Introduction

Ever wanted to attend your own funeral, to mingle with the mourners and eavesdrop on what they are whispering about you? Certainly, they would all have nice things to say. But funerals can be quite an emotional drain; and even your best friends and closest relatives might find it difficult to hit just the right note of despondent adoration. It's a big responsibility; and, with the best intentions in the world, someone's bound to get it not quite right.

What about your obituary? That's an even bigger responsibility. It's your last chance to really make a big impression. Would you really want to burden someone else with a responsibility like that? Of course not! The obvious solution is to write one for yourself.

Do It Yourself

What can one say...?

• Who am I? - Write a brief description of yourself. This should be a capsule comment that sums you up in a nut shell... and doesn't beat around the bush.

• What have I done? - How have you spent your time? What sets you apart from the faceless throng and makes the epitaph Just Another Dead Guy grossly unjust?

• Why was it worth it? - This is the big one. This is where you spell out exactly how much everyone will miss you and precisely the reasons why. After all, the other stuff could have been done by a stand-in... though not as well, naturally. What made your contribution unique and special?

How can one say it?

• Post your DIY obituary in a forum below.

• Be reasonably honest - nobody likes a braggart - but, on the other hand, there's no point in mincing words either... and false modesty's no virtue. Ahem.

• Be concise or your glorious self-portrait will be edited into something resembling the picture of Dorian Gray
  ¹... when it came out of the wash.

Most recent additions:

She is really dead
She fell on her head
The blood was red
Oh no! She's dead.

She died
No way she could have survived
I really am not surprised
Oh yes! She died!

Was it the fall?
Was it the fright?
And why did she say
'Who turned out the light?'
Where will it end?

(It ended there)
And now she's in heaven²
Walking on air

debsie died believing that people were good and could be trusted. Or she died because she stopped believing. The second her belief went, she died. She was innocent to the way people are, how they judge you even though they're supposed to be your
friends. She died with the realization that people are not infallible, and you can't trust them to always be there for you. She died still trusting one, and he's still trying to bring her back to life.

Demon Drawer - Researcher, forum poster, and obituary writer, people often assumed 'prolific' was DD's (as his friends knew him) middle name. This Northern Irish born Researcher first found his niche at H2G2 in the fading weeks of the 20th Century, and thus a new persona was born. A vast knowledge of history, Europe, and film led him to write on his pet subjects. Many were his friends; and in the days before he received the Orange Badge of ACEhood, he took great pride in out-ACEing the ACEs to newbies homepages. A friendly outgoing Researcher, his contributions to the Guide will be dearly missed... not least by the Sub Editors, who will have to sit around twiddling thumbs, waiting for entries, rather than rely on DD's ongoing mission to inform the Galaxy of those places, people and things he encounters. He leaves his fish Jack and an uninvented S30 to the Donut Stall.

Duncan Jones (Spearcarrier) - A late developer, but Duncan Jones would do it all again... unchanged and unabridged! You'd better believe it. 'Cos he would, you know.

Take from a dead man, these words of advice:

Don't waste your time with just being nice.

Pick summer roses from municipal gardens³,

Burp at the table and never say pardon,

Walk on the grass and don't mind the gap,

Life is too short for that kind of cr*p.

Fashion Cat - The Patron Saint of Indolent Students and Fashion Consultant to the CotTB was crazy... in a good way.

Galaxy Babe was the mother of four (who lived), Grandma of Liam (born 1996), and lifelong lover of the stars; which is why she was also known as 'the Muse of Astral Delights'. She adored butterflies, and created 'Keepers', just so she could claim the title 'Keeper of Butterflies'. At her passing, there were 50 other Keepers, much to GB's delight... She also set up the Chocolate Lovers Fan Club with her best buddy Mina, the Muse of Bondage. She had many love affairs, although only one marriage, and was divorced in 1986. She survived tragedies: her first son was stillborn, 3 pet cats died and also hundreds of tropical fish, too numerous to name here. Her most Glorious Day was the day she joined h2g2. Her friends were her greatest treasure. She enjoyed her life; she was blessed in looks and personality.There was kindness in her huge heart; and so she was loved by many. She was particularly good at
looking after her lovers...with massage. There were never any complaints.

Goddess of Purple 7's, aka Heather, was known for her chaotic energy. She was vibrant and also completely nuts. While she maintained her mental status of this as true since she was neither a danger to herself or others she wasn’t hospitalized. Her unique perspective on life is lost now to the world, and we’ll always morn the loss of her energy from this world. She also talked too much had a bizarre sense of humor where even when explained her jokes made no sense to the rest of us. One was often left wondering if she was merely laughing at us rather than the joke. I think we should all appreciate her one last joke as she asked for cinnamon rolls to be served and for this statement to be read “Life, death these things happen without our control. Every decision we make in life affects us, minute to momentous, which is which it not something we differentiate, well at least I can’t anyway. So the best advice I can give you is don’t spend your life worrying about death. Instead sit in the sunshine, be polite to at least one person a day, try something different, eat vegetarian for at least a week, and enjoy cinnamon rolls to their fullest, after all take away life and death and all you’re really left with is cinnamon rolls.” Now instead of the traditional moment of silence she asked for this song played for “funerals and memorials are much too staid”. *Smile by Vitamin C plays over the speakers whilst the people in the pews eat their cinnamon rolls.

