About Me

I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Imagine the horror of lying on your death bed knowing you’d never made a bucket list What drives this list is the fear of dying with regrets for what you haven’t yet done I’m a firm believer in lists. Lists importantly titled “Things To Do (Urgent)”. Lists compiled in December of all the new people you met in the previous 12 months. Lists of unpleasant tasks to be undergone, cunningly salted with easily-crossed-off mini-tasks (“Ring emergency rising-damp people. Weigh self. Ring school to complain about child’s detention. Make ham sandwich…”) But there’s one list I can’t bring myself to make: the bucket list, of things you’d like to acquire or achieve before you die. According to new research by a tour-specialist company, 40 per cent of 39-year-olds now draw up bucket lists. Among those surveyed, a few simply want to make their first million before they die – a uniquely pointless ambition, under the circumstances. Some (one in five, apparently) want to own a Porsche. Others long to have daredevil fun with bungee ropes or lunar expeditions. “It was great,” said the researchers, “to see the emphasis placed on experiences over material aims.”     (Source: The Guardian)

    Imagine the horror of lying on your death bed knowing you’d never made a bucket list

    What drives this list is the fear of dying with regrets for what you haven’t yet done

    I’m a firm believer in lists. Lists importantly titled “Things To Do (Urgent)”. Lists compiled in December of all the new people you met in the previous 12 months. Lists of unpleasant tasks to be undergone, cunningly salted with easily-crossed-off mini-tasks (“Ring emergency rising-damp people. Weigh self. Ring school to complain about child’s detention. Make ham sandwich…”) But there’s one list I can’t bring myself to make: the bucket list, of things you’d like to acquire or achieve before you die.

    According to new research by a tour-specialist company, 40 per cent of 39-year-olds now draw up bucket lists. Among those surveyed, a few simply want to make their first million before they die – a uniquely pointless ambition, under the circumstances. Some (one in five, apparently) want to own a Porsche. Others long to have daredevil fun with bungee ropes or lunar expeditions. “It was great,” said the researchers, “to see the emphasis placed on experiences over material aims.”    

    (Source: The Guardian)

    Dead and Buried is an innovative research project that enagaged a group of young people with the opportunity to work alongside Dr Hannah Rumble, from Bath University’s Centre for Death and Society and Charlotte Chapman, a facilitator from Kumiko Community Arts, to engage in a participatory arts project exploring death and natural burial. The project ran for 7 weeks, meeting one afternoon a week, at The Park local opportunity centre in Knowle West, Bristol. The participants ranged in age from 17 to 25 and all came from very different backgrounds.
    Through a series of structured workshops that provoked questioning and exploration around death and burial, the young people were encourgaed to think critically, to explore these themes and develop a “creative response”. 
    The result was a very successfull week long exhibition at Centrespace Gallery in Bristol in April 2013.

    (Source: Vimeo)

    Top 10: Movies About Death, Dying, and Loss

    Whether humorous, tragic, or a bit of both, movies about death and dying may help us deal with our own grief. Sometimes it’s cathartic to see how others cope with the pain of losing a loved one. 

    This is my top 10 list of movies about loss. Each of these movies, in their own way, has been a catalyst for understanding the complex and difficult feelings associated with death and grief.  I hope you recognize some of your favorites on this list, and discover new ones as well. 

    Read more.

    Via The Chirurgeon’s Apprentice.

    He's a dead cert: Gamblers betting on whether hospital patients will live or die... and even relatives and doctors have a flutter!

    A macabre new gambling trend is starting to gather pace in Taiwan where bets are being placed on the life expectancy of sick patients.

    Worth more than £20million ($30m) the death gambling market in the town of Taichun is allowing people to wager a bet on when the old, the cancer-ridden and terminally-ill will die.

    The craze is not just restricted to ghoulish gamblers - bets have also been placed by doctors, nurses and other hospital staff as well as families and guardians.

    Read more here!

