We’re going where the sun shines brightly

I finally got to the bottom of it. The Isle of Portland is an area of severe signal deprivation. The Vodafone man confessed this shamefacedly when I demanded to know why his sainted dongle denied me the gift of utterance. “You’re in a 2G area,” he mumbled, “you need 3G at least for the internet.” “So why did Vodafone sell me this bloody dongle with the promise that it would connect me?” “Well, it does connect you, but very slowly.” “No, I crash before anything gets through.” “Oh.” The discussion is ongoing.

Me, the missus and three dogs are off for a week’s holiday. We can do email but that’s about it. No blog posts. Suspended animation, please note, not death.

See you soon! (And apologies for putting that tune in your head.)

Tweetfest

It’s been a while since I posted a roundup of news stories. Here’s a bunch. I can’t claim to have got them all; it’s a laborious business collecting them. They were all first posted on Twitter. I feel guilty about that. Twitter is a social networking site and I just use it as a filing system. Not cricket. Ach, wotthehell, archy, wotthehell.

Man journeying through eternity with a woman who is not his wife –http://bit.ly/i8mfBr

Father of Britain’s longest unburied body dies – http://bbc.in/i2r9Th

‘In his memory, go and get that medical test you’ve been avoiding.’ Always the best obits here: http://bit.ly/fGVXFl

RIP Poly Styrene – http://youtu.be/2sl-7RSiRXE

Thirteen-year-old boy sets fire to his granddad – http://bit.ly/gNyhno

What would you taste like to a cannibal? Ever wondered? Find out here – http://bit.ly/alQW

“Davis said God was looking out for his family when a huge oak tree fell on their house.” Mysterious ways. http://bit.ly/jRmSRi

Mumbai scheme to stop dogs running off with the bones of cremated bodies – http://bit.ly/lBdZtj

Pub to hold funeral for hail-fellow-well-met cat – http://bit.ly/j58Bxy

The husband of Zsa Zsa Gabor wants to have her plastinated when she’s dead – http://bit.ly/j3Rh4U

Burial Lessons: From Che to bin Laden. http://nyr.kr/mGgNN2

Dead rebels with a cause and post-mortem ignominy strategies –http://bbc.in/lGRWOD

RIP Major General Barry Nuttall, scourge of the bureaucrats. What a great guy – http://bit.ly/k8jATS

101 ways to euphemise ‘died’ – http://bit.ly/liuCAg

‘If god wanted us to believe in him he’d exist.’ Linda Smith.

New coffin manufacturer on the block. Anyone know anything about Steve Soult Ltd? http://bit.ly/jdygIO

Teen shoots self during funeral for shooting victim –http://bit.ly/mSGL8x

The DVD funeral tribute turned out to be a child porn slideshow. Ouch. http://bit.ly/kCsyiy

No bricks and mortar funeral homes – the shape of things to come in the UK? http://bit.ly/mvfYFH

Undertaker leaps from a moving aeroplane! http://bit.ly/mq9aHA

Sign of the times: the corpse was identified by the serial numbers of the breast implants – http://bit.ly/k7lNaK

Co-op trying to drive ethical retailer out of business. It’s time to expose this nasty pointless org – http://bit.ly/j3uYrV

OMG and all that, they’re serious about disturbing the dead and reusing their graves!! Good thing and high time –http://bbc.in/lGYKZW

There’s nowt so crap as a crem. This one wouldn’t wait for the dead woman’s brother – http://bit.ly/igiVDk

They killed the dog so that it could be buried with its mistress –http://bit.ly/kOFTSm

No more church funerals for Naples mafiosi. Oh my godfathers!http://bit.ly/lh9sXX

Does anyone know anything about these people? Are they dodgy?http://bit.ly/mpwAwu

Maggoty corpses left outside at US crematory. The price of free enterprise? http://bit.ly/kWPNnw

Gunther von Hagens will pay you £61,000 for your dead body –http://bit.ly/kkga0Y

Dr Hannah Rumble’s PhD thesis on natural burial now available for download. Hugely recommended – http://bit.ly/itaFXA

Here’s a hideous insight into UK undertaking. Cigar for the 1st person to define a ‘caterfelt’ – http://bit.ly/kaWk3f

Anniversary bash celebrates selling out to Fairways. Wailing and gnashing of teeth would have been more in order – http://bit.ly/lfcpsZ

Replica celebrity coffins. Whose is for you? http://bit.ly/jDZZVs

Exit has updated its living will. Pricey at 30 quid but quite possibly worth it? http://bit.ly/ii5F8E

Reporting funerals back in the day – http://bit.ly/joV9cT

Is he?

