You couldn’t make it up.
When the remains of the last Tsar of All the Russias, Nicholas II, and some of his family were found down a disused mineshaft outside Yekaterinburg in the 1990s, the government of Boris Yeltsin held a full state funeral in the cathedral of St Peter and St Paul in St Petersburg. I believe we should do something similar for Richard III, if these bones are his.
More here.
Worcester City Council is, laudably, not inclined to sell its crematorium to one of those predatory sharks we all know and love so well. The council needs to spend up to £2 million to upgrade it. But read on and see what the jostling sharks are prepared to buy it for.
Moral: when you’ve done with effing up trying to run a halfway profitable funeral chain, buy crems. The GFG is meeting with venture capitalists tomorrow. Our ceo was last seen browsing a Lear jet catalogue. All aboard the gravy train!
This from the Worcester Standard:
COUNCIL chiefs have backed proposals to retain ownership of the city’s crematorium but warned prices could increase to fund vital improvement works.
At a meeting on Tuesday (September 11), members of the city council’s cabinet supported an independent report which urged the authority to ignore a potential cash windfall from selling the Astwood Road site.
Three companies had expressed an interest in taking over the crematorium and councillors were told any sale could have raised around £6million.
Full story here.
Many celebrants will have had the experience of welcoming a convict at a funeral, together with the prison officer to whom he/she is shackled. Do, please, share your experience in a comment.
In Australia, belt-tightening has led to a review of the cost of this service to the banged-up bereaved:
The Department of Corrective Services plans to save more than $500,000 by allowing prisoners to virtually attend funerals streamed on the internet instead of transporting them to the service in person.
There is opposition to this, especially in the cases of Aboriginal prisoners, for whom attendance at funerals is a cultural obligation.
The Inspector of Custodial Services, Neil Morgan, has some interestingly critical things to say, especially about virtual attendance. There are people out there who think that virtual attendance is the future of funeralgoing. It’s possible that, before long, bereaved people will be facing pressure from their workplace to pop into a quiet room, follow it on their iPad and get back to their desk. Here’s Mr Morgan:
“There can’t be closure to a person’s death until there’s been a physical attendance. You don’t attend virtually in my view, you either attend or you don’t. Have you ever given a hug to anybody over the internet? If you skype with people it’s nice to see them but it’s actually also sometimes quite distressing and difficult; there’s no physical contact available.”
Full story here. Hat tip to Beverley Webb.
Hawks have come to the rescue of mourners at a crematorium plagued by aggressive seagulls.
The birds of prey were used to scare away gulls at Eastbourne crematorium after complaints that mourners were being dive-bombed as they left the chapel.
Whole story here.
From a comment piece by Terry Pratchett in today’s Times:
Earlier this year a commission of the great and the good was set up by myself and another gentleman of means, to look at practices in other countries where assisted dying is commonplace and to report on how it could be evolved to suit Britain.
It looked for abuses — there were none. The countries that allow assisted dying are careful democracies, just like us. It’s not a free for all. There are rules, rules everywhere. Some time ago I set out with Rob, my assistant, to track down every rumour of assisted dying abuse on the planet and I have to say that when electronically cornered, people making allegations of abuse lamely said that it was on the internet.
Why is it that opponents of change don’t want to engage with concrete evidence that answers their concerns?
Evidence of a slippery slope and relaxing of practice is not supported by the evidence from the Netherlands or from anywhere else where the law is more compassionate.
Full article here (£)
Did you like it?
I’d be inclined to give it 10 out of 10.
Last night’s BBC2 programme Dead Good Job is well worth watching. If you missed it, it covers:
a Muslim funeral company’s attempts to bury the dead as quickly as possible in accordance with Islamic tradition, a terminally ill mother of two who chooses to plan and arrange her own funeral and a high speed send off for a biker who gets his wish of a final ride in a motorcycle hearse.
Next week, we are delighted to see that they will be following Rachel Wallace, funeral photographer. We’re huge fans of Rachel here at the GFG-Batesville Tower.
Catch it on the iPlayer here.
Posted by Richard Rawlinson
A skeleton, a skeleton, my kingdom for a skeleton!
Might we soon discover if Richard III is the hunchbacked tyrant with a withered arm depicted in Shakespeare or if his physical disability was merely Tudor propaganda?
The king was buried in the church of a Franciscan friary in Leicester after being slain at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. But the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII just over 50 years later has resulted in the exact burial spot being forgotten.
Now Leicester University archeologists, having examined historical maps, have located the most likely site for the church—a car park of the social services office in the centre of Leicester.
More here. And more unfolding in the news daily.
Ed’s note: Apologies to Richard the R for the lateness of this. We are way off the pace in all areas just now.