The handsome chariot pictured above is a mobile crematorium. It is reckoned to have been developed for FEMA in case of disaster. Would it not serve just as well for scattered rural populations in Wales and Scotland?  Full mobile crem patent here    

  From a Co-operative Funeralcare press release: Staff at The Co-operative Funeralcare in Copson Street are holding an open day between 10am to 2pm for residents to find out more about the work of a funeral director. The horse-drawn hearse and  Only Fools and Horses’ fan hearse will be on

Image   In a delightful article in the Sunday Times of Zambia titled Food at Funerals in Zambia, which doesn’t actually get around to talking about Zambian funeral food at all, the writer describes current funeral customs in that country.  In the countryside, the old customs are alive and well:

  The funeral yesterday of south London underworld luminary Charlie Richardson. Among the mourners was ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser.  The Richardson gang, led by Charlie and his brother Eddie, was noted, in its heyday in the sixties, for its compliance process, which included, according to the Mail,  “torturing enemies at their