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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1998-11-25, Page 5International Scene By Raymond Canon THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1998. PAGE 5. A tisket a casket People say such nice things about people at their funerals. It makes me sad I'm going to miss mine by just a few days. Garrison Keillor Is there any spectacle more bizarre than the average North American funeral? A human being dies — as all human beings must — and we powder and paint the mortal remains and deck the corpse out in its best suit of clothes, plant it in a shining box of finest polished wood and silk with satin cushions. And then we turn around and shove the whole thing in a hole in the ground. A spokesman for the Canadian funeral industry has finally admitted what anyone with a six-pack of functioning brain cells knew all along, to wit: funerals cost too much. 'Way too much. A recent issue of Canadian Funeral News contained a column concerning the excessive prices some funeral homes charge. The columnist wasn't concerned about the high- charges per se, you understand, only the fact that the general public was being made aware of them. "The medical and legal professions are smart enough to retain a degree of mystique," wrote the columnist, who went on to warn members of the industry not to talk publicly about their 'internal workings'. Tea and coffee drinkers Since I no longer have a home to go to when I am in St. Gallen, Switzerland, I stay at nearby Teufen at the hotel of a longtime friend of mine. I have known him for so many years that if the hotel is full when I call to make a reservation, he puts me up in the family's spare room. He even did the same for a cousin of mine when I was showing her around Switzerland. He also makes a fine cup of coffee. Breakfast there is a treat and I always look forward to it. To be honest, the coffee is good at all the hotels I stay at in Switzerland, but especially so in Teufen. It is not that I drink a lot of coffee but, when I do have a cup, I like it to be really tasty like I get at Dave's Bistro in London but few other places in Southern Ontario. Instead, I often drink tea, with my current favourite being Japanese green tea which, so I am told, does a good job at helping the immune system. At any rate, I got to wondering which countries have a reputation for consuming more tea than coffee and vice versa. I asked a number of people and got the same number of different answers. Nobody, it -seemed, had Ah, well. Funeral homes aren't entirely to blame for the situation. There's something in human nature that shouts 'money is no object' when it comes time to bid that last goodbye. And it's a tendency we've had for some time. Two millennia ago, the Roman poet Vergil spent a great whack of dough to see off one of his dear friends. He staged a lavish service at his mansion on the Esquiline Hill of Rome. A live orchestra was hired for the occasion. Senators and nobles came in chariots from far and wide. At the conclusion, the mortal remains of Vergil's dearly departed were transported to a magnificent marble mausoleurti and sealed within for eternity. Vergil spared no expense. He spent 800,000 sesterces on the shindig, that works out to about a quarter of a million bucks, Canadian. The kicker to this touching tale of loVe and devotion beyond the grave is the fact that Vergil's dear departed was a fly. A common housefly. Was Vergil nuts? Yeah nuts like Conrad Black. He knew that the Roman authorities were considering new legislation .that would -allow them to confiscate the properties of many rich Romans. The confiscated lands would then be parcelled out as rewards for returning war veterans. a definitive answer. Economists are persistent and so I dug around in various sources of information. until I came up with the necessary details. First of all, I found that Canadians drink more coffee per person than do Americans. Could it be, I wondered, that it was because of all those donuts eaten at Tim Horton's and other such places? We also drink more tea than do our friends to the south. Our consumption of coffee is four kg. (about nine pounds) per person per year. If you don't drink that much, somebody else must be drinking more. As far as tea is concerned, our consumption, is three-quarters of a kilo, or a bit less than two pounds. Well, I know you are all waiting to find out which nation has the biggest coffee drinkers in the world. Can you guess? It's Switzerland! Now you know why I started the article the way I did. The consumption there is no less than 8.7 kg. (just over 19 pounds) per person a year. With all that goOd coffee being made there, why wouldn't they drink so much? As for tea, they drink slightly less than half as much as Canadians do. The Swiss are considerably ahead of the Swedes, who come in second in the coffee race. Their consumption is 7 kg. or 15.44 pounds. Vergil also learned that any land containing 'burial plots' would be exempt from the impending legislation. The poet hastily hired a couple of local contractors to slap up the Fly Mausoleum in