    What do people die of? Mortality rates and data for every cause of death in 2011 visualised It may happen to all of us eventually, but fewer of us are dying right now than at any time since mortality data was collected. In a dramatic reportthe latest figures also show that more people are dying of cancer than of circulatory diseases, for the first time since the data was recorded.

    What do people die of? Mortality rates and data for every cause of death in 2011 visualised

    It may happen to all of us eventually, but fewer of us are dying right now than at any time since mortality data was collected. In a dramatic reportthe latest figures also show that more people are dying of cancer than of circulatory diseases, for the first time since the data was recorded.

    • Posted 5 months ago
    • December 17th, 2012

    3 Likes & Reblogs

    Funeral museums liven up the death industry In a recent blog post, I called Philadelphia the most haunted city in the USA, due to the high number of number of commercial haunted houses that spring to life this time of year. Reader Ann Marcum notes that the Buckeye state has its own deathly fascinations. It’s home to no fewer than four funeral-related museums. The granddaddy of the genre, however, is in Texas, where the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston (its motto: “Any day above ground is a good one”) presents 12 exhibits, from the History of Embalming to Presidential Funerals. If you’re looking for a skull-shaped shift knob ($11), the museum’s store is where you’ll find it. The museum is also events venue for car shows, sporting events and a seasonal haunted house (through Nov. 6). Ohio’s nod to the funerary realm are less ambitious, perhaps, but in the spirit of the season, here’s a rundown. The Peoples Mortuary Museum in Marietta is connected to a working mortuary and showcases memorabilia from the early 1900s, along with 1920s- to 1940s-era hearses. Tucked in the basement of the Sturgis House Bed & Breakfast, a funeral parlor turned lodging in East Liverpool, is an “informal” funeral museum. Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Public Enemy No. 1 in 1934, was embalmed here before being shipped off to Oklahoma. His death mask hangs above the washing machine. “The B&B doesn’t really advertise this, but will take guests/visitors through upon request,” Marcum writes. Famous Endings Museum in Dover, showcases one man’s collection of more than 1,500 celebrity-death-related items. Listen to audio recordings from funerals of the famous and check out celebrity grave markers. And finally, the William Lafferty Memorial Funeral and Carriage Collection, as its name suggests, sports a large collection of antique hearses, both motorized and horse-drawn, that date to 1848.

    Funeral museums liven up the death industry

    In a recent blog post, I called Philadelphia the most haunted city in the USA, due to the high number of number of commercial haunted houses that spring to life this time of year.

    Reader Ann Marcum notes that the Buckeye state has its own deathly fascinations. It’s home to no fewer than four funeral-related museums.

    The granddaddy of the genre, however, is in Texas, where the National Museum of Funeral History in Houston (its motto: “Any day above ground is a good one”) presents 12 exhibits, from the History of Embalming to Presidential Funerals.

    If you’re looking for a skull-shaped shift knob ($11), the museum’s store is where you’ll find it. The museum is also events venue for car shows, sporting events and a seasonal haunted house (through Nov. 6).

    Ohio’s nod to the funerary realm are less ambitious, perhaps, but in the spirit of the season, here’s a rundown.

    The Peoples Mortuary Museum in Marietta is connected to a working mortuary and showcases memorabilia from the early 1900s, along with 1920s- to 1940s-era hearses.

    Tucked in the basement of the Sturgis House Bed & Breakfast, a funeral parlor turned lodging in East Liverpool, is an “informal” funeral museum. Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd, Public Enemy No. 1 in 1934, was embalmed here before being shipped off to Oklahoma. His death mask hangs above the washing machine.

    “The B&B doesn’t really advertise this, but will take guests/visitors through upon request,” Marcum writes.

    Famous Endings Museum in Dover, showcases one man’s collection of more than 1,500 celebrity-death-related items. Listen to audio recordings from funerals of the famous and check out celebrity grave markers.

    And finally, the William Lafferty Memorial Funeral and Carriage Collection, as its name suggests, sports a large collection of antique hearses, both motorized and horse-drawn, that date to 1848.

    The Big Questions: What happens after you die?

