The GFG Blog
2009May
Green shoots
Charles
May
08
No Comments
Is the Natural Death Centre a national treasure? Undoubtedly. What is it? It’s a charity which advocates a hands-on approach to preparing for death and arranging a funeral. It publishes The Natural Death Handbook, which is full of practical advice and personal stories. The philosophy of the NDC grew out
The surprising satisfactions of a home funeral
Charles
May
07
No Comments
For all that the funeral industry is aware of pressure to change, and has readied itself for that, and for all that newspapers like to run features about nice, funny coffins, nothing has essentially changed. Death occurs. A stranger – a funeral director – accompanied by another stranger, his or
Dates for your diary (2)
Charles
May
06
No Comments
Date: 12-14 June (choose your day or come to all three). Venue: Stoneleigh Park, Warwickshire. Event: National Funeral Exhibition. This trade show is a biennial shindig. Funeral directors fly in from all corners of the country to feast their eyes everything new in the world of funerals. Not that there
Dates for your diary (1)
Charles
May
04
No Comments
Those lovely people at Transitus are holding their first-ever festival on Saturday 20 June. What’s the draw? Dorset for a start. Always a special place at this time of the year. And Sturminster Newton, the venue, is a special place. And Dr Peter Fenwick. Peter Fenwick! He’s a man worth
The bigger they come the harder they fall
Charles
May
01
No Comments
Here’s a problem for a species of mathematician: Exactly how big can a funeral directing enterprise get before it topples into incompetence and scandal? The same law of economics would, you think, apply to funeral directing as to, say, cars: expansion creates economies of scale and efficiencies of production which
2009Apr
Something to celebrate
Charles
Apr
27
No Comments
A while back I blogged about celebrants. The essence of my argument was that people do not get to choose their celebrant from the range available locally because funeral directors, who like to hold all service providers in their thrall, do not offer them a selection. Very soon they’ll have
Cybertwaddle
Charles
Apr
24
No Comments
There are very few funeral directors in the UK with a web presence. Many of those who do fail to understand that the job of a website is twofold: first, to offer a relationship of warmth and trust; second, to proclaim capability and professionalism. A good many undertakerly websites simply
Sex and death
Charles
Apr
24
No Comments
Today’s papers have enjoyed this story—the ones you’d expect, the funloving Sun and the _____________ (supply your own adjective) Daily Mail. It’s a story which emanates, so it seems, from the Wales News Service, whose website offers this enticement: “Have you been betrayed by your man? Or did you get
Space oddity
Charles
Apr
22
No Comments
In November I blogged about EternalSpace, a “meaningful online destination that creates a personal connection with a loved one.” Back then it was at an early stage of development. It’s up and running. You can now see examples of virtual monuments in what its developers call an “immersive, multidimensional landscape
Bad taste is better than no taste at all
Charles
Apr
21
No Comments
Funerals are looking for a new aesthetic. People are looking for new ways of memorialising their dead. Brooding Victorian monumental gloom is out. So too is the regimented eezi-mow municipal cemetery with its ranks of polished anonymous headstones. In rejection of these, people are presently opting for one of two
