For Whom the Bell Tolls.
Back in Victorian times, death was never far from people’s thoughts thanks to the diseases and poor medicine of those times. You can see evidence of this in old sepia photos of sombre matronly women (including Queen Victoria herself) posing in their widow’s weeds.
Back in those days the grim reaper was rushed off his feet, stalking homes up and down the land to carry off people of all ages thanks to afflictions such as typhoid, tuberculosis, smallpox, diphtheria and cholera.
Indeed, so afraid were some Victorians that they might be pronounced dead and interred without having properly expired, that some of them had bell pulls fitted in their coffins. They did this so that should they wake up having been buried with indecent haste, they could pull on a cord and summon help to dig them out of the ground before they suffocated.
Happily those days are long gone and today’s talk is of euthanasia to help ease the plight of the terminally ill. This is the medical profession’s unofficial way of making sure you’re fully expired and no longer living before being committed to the ground. Because of this, today’s coffins are no longer fitted with bell pulls or whatever the modern equivalent might be: such as a mobile phone or a BlackBerry for Twittering one’s resurrection to all and sundry.
So what brings me to this rather macabre subject? Well it’s the news that the NHS now has its own version of euthanasia to make sure you’re completely expired. This procedure is innocuously called the Liverpool Care Pathway Plan. If you ever find yourself in a hospital and the doctors and nurses start whispering and asking the student nurse to fetch the care pathway manual, you can safely assume you’re about to be decommissioned. Usually you’ll be unconscious and in no state to argue the toss.
If you are ‘Liverpooled’ you can expect to have your food supply withdrawn and your antibiotics stopped as you’re allowed to gently slip away. However, the alarming fact about this unofficial form of euthanasia is that some 3% of patients who experience the Merseyside Murder are ungrateful and thoughtless enough to survive and go on to make a full recovery, in some cases going on to enjoy years of extra life.
This all sounds a bit chilling to me. I think we may have to start kitting out coffins with some sort of hi-tech bell pull as the Liverpool Care Pathway Plan gains in popularity at a time when the cash-strapped NHS is sorely in need of more beds.
So whatever you do, may I suggest you contact your solicitor and have your will amended to include a clause insisting you’re buried with a fully charged mobile phone on a decent network and loaded with plenty of credit?
Unfortunately, if you’ve opted for cremation all I can suggest is that you get a quote for a sprinkler system or carry a pocket fire extinguisher with you.
Reprinted by kind permission from ‘Traction Man’
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1
October 12, 2009 at 11:05 -
1. do they provide a catalogue of the coffins available?
2. surely it would be cheaper to just tip people out of their beds and pile them up at the end of the ward, thereby freeing up beds for the next lot of citizens…
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2
October 12, 2009 at 11:44 -
Hence the saying,
“Saved by the Bell”
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3
October 12, 2009 at 13:31 -
I hope you are joking Saul!
That expression, like so many others, clearly comes from boxing and not the nonsense of coffin based bells.
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4
October 12, 2009 at 13:46 -
No, I am his brother Nosmo King.
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5
October 12, 2009 at 14:00 -
Nosmo. What a ridiculous name.
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6
October 12, 2009 at 15:47 -
The answer to whether a person has shuttled off this mortal coil or not is surprisingly simple, someone in the vacinity of the ‘alleged’ corpse should light up a cigarette! If the corpse sits up and starts wafting their arms about in hysterical fashion then they are well and truly dead (from the head up anyways) but if they say “give me a puff, haven’t had a ciggy for a week now” then you know they are well and truly alive…well, untill they catch something nasty a few years henceforth.
Just a thought.
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7
October 12, 2009 at 16:02 -
If I am ever in distress please ensure John H Baker is not in attendance!
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8
October 12, 2009 at 17:37 -
Basically it is a spelling change, you go from being Cherished to Cheried, with everyone saying “sh”.
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