Nice If You Can Get It

I was researching the subject of embalming when I came across a customer's review for a practical guide book on the subject "Embalming: History, Theory, and Practice" by Robert G. Mayer.

"I have bought this book and quite honestly believe that it should be directed to the american way of embalming full stop. It is filled with advanced instruction, and also a lot of page filling bumf!. For the embalmer here in britain who is working in a small family firm, this book would only be refered to if they were presented with a case that needed restoration and were quite frankly at a loss what to do. Even so the time factor to restore a badly damaged case would not be practical to some areas were the body was needed for viewing like yesterday!. The americans spend a lot of time on presentation, nice if you can get it. If I had the time I would use some of their methods, but hey I am here in England, and run off my feet. Give me the british way of embalming any day."

I can't help but admire such a matter-of-fact way of viewing humans that are no-longer amongst the living. It's interesting to find us Brits don't have time for the American-style of "presentation". I'm glad to see we have a healthy disrespect of the dead. When I was having my will drawn up recently, I was asked if I had any special requests for disposal of my corpse I suggested a heavy duty bin bag.

Really, if you want to have a nicely crafted wooden box made for me to lie in, I'd rather have it now so I can enjoy it.

Aid for Sudan

There's a humanitarian crisis in Sudan where the citizens are facing dangerously low supplies of a sense of humour. As increasing cases of the "seriousness" disease are being reported, there are growing fears the illness could soon spread to other nations. But the Sudanese government refuse to acknowledge there is even a problem. "If God had meant us to have as sense of humour, he'd never have invented religion." said one government official.

Finally, A Reason To Be Proud To Be British

"you talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter".

We're not completely crap.