Now we are five
Ooh, the conjurer’s just arrived. Yes, it’s all party hats and facepainting over here at the GFG-Batesville Shard. Jelly, pizza fingers, crisps and ice cream. A whole lot of bunting. Our blog is five years old today and we’re awaiting the arrival in his much-loved Daimler DS420 of our patron and sugar-daddy, Sir Basil Batesville-Caskett Bt, CDM, […]
Desecration of Mum’s grave was the last straw
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Julie Bailey, founder of the Cure the NHS campaign group, which exposed the Mid Staffordshire scandal, has closed her café in Stafford after “political activists” desecrated her mother’s grave. “I am having to leave my home, my livelihood and my friends because a few misinformed local political activists have fuelled a hate […]
Daddy, where were YOU at the NFE?
Are you coming to the National Funeral Exhibition? The NFE is the biggest and best business-boosting/networking/nattering event in Funeralworld and we are delighted to have been invited. To mark the occasion we are presently decanting the GFG-Batesville Shard, packing the wretched, zit-face interns into charabancs, and looking forward to spending the next three days sampling […]
Who never lived and so can never die
Posted by Richard Rawlinson Sherlock Holmes looks nothing like Benedict Cumberbatch, and is in fact the doppelgänger of Charles Cowling. This is, of course, subjective as the casting director of the TV series can present the great detective how he wants, just as a reader of Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories can picture him as Charles’ twin bro in […]
Introducing Hearse+ for bereaved people who like to drive themselves
James Hardcastle of The Carriagemaster has enjoyed ‘strong successes’ with his self-drive hearse, a venture to which the teeming team here at the GFG-Batesvile Shard has given its unanimous and enthusiastic backing. No one ever went wrong, we like to say (over and over, the record shows), who sought to find ways to empower the […]
Maggie ding-dong spreads to the dead
Here’s an exchange between readers in the comments column of this article in the Guardian: @MMTRocks – Thatcher was elected because the country could see the chaos and corruption of Scargill and the Left. That is a fact. Can you even begin to imagine where this country would have been? Do you honestly think the […]
Live funeral music provides profound solace
Posted by Malu Swayne, creator of No Sad Songs ED’s NOTE: We have spent quite a lot of time talking to Malu and we think she is a thoroughly good thing. Classically trained herself, she has a wide range of really good musicians to call on. Like our friends at Threnody, we feel there’s nothing […]
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You may have noticed that we’re trying to calm the blog down a bit. The daily magazine format of up to five or so posts daily is more, we reckon, than you want or can cope with. (Today was a throwback day.) We recognise that there are many sources, now, from which you can gather […]
Dog saves owner from death
A happy dog story for those of you who like happy dog stories. It’s from The Times (£) A German shepherd in the South of France has kept its owner from committing suicide by knocking aside the rifle that she was about to use to shoot herself in the heart. The dog’s owner, 63, had […]
Crowdfunding for funerals?
We don’t do crowdfunding for funerals in this country. It would be a great way of helping people who can’t afford one. In the US there seems to be a much stronger tradition of appealing to the wider community. Hence the website above, GoFundMe. On it is the appeal pictured above by a British couple […]
