“Pre-arranging your funeral means peace of mind…” Post-arranging it may be tricky, I suppose.I can’t really justify this post other than to say language is a first step in communications and comms is regularly dealt with here. A weasel argument, I fear.
The quote comes from RIAS (Insurance for the over-fifties) who recently went the extra step by linking up with Dignity (Caring funeral services). Note, uncaring funeral services turn you into a hotpot under the cover of darkness. RIAS guarantees my funeral “at today’s prices” but recognises it’s never easy bringing up the subject of funeral planning. “So if this letter has arrived at an inappropriate time” ( Whoops! The corpse is on trestles in the parlour.) I’m to accept their apologies.
The offer will save me woe since “many funerals do not proceed as the deceased would have wished”. But what about the wishes of the living? Are RIAS and Dignity going to prevent them from getting smashed out of their minds or are they aware this is what I may have planned? For the record (I repeat a disclosure I made to Lucy who will think I’m getting obsessional on the subject), the coffin will be cardboard, the Humanist eulogy will be written by me to ensure correct punctuation, the music will include the trio from Cosi, the list song from Don Giovanni and Kodachrome by the guy what wrote it. To drink: real burgundy (Imagine RIAS’s premium!). To eat: Glasgow mutton pies. Those with good memories may recite prose and/or poetry.
What’s more to pre-arrange?
7 comments:
But which recordings of the list and the trio? Important decisions!
An obituary, one supposes.
Julia: Janet Baker, Monserrat Caballé and Richard Van Allan for the trio. I'll let you choose the Leporello.
Plutarch: Why not use Graham Greene's and change the names?
My memory for reciting might improve a bit after sufficient Burgundy. Or I might think it had anyway. The mutton pies sound irresisitible.
Funerals, one's own especially, are endlessly fascinating things to fantasise about. So I wonder why so many of them are so poorly done?
For me: a cremation, no service and ashes scattered by the seat of my favourite cycling stop on Romney Marsh.
Lucy: The burgundy I provide will free your memory banks.
Avus: But what's in it for the person who dusts your crop? A half of Shepherd-Neame?
Oh - I think I can run to a pint. S-N's "Bishop's Finger" would be a good one. (Known as "Nun's Delight" amongst the profane!)
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