No, I’m pleased to tell you. Reports are exaggerated. I remain sentient, mostly. Thank you, all those of you who have emailed to express concern. You’ve added to my guilt, but I am very touched.

I’ve been busy – busy with stuff and busy thinking. It’s the thinking that’s kept me away from the blog.

I’ve been preoccupied with paralysing existential brooding concerning the GFG.  I’ve suffered a major identity crisis. I’d be interested to know what you think.

My first and lesser concern has been sustainability. Can the GFG begin to break even at the very least? It runs at a lean and hungry loss at the moment, and that’s silly. ‘What was your business plan?’ I hear you ask. Never had one. I’m a believer in muddling through and seeing what happens. Even planners look back and agree that that’s the way it actually works. My guiding idea has been that if you can be of value to people then you can charge a little for that. I fancy the GFG to be of value to some FDs and providers of services and merchandise. I am proudest of all that it’s helped to keep Yuli Somme busy making her Leafshrouds. The GFG is of value to consumers, too. There ought to be a revenue stream there. Potentially, there is. The GFG just needs a better business head on its shoulders.

My principal concern has been identity. Does the GFG need to exist? What is it for? Last night I happened upon a Catholic blog which, it seems to me, expresses the idea of the GFG very well. The writer begins by saying, I have had a morbid interest in that particular blog for some time,’ and goes on to say:

‘it is an excellent resource to get to grips with the confused secular world and its prevailing attitudes towards death and dying.’ [Source]

That’s it! That’s what we spend a lot of time doing here. So: the GFG is a little think tank. It is earnest, altruistic, mischievous, angry, sad, sometimes bonkers, always serious, never self-serving. It is rooted in things as they are. It seeks to compete with no one and to respect all (almost). It is capable of influence and even authority – and, dammit, we want to change things.

It is the contributions of its loyal commenters, the discussions they have, which bring, in a good month, upwards of 19,000 people to the site. Sure, not all of those get beyond the home page, and I don’t know how many actually go through to the blog. But the name of the GFG is well and widely known; it has readers in many countries. As they say in smart circles, its brand value is high.

But the GFG is presently not growing and maturing, which means, does it, that it’s dying? If it is to mature, how is it to do that? By transitioning from one-man-band to some sort of partnership which formalises what it already is?  Is that what it actually is? (I’ve never been big on egotism; it would be a relief if it were.) Were it to become a partnership, what would the organisational architecture look like?

Maybe I am toying with ideas above my station. Sure, I am ambitious. I’d like us to shout louder and make an impact on public opinion, not leave the field open to Funeralcare and SunLife. But I am possibly being hubristic, and if so you’ll holler ‘Back in your box, Charles’. I can take it. There’s always something next.

Whither?

Too Soon, Autumn

Get back on the trees

you errant leaves!

How dare you fly

across my path so soon?

Forget your cheering colours,

green will do.

My body has not had enough

of summer.

Margie McCallum

Where would we be without a sense of humour?

Germany!

It’s an old Willie Rushton joke.

And of course there’s no truth in it whatever.

I have been contacted by a Year 12/13 student in Germany. Her name is Julia and she is working on a project which I want you to help her with – if you can.

Julia’s working title is “How the British mock death”. She says: I will analyse the black humour in the film ‘Death at a Funeral’ and explain why the British like black humour so much.

Moreover I found a book, called ‘the British Museum book of epitaphs: awful ends’. In this book the author points out that the British tend to have no respect for the dead. On the gravestone of a dentist for instance is written: ‘Stranger, approach this spot with gravity! John Brown is filling his last cavity.’ Are such macabre sayings really the rule in England?

Julia suspects that in everyday life we are as serious as Germans. But: In art the English do tend to have an anarchic approach to death, because the British sense of humour is anarchic.

Please would you help Julia by suggesting sources of good, British funeral humour, and black humour generally. Can you offer her some insights into the national psyche? If you understand Germans, can you point out how they and the British differ and agree in these matters?

Thank you!

Go, Bede!

The present life of man, O king, seems to me like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the hall wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant.

The Venerable Bede (673-735)

 

On Being a Funeral Celebrant

Here I am, somehow standing in for this person
we have all gathered to honour and farewell.
I have listened to family and friends,
asked questions to elicit the fullest picture,
the roundest sense of the life at the centre of our ritual.

