Well, I’m finally back after a long slog through the admittedly enjoyable but ultimately menial task of  binging the 4 series of Succession. What a horrible family, all the characters are despicable in their own delightfully rotten way, I have no sympathy for them, until someone ups the ante and the dilemma begins again, but on reflection they’re all wretched folk who deserve no air time, sadly they rule the air. Bummer.

So I thought i’d tell you about the last 2 days; the final day of July and the first day of August, a wet, muddy, dirty summer. Europe is on fire, heat rages unbeaten across the tourist hot spots, folk can’t cope with the extremes, and people are complaining about ruined holidays, all the while the Earth burns and melts, the Oil  and Gas companies make gigantic profits, chuckling as pearls drop into champagne flutes and the fish wash up poisoned in their thousands on some faraway beach. It feels as though we are bit part players in some dreadful apocalyptic movies ; a sort of “Threads” for the 2020’s (Google it if you don’t know the film threads, not the new social network app, a 1980’s low budget desolate look at Sheffield in the prelaunch and the aftermath of a global Nuclear war) I’ve been to 2 funerals in the last 2 days, in 2 different crematoriums, one a good friend’s wonderful Dad called Barry and the other a neighbour, also a wonderful Dad and grandad to lots and lots of kids and Grandkids, nieces and nephews. Both wonderful men, both will be sorely missed judging by the filled chapels, today’s standing room on either side of the Chapel. Funny thing is the same priest, vicar, master of ceremonies was to and did actually preside over the service. A softly spoken slim chap with swept back sandy hair and a voice like that of Whispering Bob Harris, an empathy which from a unknowing bystander like myself led me to think he had know both these Wonderful men for all their lives, he was a little younger but could imagine them being friends. Which I guess is exactly what you’d want the person in charge to be like. The last funeral I went to was my Dad’s a year and a half ago, and I can’t remember what the vicar was like at all, he still visits my Mum and chats about God and the like, filling her mind with stuff other than the alarmist headlines, nay untruths of the Daily Mail and for that much I am grateful, Mum seems to draw strength from him, which can only be a good thing. 

The first funeral had a couple of hymns and a few prayers, a Niel Diamond song and Sinatra “Fly me to the Moon”. The second, Stevie Wonder’s “I just called…” and a Queen song I can’t remember the title of, no prayers and no hymns, but lots of Eulogies and tales remembering the man . Beautiful, I fucking hate prayers and hymns. 

But something quite miraculous happened at the first funeral, having forgotten to have any breakfast due to a barrowload of tedious file management at work which needed doing before I skived off. I realised, after the ceremony when we had all made our way to the wake in a nearby pub, I was very very hungry, stomach was growling and I couldn’t concentrate through hunger. My Ears were finely tuned into the bar staff and I saw platters of sandwiches being carried through to the attached room, behind privacy screens to stop next door tables listening in to each others conversations rather leaning against the opaque glass dividers and giving their neighbours a good view of their ear flattened against the glass. So I took a walk round to check, came back and told Mrs T, and wondered what should I do. 

Is it good etiquette to dive in to the buffet first at a funeral? Some one has to, someones got to be first. From my own experience I know I was happy to have a drink and go into auto pilot, chatting with the concerned and well wishers. I couldn’t imagine Barry’s daughter would get stuck in first. But would there be an announcement? I couldn’t stand it, I looked at Barry’s son in law, he gave me the nod, and I was in before you could say “Jack Robinson”, if indeed you wanted to say that.

First in at the Funeral Buffet, some one had to be.

RIP Baz and RIP Les.