Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Helen Date: 11 Feb 24 - 02:47 PM I just read this Wiki article about Fritz Spiegl and he was also a musician, who "taught himself to play the flute, enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music and, within a short time, became principal flautist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he kept for more than a decade." His list of career activities is impressive. "As a composer, Spiegl scored a popular success with the original theme from the TV series Z-Cars, based on "Johnny Todd", a Liverpool sea shanty. He also composed the original theme for the Z Cars spin-off series Softly, Softly.." and his list of books is interesting. I might have to look for some of those. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 11 Feb 24 - 01:44 PM Oh, and thanks, Helen. I *think* I bought my copy in Lincoln in 1975. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 11 Feb 24 - 01:41 PM From Dead Funny:
Spiegl notes: "Probably fictitious, but irresistible." (I don't see that one getting past the Church Commissioners either.) |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Helen Date: 11 Feb 24 - 10:52 AM MaJoC, yes!!! After 40 years there was no way I would have remembered the name and author but it was indeed A Small Book of Grave Humour. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Mrrzy Date: 11 Feb 24 - 08:25 AM Anybody watching World's Greatest Cemetaries? |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 11 Feb 24 - 06:59 AM That wasn't Fritz Spiegl's A Small Book of Grave Humour, was it, Helen? It, and its successor (Dead Funny), were paperbacks cut into the shape of a tombstone. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Helen Date: 10 Feb 24 - 05:36 PM I remember we had a book in the library where I worked showing the inscriptions on gravestones. The one which made me laugh out loud was for a man of stature in society who was killed by a member of his household staff. The inscription was, "Well done, good and faithful servant". |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 10 Feb 24 - 05:13 PM Collected from the doorpost of a churchyard in Norfolk (UK):
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Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: robomatic Date: 09 Feb 24 - 02:44 PM Most poetic: Young man, take note as you pass by As you are now, so once was I As I am now, so you shall be Prepare for death and follow me! to which some wag appended: To follow you I'd be content If I could know which way you went! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Most ignominious: "He called Bill Smith a liar!" |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Rapparee Date: 08 Feb 24 - 05:51 PM I want thirty or forty young women to bewail my passing. My in-laws are in Arlington. Her name is on the back of the stone. Knowing her, this probably annoys her, to play second fiddle. I want a QR code on my headstone. It doesn't have to lead to anything, I just want it as a annoyance. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Mr Red Date: 04 Feb 24 - 07:46 AM Donate to the Texas Body Farm and you would be rank! And from what I remember of a documentary on it, you would have a number. Sorry no name. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Thompson Date: 03 Feb 24 - 03:56 AM Mine has name, but no rank - hey, I'm an egalitarian; and no serial number - hah, you don't think you'll catch me that way. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: gillymor Date: 01 Feb 24 - 10:06 AM My beloved mother, a WWII vet whose ashes reside in a columbarium in Arlington, used to say she wanted this etched on her headstone- Wherever you be let the farts fly free, For the one that I held was the one that killed me. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: The Sandman Date: 01 Feb 24 - 03:11 AM Some things are more precious because they don't last long. Oscar Wilde |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Charmion Date: 31 Jan 24 - 08:14 AM My gravestone has just name, rank and serial number. The enemy ain’t gettin’ anything else outta me. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Neil D Date: 29 Jan 24 - 11:43 PM I've told everyone I know that I want my gravestone to read: Here lies Neil Devore He hated the Eagles |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler Date: 29 Jan 24 - 11:17 AM "For sale unrequired plot" Robin |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 28 Jan 24 - 04:32 PM I've arranged to have a Direct Cremation which some elements of the Funeral Industry rail against. Direct cremation = body removed & cremated & family & friends can get together when & wherever & as often as they want! I can't remember the name of the business that ranted about you're depriving your friends & family of a send off & a place to share their grief & memories etc (ie. you are depriving MY company of lotsa' money for arranging everything from overpriced coffins to other unnecessary overpriced stuff) As if people don't already have wakes & afternoon teas etc. