Posted by Vale A week or so ago one of my heroines died – the musician, writer and singer Dory Previn. She hasn’t recorded much, but for those who know her work she is unmatched in her musicality, wit, dark humour and willingness to explore the darker parts of the

  Gloucester crematorium’s Arbor restaurant is now offering Sunday lunch. Observes one Gloucester resident wryly: “It seems a bit odd – and perhaps even slightly macabre – for them to be offering roast meat to people, given that their main business is to cremate bodies. I’m not sure I’d like

Chicago, Monday. Police receive a call about a suspicious person in a car outside Carter Funeral Chapels. They go, and find the back door off its hinges. There is no electricity in the building. It transpires, after investigation, that in winter corpses are left in the garage of this funeral

Posted by Vale Every age has a genius, a spirit, a particular character. The Victorians, for example, excelled at sentimentality and three volume novels, while, in ancient Greece, philosophers lounged on street corners making public nuisances of themselves. But what of our own age? What do we do that defines