In article ,
Pete Verdon d writes:
ARWadsworth wrote:
"Grimly Curmudgeon" wrote
I remember "OG" saying something like:

cardboard coffin failure. I know funerals are distressing anyway,
but the body falling out of the coffin made the whole thing much
worse for everyone.

If I wasn't dead at the time, I'd laugh like ****.

So would I.

It's not quite a collapsing coffin, but my granny's funeral stank of
cow**** as the farmer next door to the church chose that afternoon to
clean out his sheds. The general consensus was that granny would have
found this highly amusing.

I've been to a couple of funerals where someone was playing some
very well know pieces of music incredibly badly on the organ,
sufficiently so that the audience all started looking around at
each other in disbelief. At one of them, when the music finished,
this ghostly figure emerged from the organ console and slowly
walked up the isle with a zimmer frame. The whole audience had
to look down at the floor and try really hard not to burst out
laughing -- a sea of shoulders bouncing in silent laughter.
Afterwards, we were sure the deceased, who was a musician, was
having a laugh with us from up there somewhere.

Another occasion, a friend who was a distant relative of the
deceased and is herself a cellist, offered to play a solo
piece at the crematorium. Sitting up front, she went through
her solo fine. Later in the service, one of the speakers
introduced another piece of music which was apparently one of
the favourates of the deceased, and the mourners sat in silence
listening to "Smoke gets in your eyes", which she thought was
a bizzare choice at a chrematorium, but she didn't know the
deceased very well. Afterwards, outside a row broke out.
It turns out, they played the wrong side of the record.
She never did find out what was supposed to be played, but
apparently "Smoke gets in your eyes" is a not infrequent
request and the staff were quite used to digging out that LP.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]