why else would you be here?), want me now to cut to the chase and do the verse. That I am in a position so to do, I must tell you first, is down to tense and protracted negotiations with The Digital Cuttlefish (‘DC, would you mind if?’ ‘My dear fellow, fill your boots.’) The point: I reproduce with permission

Two choice pieces here for you. Because the Digital Cuttlefish doesn’t use titles, I must explain that the first is a reflection sparked by a funeral and other topical events:

You can die in bits and pieces; you can die in one quick flash
Die the ancient voice of wisdom, or die early, young and brash
Tuck your body in a coffin; pick an urn to hold your ash
Your survivors will remember you and cry
In the stories of your childhood, of your young and reckless past
How you fiercely burned your candle—who could think it would not last?
You could live to be a hundred; it would still be gone too fast
Life is never seen so brief as when we die

The second is a response to a retort by a Christian that  “… I reckon I’d be a pretty miserable, angry person with a chip on my shoulder if I also believed that I was no more than worm meat at the end of the day.“

One of The Digital Cuttlefish’s fans has asked to have this read at his funeral:

When we are dead, we’ll feed the worms
And other stuff that writhes and squirms
And if you cannot come to terms
With that—well, use your head!
There are no ifs nor ands nor buts:
Bacteria within our guts
Will start to eat us; that is what’s
In store, once we are dead.

Yes, life is short and full of toil,
And when we’ve shuffled off this coil
Our carcasses will start to spoil—
There’s nothing wrong with that.
Our share of fish or pigs or cows,
And all the chicken time allows,
Is done. It’s only fair that now’s
The worms’ turn to get fat.

Should we die young, or old and gray,
The laws of nature we’ll obey
And spend our heat in mere decay,
Replenishing the Earth;
“Three score and twelve” may be our years
For love and laughter, hope and fears
And then—mere smoke—life disappears;
No heaven, no rebirth.

And with no heaven up above
Nor hell we ought be frightened of
It’s best we fill our lives with love,
With learning, and with fun!
Don’t waste a lifetime while you wait
For halo, wings, and pearly gate—
This is your life, so get it straight:
You only get the one!

I’ll have no moment lost to prayer,
To cleanse my soul and thus prepare
For passage to… THERE’S NOTHING THERE!
Those moments, all, are wasted!
I’m only here a little time
Before it’s bugs and worms and slime;
I’ll eat and drink my life so I’m
Delicious when I’m tasted!

Find The Digital Cuttlefish here.

Buy The Digital Cuttlefish’s books here and here.

The Digital Cuttlefish is on Facebook.

Are you a lightning rod?

3 February 2011
Charles
10 Comments
Categories: celebrants, Humanists

The last time I directed you to the Hearth of Mopsus blog you were mostly pretty beastly about the writer, a clerk in holy orders who has the cure of souls in Swanvale Halt. Here’s what you said.

He’s actually a bit of a sweetie, and if you like reading clerics’ diaries (I do), then you might even want to follow him (as I do).

A year ago (I’ve been trawling his archive) he wrote this about funerals:

This week I’ve taken two big funerals at the crematorium, big enough to fill the chapel and some, attenders standing all round the sides and down the central aisle, and out into the narthex. The first was for a woman who died of an aggressive and nasty cancer in her forties, and naturally there was a lot of emotion. The second was for a man who was also only in his sixties, and carried a certain amount of intra-family tension; he was also a member of the ambulance service and so the local branch’s banner was carried ahead of the coffin and there was an honour guard of boys and girls in green Service overalls.

I was exhausted at the end of both these services. I feel increasingly that the priest acts as a spiritual lightning rod on these occasions, and that all the emotion present ends up channelled through you. The size of the funeral makes no difference: I’ve presided at big funerals where that sense of strain has not been present at all. Nor do tears, on their own, seem to be the deciding factor: some tearful funerals I’ve taken haven’t been charged in this way at all. There is something more subtle happening. It would be interesting to see whether humanist funeral celebrants have the same experience.

Do leave a comment either here or at the Hearth of Mopsus blog. I take humanists to include celebrants of all stripes.

The Dead – Billy Collins

3 February 2011
Charles
9 Comments
Categories: Art and death, Attitudes to death, bereavement, Grief, Immortality, Memorialising

The Dead

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and buy discount cialis when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,

which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

Who needs one anyway?

2 February 2011
Charles
No comments
Categories: Attitudes to death, direct cremation

KEYZER, Jacques (Jack) C.L.

October 15, 1926 – January 27, 2011.

It is with the deepest regret and extreme sadness that we announce the passing of Jack Keyzer, beloved husband to Kay, grand-father, father and dear friend. Born and raised in Brussels, Belgium, Jack and his family emmigrated to South Africa when he was 13 years old. Jack was a Rotarian for 50 years, and after emmigrating to Canada in 1985, he joined the Victorian Rotary Club, and subsequently became the Commodore of the International Yachting Fellowship of Rotarians.

At Jack’s request there will be no funeral or formal service, and flowers are greatfully declined. A get-together in Jack’s memory will be arranged in due course.

Every time I read the often excellent obits in the Times Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia, I wonder if this is going to take off in the UK. See how many unfuneral-ed deaths there are this week, and what people intend to do to commemorate their dead person.

Hideous or beautiful?

2 February 2011
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: memorialisation

There’s the usual row going on in a cemetery (Colchester, actually) about who can dangle what from where, if anywhere, and what is decorous and what is simply grieving trash strewn by frightful common people mad with grief and commonness. Yes, the great memorialisation debate will run and run. I say memorialisation, but used not commemoration to be a perfectly good word for it?

Thanks to The Funeral Company for the link. Apols to Ms Goodall for breaching copyright: I can’t find your contact details to ask your permission. Mail story here.

The Good Funeral Guide
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