Pic Some reflections here by Guardian commenter StoPeriyali on the way we do cremation in the UK: Having been to several (far too many) crematorium services, I have always felt the moment when the curtain closes and they start to hoosh you all out ready for the next one, is utterly

  Lush, lovely, accessible. Do people associate it too closely with TV’s Vicar of Dibley? We don’t know, we never watched it.

  L’Inconnue de la Seine   L’Inconnue de la Seine was a young woman who was pulled, dead, out of the River Seine some time in the 1880s. One of the pathologists at the Paris Morgue was so taken with her etherial beauty that he had a death mask made.

    I’m sorry, but this post has been suspended. We like to be a very open forum, and objections to it were balanced by approval of it — but we just don’t feel comfortable about it.                   

  Posted by Charles   Commentators on Mr Maiden’s letter to the Funeral Service Journal (here) deploring some coffin manufacturers’ willingness to sell their boxes direct to the public did not find in favour of Mr Maiden’s practice of burying some of his service charge in an excessively marked-up coffin.

  Paul Gambaccini presented his Desert Island Death Discs at the Southbank Deathfest. He could easily have done this without trying — chosen a few and spoken about them off the cuff. But he didn’t. He’d done lots of research and thinking and he’d written lots of script. He is

David Durden   UPDATE On July 21 2011 Sonny, the stillborn baby of Sandra and Sai Lao, was cremated. The Laos were distraught when they were told. They denied having signed the cremation forms. Co-op funeral director David Durden said no, they had, claiming they were so distressed they must

  “I know this is a sad occasion but I think that Dixie would be amazed to know that even in death he could draw a bigger crowd than Everton can on a Saturday afternoon.”   Bill Shankly at Dixie Dean’s funeral. With apologies to non-football fans.       

Posted by Vale Some personal reflections on the Southbank Deathfest this weekend: Imagine a wire and steel footbridge over the Thames: brown water lapping, St Paul’s, pale in the wintry light, downstream. Drop down to buildings, a collection of concrete and glass halls that were modern once but which, in

Posted by Vale An old song in a modern version by Joe Brown. He sang it, memorably, at the close of the tribute concert for George Harrison in 2002. Though the days are long Twilight sings a song Of a happiness that used to be Soon my eyes will close