1 August 2012 – The Good Funeral Guide

Faithful grudgebearer

1 August 2012

Charles

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Categories: Uncategorised

A bull bided its time and gored an old man to death when an opportunity came a day after the latter had thrown hot water on it. The bull followed the man when he was being taken to a hospital and later reached the crematorium during his funeral in little-known Deori Township in Sagar district of Madhya Pradesh.

The bull apparently kept a watch on the frail Bhoop Narayan Prajapati (65) and attacked him four days ago when he was having his morning tea—a day after the old man threw hot water on it for sitting in front of his hut at the main road of Deori Township. Prajapati ran inside his thatched hut to escape, but the bull followed him, pushed him to the ground twice and gored him.

Bhura Khan and Nikhil Soni, who were around, came to the rescue of Prajapati. They hit the bull with sticks of solid wood to scare it away. When the bull was off their sight, they rushed the old man to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced brought dead.

Much to people’s surprise, the bull reached the hospital following Prajapati. Deepak Chourasia, a town-dweller, said that when the mortal remains of the old man were being consigned to flames the bull again sprang a surprise by arriving at the crematorium.

Prajapati’s house is very close to the hospital and the crematorium too is less than half-a-kilometer, Chourasia added. The old man died due to internal injuries to his stomach and chest, police said.

There is a minor history between Prajapati and the bull. Six month ago, the bull had attacked the old man after he hit the animal with a stick. Prajapati was at that time admitted to a hospital where he stayed for more than a month due to leg injury, Deori police station inspector R P Sharma told TOI.

“I have also come to know during investigations in the case that the bull followed Prajapati to the hospital and the crematorium. It’s something strange and surprising,” Sharma said. “We are going to write a letter to the civic body to put this bull in a government shelter,” the inspector added.

Dog Day

1 August 2012

Charles

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Categories: Dignity

Dignity Plc said its profit for the first half rose about 11 percent on strong performance in its funeral services and crematoria businesses.

The company said its underlying pretax profit rose to 27.5 million pounds ($43.16 million) for the 26 weeks ending June 29 from 24.7 million pounds a year earlier.

Dignity, which operates a network of 616 funeral locations throughout the United Kingdom, said revenue grew about 8 percent to 116.5 million pounds.

Revenue from its core funeral services business grew about 7 percent to 81.6 million pounds. The business contributes 70 percent to its overall revenue.

Revenue from its crematoria business grew about 9 percent to 23.7 million pounds.

The company raised its interim dividend by 10 percent to 5.36 pence per share.

The FTSE-250 company’s shares, which rose about 7 percent in the last year, were up about 1 percent at 856.5 pence on Tuesday the London Stock Exchange.

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Faithfulness and fraudulence

1 August 2012

Charles

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Categories: Pet funerals

Dogs who remain faithful to their masters and mistresses after their deaths have plenty of aah factor, always have done.

Take Hachiko the Akita (pictured above), for example. Every day he would meet his owner, Professor Ueno, off the Tokyo train. One day, Prof Ueno died at work. Unable to take it in, Hachiko padded down to the railway station every day at the precise time of the arrival of what should have been his master’s train for the next nine years until, to much sadness, as you can see below, he expired in his own right. Read all about him here.

When Navy Seal Jon Tumlinson died in Afghanistan on 6 August 2012, his inconsolable Labrador, Hawkeye, kept vigil at his funeral

Below, you can see Leão purportedly lying by the grave of his master, a victim of floods in Brazil in 2011. Actually, it is more likely that Leão was the gravedigger’s dog and was simply chillaxing. He doesn’t look overly grief-stricken, does he?

Britain’s most famous graveside vigilist is, of course, Greyfriars Bobby. He was almost certainly a fraud, too. Both of him. According to Wikipedia, “he was originally a stray that hung around nearby Heriot’s hospital, but became such a nuisance the hospital gardener threw him into the graveyard. James Brown, the curator of the graveyard, was fond of Bobby’s company and began to feed him to keep him around. Visitors saw Bobby and liked to believe he was loyally staying by his masters grave, and provided Brown with tips to hear Bobby’s “story” … in May or June 1867 the original Bobby died and was replaced with a younger dog.

Lots more faithful dogs here. All the dirt on the Scotch fraud pictured above here.

From consumption to diabetes – changing causes of death in New England

1 August 2012

Charles

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Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies, Attitudes to death, dying

Posted by Vale

Back in 1812 in Boston it was consumption that was most likely to kill you, although out of 942 recorded deaths, teething killed 15 and childbed 14, the same number that were killed by the quinsy.

In 1900 tuberculosis was near the top of the list, but pneumonia or influenza had overtaken it. A bad year for the flu?

By 2010 TB has disappeared, pneumonia languishes like a fading football team towards the bottom of the league buy cialis online aus table, while cancer has leapt to prominence.

From the three tables shown, it isn’t until 2010 that diabetes makes an appearance or suicide.

I’ve taken all the data from a fascinating article in the New England Journal of Medicine describing how, over 200 years, different diseases have come to the fore. More interesting are its reflections on the way that the different diseases that kill us are expressions of the society we live in.

Its worth a look.