If this were Part P...

[Tim Watts]

"Deaths jump by 2,500 as millions struggle to heat homes in cold weather"

That caught my eye.

If a nuclear reactor killed 2500 people, all nuclear would be outlawed forever.

If dodgey plumbing killed 2500, we'd have a Part P for all plumbing.

And yet, these deaths are somehow "ordinary" so they don't need to do anything... Whereas in fact, the government prevaricating for 30+years and the general population who have done nothing to shout at the government have undoubtedly contributed directly to those deaths by leaving us in a situation where energy costs are extremely high...

[Andy Cap]

You should copy that to your MP. It'd be interesting to see the reply. I agree totally, that to leave us so dependent on both foreign companies and supplies is appalling. p.s. Selling off our coastal rescue is yet another nail in the coffin. Is there nothing we can do for ourselves any longer? It's all hugely disappointing. :-{

Andy C

[harry]

Quite right too. There is an e petition running to sign here about the Search and rescue..

[John Rumm]

They will probably argue they are not real deaths, but just accounting ones brought forward a few months!

[Tim Watts]

On Tuesday 26 March 2013 17:10 John Rumm wrote in uk.d-i-y:

"Banker's deaths" then...

[Dave Liquorice]

[John Rumm]

Its the "normal" but somewhat perverse way that humans respond to risk. Things that are commonplace don't frighten us, even when they should!

[Andrew Gabriel]

Reminds me of the heatwave a few summers back, when 4000 more people than normal died in Paris over a week or two. What they didn't say is that over a month or two (I forget), the number of deaths was completely normal. What happened is that those close to death died a week or two earlier in the heatwave, than they would have died anyway. That's quite a different emphasis from the heatwave killing 4000 people.

[Brian Gaff]

Hindsight, my friend, hindsight is wornderful.

Brian

[ARW]

ISTR that the number of births is not a constant each month - so it must balance out!

A couple of years ago I had just set up the tower scaffold up in a Church when the priest arrived to say that he now had a couple of funerals to do.

Top tip - Never rewire a Church in winter.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Trying to think of some way to make the tower into a funeral feature...

[ARW]

Tinsel?

It would not bother me if it was my funeral.

[bert]

In message , Tim Watts writes

These deaths are of predominately older people and so they don't count. After all there are 25000 plus such deaths in a "normal" winter so what's a few thousand more? At least so goes the argument of those who want to scrap winter fuel allowance.

[bert]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

Would make a super pyre.

[Tim Lamb]

In message , Andrew Gabriel writes

and lo, the ascent unto heaven?:-)

>

[Chris J Dixon]

Booking well in advance never seems to catch on ;-)

I did once read of a cemetery (was it at Uphill?) which had only a thin earth covering over solid rock. It was, therefore, customary to use explosives to excavate sufficiently deep.

The story went that, if one had taken to one's bed with something serious, the sound of blasting might be a clue to the prognosis, and was unlikely to be comforting.

Chris

[djc]

Funeral Pyre: build a bonfire on top and have a cremation

[Andrew Gabriel]

OTOH, Liz Taylor left instructions for her funeral directors that she was to be 15 minutes late for her own funeral...

Can you image - just a slightly oversized charge and there would be bones flying in all directions from the neighbouring graves. Devil of a job putting the all back in the right places ;-)