And here I am, holding it all,
the balance of dignity and lightness,
truth and compassion, sorrow and hopefulness.
In the face of death I am alive, fully present,
every cell seeming to take in and give out what is needed.

Who am I serving in this cherished role?
I am serving the deceased,
standing in the midst of her family,
listening on her behalf,
open to the shades and the nuances.

I am serving family members,
each different in relationship and perspective,
each creating their piece of the remembering.

I am serving friends, colleagues,
anyone who needs to mark an ending,
to say goodbye,
to use the efficacy of ceremony
to be with their regretting and their gratitude.

I am serving the professionals –
the funeral director,
crematorium and cemetery staff,
musicians and bearers
by attending to the details
so the process is orderly and timely.

I serve healing,
for a funeral that is fitting and meaningful
and invites participation
sits well in our bones,
and the journey back to wholeness can begin.

And over and around all this there dwells a larger picture,
a sense that we are held, each one of us,
in something sacred,
and far beyond our knowing.

Margie McCallum

Westie goes west

I know a lot of you like a good gangster funeral. This one’s not premier cru, but it’s not bad.

“My father was no saint,” Ryan McElroy, one of Mr. McElroy’s three children, said in a eulogy. “But people said he could light up a room. He’s been away 15, 20 years, and you still felt protected by him.”

Read the entire account in the New York Times here.

What is a funeral for?

Three views here about what a funeral is for by Christian holy people in response to this article here.


Something that allows space for people of all faiths and none to recognise that our lives are about more than the acquisition of wealth and bigger than the sometimes compartmentalised lives we liveuntil we have a national language and a pattern for doing these things that all can relate to, it is simply not going to meet a very human desire for ritual action that all can take part in.  Rev Adele Rees London

 

A funeral service is neither a “time for thanksgiving” nor “the celebration of a life”, even though that certainly seems to be what many mourners nowadays think they have to have, thereby hurrying past the all-important grieving stages. But the principal focus of the rite is the dignified and appropriate disposal of a corpseFr Alec Mitchell Manchester

 

Three really good things – a tribute by a family member, humour and applause excluding language about God limits what you can say about the richness and depth of human life.  Canon Robert Titley Rector in the Richmond team ministry

 

Having spent last night listening to religious choral music by that well known atheist Mozart I am moved to suggest to Canon Titley that invocations to the Supreme Being do nothing to detract from a sense of wonder and mystery.

A true one-off

The best obituaries are to be found in the Victoria Times Colonist. Its archive of obits will prove a treasure trove for social historians of the future.

Here’s an especially fine one — he sounds like a lovely guy. I like the scattergun approach. The task of collecting single words or phrases is something that celebrants could usefully set their families.

MILLER, Scott Alexander Scott Alexander Miller passed away unexpectedly at the age of 29 years on May 4, 2011. Scottie is survived by his mother, Joan; father, Gord; brother, Chris; sister; Ali; and brother-in-law, Jeff. Scott was born in Victoria and lived in Ottawa where he earned his BEng at Carlton University (where he was known as “The Liver”) before returning to Victoria, where he was working towards his PhD in engineering at the University of Victoria. Scott’s love for life, compassion and creativity will continue to inspire the many lives he has touched. He was fun-loving, academic, a bike guy, artistic, the ultimate techie, an adventurer, a musician, teacher and ultimate friend to all. To sum Scottie up proved a Herculean task, so we asked loved ones to describe him in a single word or phrase. Here are some words and phrases that people used to describe how they felt about Scottie and their time with him: Awesome, intelligent, kind, inspiring, amazing, innovative, free thinker, considerate, sensitive, family oriented, not afraid to march to a different drum, fun loving, own man, conceptual, biggest heart, charismatic, funny, extraordinary, brilliant, gifted in so many areas, thoughtful, “do-ityourself” er, genuinely great, random, gentle, insatiable curiosity of life, life hacker, humble, genius, lover of life, beautiful soul, always smiling, non-judgemental, open minded, unafraid, kinetic, consummate storyteller, easy going, caring, heart of gold, one of the most complete people, old soul, boundless energy, extremely compassionate, calm, warm and loving. With a constant hunger for new experiences Scottie packed more into his 29 years than most do in a lifetime. But despite his whirlwind life, Scottie ALWAYS considered others before himself and took the time to help anyone in anyway that he could. From the age of three he understood how the world worked, which he had concluded by working in his own space-time continuum.

When asked to explain himself, he would always say “It’s just logic”. We would like to send a special thank you to Greg and Ille Kaglik for all their help and support to Scottie and his family during difficult times.

Find this and other VTC obits here.

 

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