Heather Hicks was a psychotic 'philosophical genius' who preached about balance and killed those she didn't like... in
her dreams at least. She was the co-founder of a secret society named
Tainted Dementia. If you don't look at the link you will be thrown off a cliff by the co-founder who still lives; and, if you don't go there, you won't know what's there (Wouldn't you like to know?); and sign the guest book, so we know you were there. You will make the dead Heath very happy and make her life worthwhile, if you visit. Heather (Heath for short) is leaving behind her guy Joe, mostly because everything good comes to an end; and to avoid getting bad memories, she decided on no memories at all. She immortalized the moment, and all is well with her. She didn't leave behind anyone else, she didn't care about anything else human. Her life was really nothing; but you can carry on Tainted
Dementia like she would have wanted. She's dead, get over it.

Hersh (1974-) - He lived long and thinks he left the oven on.

John-the-gardener was born in the the middle of the British Isles at the end of the 1950s. Though never brilliant, he was always brighter than the dullest, taller than the shortest, and faster than the slowest. It was always he who captained the teams destined to lose to the team of popular boys. He moved a lot, and learned early that the best friends are the ones you can pack to take with you. At the age of twelve, he moved to Canada, where it was decided his boyish brain could out-perform teenagers doped on second-hand 60s. It did, until hormones and culture turned him into one of them. He married and worked - just enough - and paid off his mortgage. He planted lots of gardens that few people really wanted, and said things that didn't sound quite right.

Jose Paredes Jr (aka Butt'R Fly) - He was born in August under the shiny sun of Cannes in the south of the France. When he first open his eyes, he saw the world with all these strange things that no one except him will ever understand. All his life was a question and his death was the answer; but what [illegible due to eroded stone] true question of your life? One thing that is sure is that Jose loved to live and loved people who shared this life and another is that nobody will ever know who he was; so when you read these lines you should feel regret... regret because he was the ideal lover, the ideal friend, and the ideal person to speak with... but now he is gone and you'll never know how much he should have care for you, everything he could have given to you. Someday/night maybe you'll meet him again and this time, take your chance and don't let him go. After his death, Mariah Carey will write a song for his memory.R.I.P

Loonytunes, innovator, renovator, and champion of human dignity, passed this way and left a big mark. The phrase 'page three girl' has become part of the language and conjures up images of the tabloid press. Its creator was Loonytunes. Rupert Murdoch had bought England's The Sun newspaper in 1969 and hired Loonytunes, a recent arrival from New Zealand, to head the ailing paper. In the first issue under Loonytunes editorship, the centrespread featured a naked blonde at the feet of the Rolling Stones. A year later, the page three girl arrived. Loonytunes insisted the models should be 'nice girls... Big-breasted girls, look like tarts'; but, despite his adoption of pictures of near-naked women, Loonytunes was against male chauvinism. 'Cut out nudges, winks and leers,' he told his staff, 'Always have second thoughts on stories about the jockstrap world of men only. Remember, women not only smell better, they work harder and deserve better.' Under his leadership, between 1972 and 1974, The Sun went from a dodgy 650,000 circulation to a whopping four million-plus. On returning to New Zealand, Loonytunes founded the Cosmopolitan Club, a place renowned for cheap alcohol and a stunning view over the Pacific Ocean. It was from a fourth-floor window of the Cosmopolitan Club that Loonytunes ashes were flung to the wind. The background noise that accompanied this solemn moment came from the many revellers enjoying the $1000 worth of free booze and food paid for from a legacy in the great man's will. A nice touch was witnessed the following day, when a bevy of topless beauties planted a sign on the beach. It read, 'Excuse My Dust'.

Loreth lived a brief, moderately happy life. She may possibly be continuing existence in an afterlife, though she would have
tended to doubt it. In lieu of flowers, please send chocolate. It's what she would have wanted... and she's gone so I get to eat it all.

Quorthon's obituary:

Sick of waiting, of lying like this,

There's a hole in the skies for the angels to kiss;

Branded a leper because he didn't fit

In the land of the free you just live by your wits;

Once he built missiles a nation's defence;

Then he couldn't even give birthday presents;

Across the city he left in his wake

A glimpse of the future, a cannibal state...

Thomas, Almighty Lord of Little Shiny Things - Friends, Britons, Countrymen, lend me your ears. I come to bury Thomas, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, but the good is oft interred with the bones. So let it be with Thomas. The noble *insert name here* hath told you that Thomas was ambitious, if it were so then it was a grievous fault, and grievously hath Thomas answered it.

Sporkulious Eglon (1981-) - Not much to see here, move along.

The Web Mage died today of a mysterious disease he contracted from the helicopters that were flying overhead. Or was it the wind. All in all, he was just another brick in the wall.