the middle of one of his orchards. It worked. The Roman authorities annexed his neighbours' properties, but Vergil's land was spared. Sometimes even the best-laid funeral plans go badly anyway. There is the case of the up- and-coming executive in Toronto who ordered a lavish floral bouquet to display in the front window of her newly opened consulting business. When the florist delivery van arrived with the bouquet, the woman was pleased — right up until she bent down to read the inscription ornately engraved on the base of the vase. It read: Dearly Beloved, May You Rest In Peace. Incensed, she phoned up the florist and demanded an explanation. The florist was naturally embarrassed and offered to compensate her with a more appropriate arrangement. Mollified, the customer was just about to say thank you and goodbye when the florist added, "Don't feel too bad, it could be worse. Somewhere in a Toronto funeral home right now there's a floral arrangement in front of somebody's casket and the card on that arrangement reads: Welcome To Your New Location." The Austrians are third (did they learn it from the Swiss?) and the Germans fourth (same question), Singapore is fifth and Canada sixth. As far as India is concerned, forget it! Now for the tea drinkers. Again, it is no contest. The Irish win by a considerable margin over the English and the Egyptians. Interestingly enough, the consumption is not nearly as great as coffee, with the Irish getting by with 3.2 kg. The Turks and Egyptians are in a virtual tie. Coffee consumption in both Britain and Ireland is about half that of tea. In Japan and Australia, tea and coffee are drunk in about equal proportions. The French hardly ever touch tea. The same can be said about the Indians when it comes to coffee, while the Swiss are down near the bottom regarding tea. However, I was warned, that, for health reasons, there is a trend today toward decaffeinated coffee and herbal teas. That may be the case, but I still love the coffee I get in Teufen. Hans; keep the pot perking! A Final Thought Let us so live that when we die even the undertaker will be sorry. Mark Twain The Short of it By Bonnie Gropp Sunk by bureaucracy Webster defines anarchy as : I. tack of any political authority. 2. Disorder and confusion. 3. Absence of any common purpose or standard. Clearly a civilized society must have rules and regulations. Without them there is chaos and lawlessness. But how much is too much? Government seems to be everywhere today. We're taxed on everything and bound by rules on law and order. Virtually every step we take is guided by legislation. At times even efforts to grow and develop are so overpowered by the folks with the rulebooks that frustration is the only outcome. A friend recently showed me an amusing anecdote discovered on the intemet. With government telling us everything from how to build to what to learn I thought it might provide a bittersweet chuckle for anyone who has come up against the bureaucratic brickwall. As well as for those who haven't, because their time is quite likely coming. Here we go, with some apologies to the original author. 000H, IF NOAH HAD TO BUILD HIS ARK TODAY... And the Lord spoke to Noah and said, "In six months I'm going to make it rain until the whole Earth is covered with water and all the evil people are destroyed. But I want to save a few good people, and two of every kind of living thing on the planet. I am commanding you to build an ark." And in a flash of lightning, He delivered the specifications for an ark. "Noah," shouted the Lord, "where is the ark?" "Lord, please forgive me," begged Noah. "I did my best. But there were big problems. Fit6t, I had to get a building permit for the ark construction project and your plans didn't meet code. So I had to hire an engineer to re-draw the plans.. Then I got into a big fight over whether or not the ark needed a fire sprinkler system. Then my neighbour objected, claiming I was violating zoning by building the ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission. Then I had problems getting enough wood for the ark. There was a ban on cutting trees to save the spotted owl. I had to convince the Ministry that I need the wood to save the owls, but they wouldn't let me catch any owls, so no owls. The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the labour relations board before anyone would pick up a saw or hammer. Now we have 16 carpenters on the boat and still no owls. Then I started., gathering up animals and got sued by animal rights. They objected to me taking only two of each kind. Just when I got the suit dismissed, EPA notified me that I couldn't complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed food. Then engineers wanted a map of the proposed new flood plain. I gave them a globe. I really don't think I can finish the Ark for at least another five years," Noah wailed. The sky began to clear. the sun began to shine. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up and smiled. "You mean you're not going to destroy the Earth?" Noah asked. , "No," said the Lord sadly. "Government already has." Arthur Black