Momentous decisions

I can't think why I haven't told anyone this yet. On New Year's Eve, I decided - almost rashly but with great conviction - that I will donate my body to medical research when I'm dead (I thought about doing it while alive, but I've heard it hurts a bit). Reason being, I'll probably be in Germany when I die - a safe assumption right now, anyway. And in Germany, if you choose to be cremated, your nearest and dearest don't get the souvenir urn to put on their mantelpiece or take up Mt Snowdon to throw your remains to the mountain winds. The urn is buried in the cemetery here. I don't think you can even touch it. I clearly remember how I felt as we, the ones left behind, attended the burial of my father-in-law's urn. A spotty youth wearing white sports socks (I don't know why, but this struck me as particularly offensive) walked ahead of us with ostentatious ceremony, holding the hanging urn out in front of him with his skinny arm. He had a post-nasal drip. The hole in the ground resembled one you might dig to plant a small tree. Everyone was silent and awkward and uncomfortable. It makes me shudder just writing about it.

Since then I have often said that I would like to be cremated in England, and CG or whoever - Gaia perhaps - would be free to choose from my many beloved beauty spots as to where they'd scatter me. However, it costs a bomb to fly a body back to its home country, and I am not sure that EasyJet or Ryanair do it. If they do, there's bound to be an unaffordable surcharge. So it would be the urn in the hole for me. Theoretically. But no more! I shall make some medical students happy and save thousands of euros in funeral costs at the same time. All I request is one of those naff benches with a plaque on it, and someone with a good sense of humour - I delegate my brother this task - can dream up a suitable epitaph. And occasionally come along and wipe off the bird droppings.