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Donuel Date: 28 Jan 24 - 08:52 AM I'll go with a digital tombstone and simple mulching. "Nearly everything we thought we knew was wrong, except love which is right even when it's wrong" |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 25 Apr 18 - 03:57 AM Hahahaaaaa Steve!!! |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Steve Shaw Date: 24 Apr 18 - 09:31 AM Saw four guys wandering around the cemetery for three hours carrying a coffin on their shoulders. I thought, those guys have really lost the plot... |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 24 Apr 18 - 09:29 AM No Dave, your fruit tree would produce lovely sweet fruit. You can be buried next to me if you like, in Bluebell Wood. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Dave the Gnome Date: 24 Apr 18 - 08:33 AM I always thought I wanted to be cremated but on reflection I think I would prefer a burial. Biodegradable cardboard coffin and a fruit tree instead of a gravestone. That way I can feed the fruit tree as it grows and make sure all the fruit is bitter and twisted like me :-) (All true apart from the last bit) |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: fat B****rd Date: 24 Apr 18 - 08:07 AM Good one, PF. Charlie's Last Ride OST On the way in - The Promenade from Moussorgsky's Pictures etc. A certain obvious Dylan song for the "quiet bit". The Ride of the Valkyries as I disappear from view. Exit Music - "Keep a Twinkle In Your Eye" by Buck and Bubbles. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: punkfolkrocker Date: 24 Apr 18 - 07:28 AM A loud HiFi cassette recording of this over the crematorium PA was my dad's soundtrack as he slowly entered the furnace... |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 24 Apr 18 - 07:23 AM I think the worst thing about grief is the frequent and sudden realisation that one will never see that person again. I feel that very deeply about my dear father-in-law, and of course about my own parents. What's on the music list? My only choice is 'Na Laetha Geal M'Oige' sung by Enya. "The lost days of my youth" makes me weep every time I hear it. Heart-wrenching. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: fat B****rd Date: 24 Apr 18 - 06:41 AM All paid for. Soundtrack sorted. Into the fiery furnace!! |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: BobL Date: 24 Apr 18 - 03:09 AM Not only that Sen, but more and more funerals are announced as "celebrations" of the deceased's life, with bright colours to be worn. Nothing necessarily wrong with that (and when it's my turn I want all my Morris colleagues to wear full kit), but it's a bit far removed from the original idea of helping people to manage their grief. Grief is love that no longer has an outlet - did I get that from another thread here? |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 23 Apr 18 - 05:28 PM I'm truly sorry about your mother Raggytash. She obviously had a very long life and I hope a happy one. I sometimes think modern Western ways of dealing with death distance us from the experience of reality. We don't prepare the body, we don't dig the grave. Often we aren't even present at the end of the person's life. It's all very sanitised. It makes grieving a bit inhibited in my view. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Raggytash Date: 23 Apr 18 - 04:59 PM My aged Mother died in February, aged 93. It took 30 days before the funeral could be held, apparently the grave diggers can only manage two a day (despite having a mini digger!) The day before the Grandfather of a young man I know in Ireland had died. The family dug the grave and he was buried two days later. I know which practise I prefer. I have told my good lady to put me in a bin bag (bio-degradable) on leave me out for the bin men. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Jos Date: 23 Apr 18 - 04:46 PM I can understand why people in hot countries would have developed a tradition of burying the dead as quickly as possible before the body starts to go off, but even so, yes, I think there probably have been cases where death was 'misdiagnosed'. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: olddude Date: 23 Apr 18 - 04:43 PM Ok now ya got me worried, shoot me in the head to make sure before I am tossed in the fire ok |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 23 Apr 18 - 03:53 PM Actually Jos, my husband's people have no need for a death certificate or even a doctor's examination. If someone seems to be dead, they bury them. It's rare for someone to have an actual diagnosis either. Could be problematic couldn't it? |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Jos Date: 23 Apr 18 - 03:09 PM I'm sure they won't bury me that quickly after I die, so there is a chance someone WILL notice if I'm not really dead. I once heard a radio discussion on the subject, in which an undertaker assured listeners that they couldn't possibly be buried while still alive because they would have been embalmed. I didn't find this at all reassuring - I would be just as unhappy at being embalmed if I wasn't really dead. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 23 Apr 18 - 01:53 PM I'd hate to think of any sizeable sum of money being spent on either my funeral or my burial. I'll be dead, so I shan't know. I've told my husband to pack me into a bin bag and wheel me off in our garden wheelbarrow to our village church cemetery. He can dig a hole and shovel me in, I shan't mind at all. In Ivory Coast, deceased people, wrapped only in a sheet, are buried before nightfall on the day they die. They don't often have any kind of headstone, although my husband had one made for his father when he died last year. It all seems very sensible. They don't have money for fancy flowers, tombstones or caskets. They are however expected to feed literally hundreds of people who visit the family afterwards. It involves slaughtering lots of scraggy sheep and cooking giant pots of rice etc. Everyone wears white clothes. