Boundary dispute…with the dead

December 20th, 2007 Written by Biz

I’ve often noted that once you start to actively watch out for synchronicity in your life, it tends to make itself felt more and more often. That has certainly been the case today…but let me back track a few days. For the past week I have been laid low with some sort of virus which at times has rendered me unable to even leave my bed…(come on now)…Aaaaahhhhhh (it’s Panto Season after all). 

 

Now, as I was lying in bed today with no strength and an aching body, I mused that as bad as things were, they could certainly be a darn sight worse…I could have Bird Flu, Necrotising Fasciitis, Bubonic Plague…or even be dead; but were I to die, there’s one thing for sure…I’d make a damn sure that I wasn’t buried in Basildon (Essex). 

 

During my morose introversions, a news item flashed up that synchronously linked up with my death theme but also quite neatly placed Basildon Council in the very upper echelons of my league table of the Stupidest Councils in the land; Basildon Council are taking part in a bit of a ‘land grab’ in Basildon Cemetery. True to form, the gutless noncy socialist types that inhabit these Councils and who tend to pick on the weak, the disempowered and those with no ‘voice’ have surpassed themselves, as you generally can’t get very much weaker, disempowered or voiceless than when you are deceased! 

 

The necro-pilferers at Basildon Council, have decided that from now on, all graves must be only 3ft in length. To this end, they have already started bulldozing a number of graves, damaging several headstones in the process. The general idea is that they will ‘shift along’ all existing graves, thereby creating more space in the Cemetery. But how is this to work practically? 

 

Generally a standard plot is about 6ft long and taking into account the total length of a body in a coffin, all of this space is actually required. Now as far as I can see there are only two ways that this could work. 

 

1. Leave all the bodies where they are and only move the headstones along by the required 3ft. This is the easiest option, but unfortunately were the Council to do this, then every grave plot would actually only contain half of an actual body (I’m sure that all the relatives would be hoping that they got the top end); but worse than that, every second headstone would actually be positioned over the ‘arse end’ of a total stranger in a bizarre deceased version of ‘pick and mix’. 
2. The alternative would be to actually disinter the coffins and move them along…but how do you make a 6ft coffin fit into a 3ft space? I suppose you could chop the coffin in half and re-interr the two halves like a sort of dead man’s double – decker…but then, I suppose the Council would feel duty bound to impose some sort of double occupancy surcharge…as they are often wont to do. 

 

No doubt, Basildon Council has some sort of fiendishly clever action plan devised to make their moronic idea work, but even though I have even gone so far as to get out my draughts board and try to re-arrange the pieces (pretending that they were coffins) to come up with some sort of solution…no solution was forthcoming. 

 

So now, as I sit here, my weary eyes closing after the stress of pondering tactical coffin strategies, I have resolved that should my malady overcome me during the night and should I not live to see another dawn…I hereby invoke the foulest curses of Hades upon any desecrator of my grave. And should any lowlife Council disregard my warning, so that some poor stranger ends up grieving over my lower half…I’ll be back to haunt you…just like in Randall and Hopkirk! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Entry Filed under: Rants & Views