funereality

I didn't see Mrs. T's funeral – it seemed like a private matter, between her and the Tory party. After all, they created her and they destroyed her – it was only fitting that they should bury her too. Mrs. T was big on 'thrift' as I recall (even if her success was largely based on City boys conjuring money out of thin air), so perhaps she would have preferred to be dumped into the Thames in a weighted cardboard box. I think I would have preferred that, especially as I was paying towards it, but they went for the 3.6 million pound option after all. Apparently it was all very tasteful, and the crowds applauded, which apparently was not a protest.

And the other week I went to a real funeral – that of Bernard Sidney Sadler, Mat's father. This took place in a white-painted chapel like something out of the American Mid-West, pleasingly light and airy, but definitely in Essex. It was too light in a way, since the sun continued to beat down on my unprotected scalp even inside the place, coming at me through a skylight. A baseball cap had been rejected as inappropriate wear – I don't own a black one. Still, it seems indelicate to complain of 'roasting' in a crematorium; and obviously it could have been worse.

The service conveyed Bernie's personality with a light touch. His presence was felt, and the humanist preacher's slightly lugubrious delivery formed a nice contrast with Peaches, by The Stranglers, at the end. Even if it was the 'clean' version, with 'Summer' replacing 'bummer'. Some concessions to good taste must be made on these occasions. Still, except for the faint melancholy undertone of 'There goes the charabanc', it was still splendidly inappropriate for a funeral. And risky. Suppose they had accidentally played something by foul-mouthed female Canadian singer/rapper Peaches instead? Or even the other Peaches, by the Presidents of the USA? 'Peaches come from a can/They were put there by a man', the assembled mourners would have been bemused to learn. I expect Bernie would have been amused in any case.

We had been discussing inappropriate records to play at a cremation earlier on in the week, and in fact one had been playing on the radio when I'd got into Bobs' car to go to the funeral – Katy Perry's Firework. It strikes me that the one good thing about dying might just be the chance to force people to listen to your music collection. Naturally, I have considered this at some length with respect to my own funeral, and thus far I have come up with three choices. First there'll be Espresso, by the Monochrome Set, a jaunty number whose chorus goes: 'I'm going to Heaven, baby'. Then the post-apocalyptic folk rock of Swans, with Why Are We Alive? This should inject the right note of forbidding gloom into the occasion, plus ideally it will have people (if any) asking: 'Why are we alive, and he isn't?' And hopefully the answer won't be: because we didn't experiment with auto-erotic asphyxiation.

Lastly will come Chic's At Last I Am Free. Played over the end credits of the German film Barbara, this has the effect of turning a good film into a great one, so I'm hoping that it will have a similiar effect on my life, maybe even raising it to average.

Anyway, then we repaired to Sunshine House. Under the black umbrella of mourning a kind of reunion was taking place. People you never see nowadays were suddenly there. Even Dave, now svelte and beardless. That's what Malvern can do for you - if you catch a virus there (he's feeling better now).

Rhys was also present. He and Mat are going to write a self-help book 'for losers'. I said that the biggest problem they might have would be establishing their credentials as successful people. They looked bewildered - they held this to be self-evident. In any case the book is likely to end with instructions on how to shoot yourself.
 

Mat wants everyone to wear white at his funeral – specifically, Stormtrooper outfits (we're talking Star Wars, not Nazis, I should point out.) As an experiment, it would be interesting to see what would happen if we ignored his instructions (and his atheism) and gave him a full Catholic mass. Would he forsake rationalism and come back from the dead in order to register his displeasure? However, being ten years older, I am unlikely to make that one.

Time marches on. I used to imagine that old age is something I could stride through, ignoring it as I might a charity collector on the high street. Evidence is building to the contrary. It seems that I am far more likely to curl up like an Autumn leaf, though more gradually, before being blown into the abyss by an icy blast. Oh well. Best carry on drinking.