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: punkfolkrocker Date: 23 Apr 18 - 12:56 PM If you live/die in the USA can you donate your body to the Texas Body Farm.. and if so, will they collect it free of charge...??? http://www.txstate.edu/anthropology/facts/labs/farf.html I notice at the bottom of the main page, a link for "Job Opportunities"... Essential qualification for applicants - "must be dead"...??? |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Jos Date: 23 Apr 18 - 12:48 PM Sounds perfect - the bluebell wood, not the segregated cemetery. I've already specified in my will that I would prefer a woodland burial, and DEFINITELY a cardboard box, don't waste good wood on a flashy coffin. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Senoufou Date: 23 Apr 18 - 03:36 AM There's a new burial place which they've opened not that far from us called 'Bluebell Wood', where they have a system of burying folk in cardboard caskets and tree saplings are planted. Very natural and there's an ancient ruined church on the site, so the ground is consecrated. They've put up a sort of wooden circular hut for mourners. There are no gravestones or monuments of any sort, so it just looks like...well... a bluebell wood. In UK a burial must be recorded as to its position, so presumably they keep a record of who lies where. I'd like to be plonked there. I love Billy Connelly's monologue where he describes a cemetery in Glasgow for all Christians. But they've built an underground wall between the Catholics and the Protestants. He was really convulsed at the idea of the corpses of different persuasions trying to get at each other under the ground! |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: olddude Date: 22 Apr 18 - 09:44 PM Wasn’t it wc fields that wrote rather be here than in Philadelphia |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: olddude Date: 22 Apr 18 - 09:42 PM My favorite fishing hole is a good place for me |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Mooh Date: 22 Apr 18 - 10:21 AM No grave, thank you very much. Just spread my ashes in the woods, or in the lake. Or leave my corpse to rot in the woods. I will accept a monument though, Parliament Hill would be a nice place for it. On it, let it be written, "You too, Mooh?" That is all. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Rusty Dobro Date: 22 Apr 18 - 08:58 AM And another from Bury St Edmunds churchyard: Reader Pause at this Humble Stone a Record The fall of unguarded Youth By the allurements of vice and the treacherous snares of Seduction SARAH LLOYD on the 23d of April 1800 in the 22d Year of her Age Suffered a Just but ignominous Death for admitting her abandoned seducer into the Dwelling House of her Minstrefs in the Night of 3rd Oct 1799 and becoming the Instrument in his Hands of the crimes of Robbery and Houseburning These were her last Words May my example be a warning to Thousands. (Personally, I've always quite enjoyed the treacherous snares of seduction.) |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Jim Carroll Date: 22 Apr 18 - 06:27 AM Must dig out my copy of "Grave Humour" - full of classics Jim |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Jim Carroll Date: 22 Apr 18 - 05:44 AM How about S*** - didn't see that coming Jim Caaarroll |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Rusty Dobro Date: 22 Apr 18 - 02:39 AM I'm guessing that this one, (from the Charnel House at Bury St Edmunds) caused some thoughtful discussion at the time: Here lies interred the Body of MARY HASELTON A Young Maiden of this Town Born of Roman Catholic Parents And Virtuously brought up Who being in the Act of Prayer Repeating her Vespers Was instantaneously killed by a flash Of lightning August the 16 1785 Aged 9 years |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: Dave the Gnome Date: 21 Apr 18 - 03:30 AM My uncle Dennis had the theme to 'The Great Escape' played at his funeral :-) |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: JennieG Date: 21 Apr 18 - 02:39 AM As do I, Dan! However I would like the assembled multitudes......all right, perhaps two or three.....to burst into song with "So long, it's been good to know you". Seems a fitting last song, to me. |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: olddude Date: 20 Apr 18 - 10:52 PM Exactly I want the money spent on a party and dump my ashes |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: punkfolkrocker Date: 20 Apr 18 - 10:34 PM It seems some of us are in similar mind on this subject... My headstone...??? "Why did you waste good money on this nonsense. You know how much I despise parasitic funeral service businesses. I told you I wanted a cheap cremation, or better still donating my body to any medical science that would take it off your hands for nothing. Or ideally even pay you a few quid for it...!!!" |
Subject: RE: BS: On my gravestone From: olddude Date: 20 Apr 18 - 09:35 PM Death by chocolate |