8316/21235
I went to the funeral of an extraordinary man today, Pathmanathan Mylvaganam, who we knew as Uncle Pat, who had an enormously positive impact on my wife's family and as became clear during the service, an awful lot of other people too. Generous, passionate, fighting for what he believed in and slightly off his rocker, I only knew him for the last 15 or so years of his 93, but the general feeling was that he had been taken too young. He remained mentally sharp and full of future to the end. There were many emotional tributes and it reminded me that I better start doing some nice things soon or my own funeral is going to be a tearless affair where no one really has much to say.
Funerals are almost the perfect place for comedy, as generally speaking you're not supposed to laugh, so you get to experience that rare pleasure of being in pain from trying not to laugh. Pain overwhelmed the comedy today, which was a slight pity - Pat did much to laud, but I remember him laughing and being silly. We did get a couple of funny stories amongst the tributes.
The service opened with a beautiful Sri Lankan song being played in, a female voice singing it. It was very atmospheric. But also very long. And there was just enough of a pause between verses to make it feel like the song had ended, only for it to carry on. It was a very long song, so every time it started up again I wanted to laugh (but resisted - as it would be have been inappropriate on many levels). But if you want a good prank at a funeral (and I'd love this to happen at mine) then play a song like this for as long as you can and see how long it takes for people to get uncomfortable and complain. I think it would be ages.
The celebrant eventually started, but the music started up again (I think accidentally) and he skilfully faded it out.
No one laughed. It wasn't, as it turned out a very laughy ceremony. But it was a good one
The sat nav took us on an unusual route to Oxford where the ceremony was taking place and we passed through Buckingham. I don't think I've ever been to Buckingham (I usually find out I've gigged there when I say something like this) and was actually genuinely surprised that a place called Buckingham actually existed. I know there's a palace and a dukedom and a county named after Buckingham, but it had never occurred to me that there might be an actual place called Buckingham. It was like finding out Narnia was real. How have I never (in my fading memory) been to Buckingham? Why did I not realise it was real?
Is it real? Or does it just appear once every thousand years? You will never convince me that Buckingham is an actual place, not from a fairy tale. So don't even try.
