sweasel.com

One would think that on “a small, overcrowded island” there would be strong motivation to embrace cremation.

Oh. Wait. The greenies would riot.

There was a Science Fiction short story in Analog years ago, author and title long forgotten, about Earth having no space left for burials, and it had become the one place that everyone wanted to buried back on Old Earth the birthplace of humans.

Rich guy from far away tried to buy a burial plot and couldn’t do it. But he noticed the robot gardeners spreading fertilizer on the flowers and since he was a fertilizer seller his problem was solved.

I’ve been watching Great Canal Journeys and really enjoying it. Besides liking canals, West and Scales, tho lefty loons, are pretty interesting and endearing.

So what’s British for “Soylent Green”?

I seem to recall that the biggest cemetery company in the US, Forest Lawn, got in trouble (or at least there was some huge outrage) for burying indigents standing up in a segregated, less expensive area of one of their cemeteries in the Los Angeles area, to save space. I believe it was called post-holing the beggars in the cheap seats.

I’m curious if Brits put the wooden coffins into concrete boxes, like in the US. If so, then the stick poking process seems like it would work fine. You’d hit concrete.

But if the cemetery is old, wouldn’t the wood be rotted? Thus the stick might go in fine, but during the digging its OMG time.

I grew up in the greater Kingston, NY metropolitan area.

There is one of the oldest churches in America there and a few really old cemeteries, dating to the 1600s.
Edit: Found the website for the Old Dutch Church from 1659
http://www.olddutchchurch.org/

In nearby Hurley, home of the Old Stone Houses, there is one of the really old ones.

The epitaphs are freaky, one guy has a serious curse on anybody walking on his grave.
That was the favorite place to take people who had passed out at parties so they could wake up on a cursed grave.

This is why I want to go up the chimney when I kick the bucket. Added benefit is that as our village lacks a proper waste water treatment, flushing the ashes down the loo will ensure I enter the river to begin a new journey.

Cremations far outnumber burials here, Uncle Al. And they never do that horrible embalming thing we do in the States.

I’ve always thought I wanted to be buried, though. I like the idea of turning into something that would terrify small children.

My parents were cremated and bits of them have travelled all around the world, save Antarctica. That’s what I want my kids to do to me, too.

My dad didn’t make it to the glacier in Alaska, however, because he was still alive when we drove up there to leave a piece of Mom. It would have been a little premature. 😜

Watched a Jonathon Meades documentary on Salisbury Cathedral. He attended school there when a gardener pricked his finger on a thorn and died of tetanus. Meade attended the inquest and they ruled that the cause of death was due to the churchyard being filled with so many bodies that the ground was contaminated.

Saw a documentary on Shakespeare’s grave. He is buried with his family under the floor of the local Stratford church. The church wd not allow the grave to be excavated, thank God, but they did use radar equipment that showed soil disturbance signifying bodies had been buried there. The Shakespeares were buried the old way wrapped in a simply cloth shroud. Makes sense. You’re going to rot anyway, the quicker the better.

I always find it touching when they find babies secretly buried in churchyards. The church wd not allow burial due to the parents behavior, so the family wd sneak in at night and bury the child on church ground.

Shakespeare’s Tomb:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP_rS8ZOxyY

For the past few weeks I’ve been researching family genealogy, and it’s such relief to see the photo of a headstone that answers a question. I always want to be cremated, but now seeing those headstones, I’m not so sure. Maybe my ashes can be buried over my mother, and I’ll arrange to have a new headstone made for the two of us.

I’ve only seen secular UK burials in movies. Flowers are piled outside the chapel, people go inside and the coffin is on a conveyor belt. After the eulogies, they flip a switch and the coffin moves back thru a door with flames. I dont think in real life the mourners would see the flames. Seems too disturbing. I think the coffin must go out of sight and then into the oven.

p.s.: Those of you who want to be dumped into the ocean – do you really want to end up as fish poo??

No, tom, they don’t use concrete vaults and you’re quite right that means only recent burials would show up. Believe me, I’ve fretted about the possibility of the digging going horribly wrong.

My neighbor ratted me out to the vicar, that I have expressed a desire to be the first under-floor burial in our church. Though, who knows what might be under there? There just aren’t any stones or other markers in the floor. Vicar didn’t think she could get permission to dig up the bricks 🙁

Ah well. But maybe you could design your own headstone. I wonder how many headstones have a weasel on them?

Isnt your church fairly old, Stoaty? They shd get one of those radar machines and survey the place. They could make some money burying people if there is room.

Again, a ground radar machine shd show old burials in the churchyard. I’ve watched Time Team for decades so I’m an expert. 🙂

Isn’t that where they bury saints’ bones Stoaty?

You should work on becoming the patron saint of P-shoppers.