A SURVEY this week found that, to save money, more than half of us would be happy to not have a funeral.
Really? Because what’s the alternative? Someone chucks your body in a canal?
Some people are considering a no-fuss ‘direct funeral’, where your ashes just get delivered in the postBBC
Even if you want to avoid burdening your family with big funeral costs, they do want to remember youGetty
I get the problem, of course.
If, when you die, you have £10,000 in savings, you want as much of this nest egg as possible to go to your children, and as little as possible to go to the florist and the organist.
It turns out, however, there’s something called a “direct funeral”.
You die. An undertaker whizzes you off to the crematorium, pops you in the oven and that’s that.
Your relatives get the ashes a few days later in the post.
I’m not sure I’d like that though, as I’ve always imagined I’d make my final journey in the back of a black Jaguar.
Not on the passenger seat of Postman Pat’s van.
But I’ve done some checking, and it seems some of these “direct” operations get four out of five stars from the people who use them. Which seems weird.
“How did you enjoy your experience in the oven this afternoon sir?”
But I can see the appeal of doing it this way because while a normal funeral, with flowers and the baby Jesus and a burial, is upwards of £4,000 these days, a direct funeral can be bought for less than £900.
Can it though? Because the truth of the matter is that your friends and family won’t just carry on as normal while you’re being disposed of.
No one goes to work on the day their mum or dad is at the crematorium.
They don’t go to the gym either, or the cinema.
They take the day off, and they meet with all your friends for a drink and some sandwiches.
And that’s where the costs are. Because let’s face it, a funeral party is still a party. And parties cost money.
The best thing is probably to shop around.
Belfast is a surprisingly inexpensive place to be cremated. And think about timing.
Crematoriums are much cheaper before ten in the morning, and at that time of the day, none of the guests want to hit the Scotch.
Which makes the after-show party cheaper.
The most important thing, though, is to never think that your death doesn’t matter. It does.
Which is why, when I go, I want to be transported in a modified Lexus LFA to Lincoln Cathedral, where the London Philharmonic Orchestra will play all of the rock opera Tommy. With lasers.
THE PM NAILS IT
PEOPLE mocked Mr Rishi this week after video footage emerged of him using the side of a hammer rather than the end.
Jezza explains why there’s nothing wrong with Rishi Sunak using a hammer like thisAP
It’s far from Miliband’s bacon sarnie momentEvening Standard
Many said it was his Ed Miliband bacon sandwich moment. But no.
Speaking as a man who has spent many years working with hammers and who knows this is the true tool of a gentleman, I can assure you using the side is more sensible than using the end.
It’s bigger. So you’re less likely to miss what you’re aiming at.
FUTURE LOOKS PANTS
ALL week it’s been a bit cold, so naturally everyone turned their heating up a bit.
Which put an enormous strain on the country’s electricity supply.
And to make matters worse, it’s also been very still. Which means that all of our 11,000 wind turbines have been sitting there, inert, stationary and useless.
To deal with the issue, the electricity companies tried to buy power from Europe.
And were told: “Not a chance, mate. We’ve got the same problems over here.”
And so, on Wednesday, households across the country were contacted by their suppliers and offered cash money to not use a washing machine or a cooker between 5 and 6.30 in the evening.
Yup, 12,000 years after civilisation began, we’ve reached a point where we’re forced to sit in a cold house, in dirty pants, eating uncooked food from a can.
Welcome, then, to the utopian future envisioned by those pink-haired lunatics at Just Stop Oil.
The only upside is that power shortages mean people won’t be able to charge their electric Teslas.
And will have to burn them to stay warm.
Shut happens in space craft’s asteroid mission
IN September of 2016, an $800million Atlas V space craft blasted off from Cape Canaveral and sent a small research probe on a two-year rendezvous mission with an asteroid called 101955 Bennu.
Boffins collected samples from an asteroid and got them to float down to a pre-arranged point in the Utah desertGetty
ReutersThe Atlas V space craft blasts off from Cape Canaveral in 2016[/caption]
More than two years later it arrived at a point 12 miles from the asteroid’s surface and, after a careful descent, spent precisely five seconds on the surface, collecting samples before setting off on its 200million-mile journey back to Earth.
In September of this year, while passing the Earth at an altitude of 63,000 miles and a speed of 27,600mph, it ejected a jar containing the sample it had collected and this floated down to a pre-arranged point in the Utah desert.
Scientists recovered it from there and have spent the past two months trying, unsuccessfully so far, to get the lid off.
HAND BACK CORFU
ALL week, people have been running around saying that the British Museum should hand back its marbles to the Greeks.
The BBC argument goes that these sculptures – which don’t look like marbles to me – were stolen by the British from the Parthenon in Athens.
Greece might want to acknowledge British history in Corfu in any talks over the Elgin marblesAlamy
But that’s not entirely accurate.
Over the years, the Parthenon was used as a gunpowder store by the Turks and later, some of the rubble from the inevitable explosion was used to make a mosque.
Most of the rest was looted.
So a chap called the Earl of Elgin decided that in order to preserve the remaining “marbles”, he’d ship them back to England.
Is that theft? Hmmm.
Naturally, some diplomacy is necessary to sort all this out, so I’d like to propose a swap.
We accept that, historically, the marbles are Greek and give them back.
And Greece accepts that Corfu and Zante are historically British and gives them back to us.
It’s pie in the sky
VIRGIN has flown a large passenger jet all the way across the Atlantic using nothing but so-called sustainable aviation fuel.
Needless to say, everyone is very happy about this and have been running about claiming it will usher in a new dawn of guilt-free, net-zero travel.
Seems unlikely that fish and chips can keep start flying us across the AtlanticReuters
Hmmm. Sustainable aviation fuel may sound like it’s made from fresh lemons and the tears of newborn babies.
But the truth is that the tanks on Beardy Branson’s Boeing were filled with dead animals, fat and sewage.
It has been suggested that cooking oil could be used instead, and that’s probably true.
But as a single round trip to the States would need 100 tonnes of the stuff, we’d have to eat an awful lot of fish and chips for there to be enough leftover oil to keep the aviation business going.
And what happens when a bit of batter gets stuck in the engine?
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