Book Review: Unspoken by Luke Allnutt

This Kindle single is an intensely personal story of death and loss. The writer's father is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the book deals with him coming to terms with this and also his expectations of what the loss will be like. Allnutt discusses how attitudes towards death have changed as has the idea of …

Would You Rather? Part 4: Caves, Clowns and Climbing Trees

Would you rather be the best in the world at climbing trees or the best in the world at jumping rope? I think I would go for the trees, because that's probably something I'd enjoy more. I could be a nature photographer or something, climbing up to get pictures of the critters and whatnot. Being …

Bampa

Farmer Giles looked up in the sky, just as a bird pooed in his eye, said Farmer Giles "Thank goodness cows can't fly" My grandad died the other week, after a short spell in hospital. He was 86, and when he was admitted it was clear that his time was coming to an end. The …

A belated thank you to Dr Heimlech

This weekend saw the passing of Dr Henry Heimlich, famous for his life saving technique. I'm not going to lie reading his brief obit from the Beeb there were two things that hit me (a) surprise, as I thought he was already dead and (b) shock, as I'd assumed the manoeuvre had been around a lot longer. …

In memory of Alan Rickman. In defence of Emma Watson

This week saw the passing of Alan Rickman, a truly great actor who appeared in many great movies like Die Hard, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Love Actually, Galaxy Quest, Dogma and Sense & Sensibility, where he oozed dignity and decency as Brandon. To a younger generation he will always be known as Professor Snape …

Bowie

I don't know when I first heard David Bowie, but I have a good idea that it was in my Dad's car. I think a lot of us get some pop music education from our parents and I'm lucky that my Dad had some decent taste. The Stones, Dylan and Neil Young were all artists …

Lemmy

I woke up this morning to the news that Lemmy had died. Despite the rocker having lived and partied hard for his 70 years, it came as a shock. Lemmy just felt like one of those faces who had always been there, and you kinda felt always would. Like most folks my first experience of …

The role I’m dying to play

Like a lot of people I have a bucket list (see the link at the top of this page), but rather more unusually I have a post-death ambition as well. Yes, this topic might be a tad morbid, but it randomly came back to me this week. I'm not a gloomy person normally, but I …

Mixed Bag: Holy Hypotheticals, Batman

All of these are courtesy of The Daily Post's Daily Prompts. Prompts paraphrased so I can get this posted by midnight. Back In School In a reversal of Big, the Tom Hanks classic, your adult self is suddenly stuck in the body of a 12 year old. How do you survive your first day in school? …

Book Review: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

In this book Mary Roach addresses the question of what happens to us after we die. Not in a "is there a heaven? Or are we reincarnated?" way but in a more literal sense. What happens to our bodies after we die? It turns out, that a lot of stuff can happen, especially if you …