Tales from the crypt

Are you spoilt, narcissistic, have more moolah than you know what to do with, and ready to kick the bucket in the near future? Then why not consider investing in the ultimate family resting place? For a mere £200,000 (or $372,000) you could be the proud owner of a palatial mausoleum constructed using the finest white granite set in Florida's charming and picturesque Daytona Memorial Park. Thrown into the bargain is a selection of tacky window dressings and architectural trinkets to include Greek pillars, chandeliers, intricate brass fittings and family portraits.

This is the entry level model; the deluxe tomb will set you back £300,000 (or $619,000). You could feed half the population of Ethiopia for that!

Hilda Peck who already has her plot staked out has no qualms about exploring her tomb-to-be:

"I don't feel any different, I'm not dead. Someday, I will be, but I won't know it. Everything is already done and I know exactly what it's going to be like even though I won't know it when it happens."

Well why bother then you silly wench? Put the money towards doing something which will actually benefit the living.

Lowell Lohman who runs this horror show attempts to justify his customer's self-absorbed decadence:

"As you see the weather across the country with floods and hurricanes, I think that's had a lot to do with an increase in mausoleums. A lot of families just don't like to be in the ground."

Have they never heard of cremation? Arrange for your useless bodies to be torched and be done with it. It's not rocket science.

Ironically, here in the UK we've been contemplating the problem of overcrowding in graveyards. Some of the possible solutions proposed include exhuming abandoned graves and recycling the space, adding extra bodies to existing graves and tacking on headstone engravings to commemorate the most recently departed, 'double-decking' whereby bodies would be stacked many layers high and upright burials as opposed to more traditional horizontal ones.

We don't have enough real estate to house the living so why we're digging our own grave when it comes to the dead is beyond me.