    WHAT happens after you die? I can name you 47 men who have tried to harness the rational horsepower of science to answer this most floaty question. Some were physicians, some physicists, some psychologists. Two were Nobel prizewinners. One is a sheep rancher. They have tackled it in labs, in hospital operating rooms, in barns behind their houses. Of them, only one, to date, has landed an irrefutable proof - not a suggestive nugget or an inexplicable anomaly, but the sort of answer you could plant your flag into and say, “Victory! Now I know for certain.” The man’s name was Thomas Lynn Bradford.

    Full article here!

    • Posted 8 months ago
    • September 16th, 2012

    2 Likes & Reblogs

    How the Dead Move Among Us When people die, their bodies are sometimes flown elsewhere for burial. It’s one of those pathways happening daily that we just don’t think about, but, as this map created by PBS’s America Revealed and 422 South shows, it looks something like this. The map was created using U.S. air traffic data, the show’s executive producer Tony Tackaberry told The Atlantic Wire. It is one of many maps created by America Revealed, which aired in the U.S. in the spring. In the map, you can see the traveling of bodies from the retirees in Florida back to various home towns. ”Although we have a strong notion of what travels by air through our skies we seldom think about the transport of other items such as prisoners or cadavers,” Tackaberry said. “This graphic is designed to reveal the hidden nature of these flights amongst the many passenger flights across the USA.” America Revealed is still streaming in full on PBS.org.  Fascinating!

    How the Dead Move Among Us

    When people die, their bodies are sometimes flown elsewhere for burial. It’s one of those pathways happening daily that we just don’t think about, but, as this map created by PBS’s America Revealed and 422 South shows, it looks something like this.

    The map was created using U.S. air traffic data, the show’s executive producer Tony Tackaberry told The Atlantic Wire. It is one of many maps created by America Revealed, which aired in the U.S. in the spring. In the map, you can see the traveling of bodies from the retirees in Florida back to various home towns. ”Although we have a strong notion of what travels by air through our skies we seldom think about the transport of other items such as prisoners or cadavers,” Tackaberry said. “This graphic is designed to reveal the hidden nature of these flights amongst the many passenger flights across the USA.”

    America Revealed is still streaming in full on PBS.org. 

    Fascinating!

    Want to cheer yourself up? Go for a walk in a cemetery

    Thinking about death can actually be a good thing as it leads people to bring positive changes to their lives and help others

    For an awareness of mortality can improve physical health and help us re-prioritize our goals and values, according to the latest analysis of recent scientific studies.

    Even non-conscious thinking about death - such as walking by a cemetery - could prompt positive changes and promote helping others, say psychologists.

    The report says that past research suggests that thinking about death is destructive and dangerous, fueling everything from prejudice and greed to violence.

    Such studies related to terror management theory, which posits that we uphold certain cultural beliefs to manage our feelings of mortality, have rarely explored the potential benefits of death awareness.

    “This tendency for TMT research to primarily deal with negative attitudes and harmful behaviors has become so deeply entrenched in our field that some have recently suggested that death awareness is simply a bleak force of social destruction,” says Kenneth Vail of the University of Missouri, lead author of the new study in the online edition of Personality and Social Psychology Review this month.

    At last! A penchant for all things morbid is good for you - scientific fact! Sort of.

    • Posted 10 months ago
    • July 3rd, 2012

    10 Likes & Reblogs

    The Meaning of Death: How do we know someone is no longer alive?

    At what point does a person actually die? That depends on who you ask. To one person, it’s the moment the heart stops beating. To another, it’s when the brain enters a “vegetative” state. But a heart can be forced to keep beating; and how dead is a person, really, if she can continue to grow, develop, and even give birth after experiencing “brain death”?

    In search of answers, we turned to Dick Teresi. A seasoned science writer and the former editor of Science Digest and Omni, Teresi has spent the last ten years researching and writing about the science behind the line that separates life and death. He has recounted his findings and experiences in his new book, The Undead: Organ Harvesting, the Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers — How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death.

    • Posted 10 months ago
    • June 27th, 2012

    23 Likes & Reblogs