Top 10 Bizarre Coffins

“Nothing is certain but death and taxes” – so goes the old saying, and it is, indeed true (unless you are lucky enough to live in a tax haven!) This list deals with the first bit – death. When we die, most of us end up in a coffin or casket. For the average person this is a fairly uneventful wooden box with handles – but not for everyone. Here are ten bizarre coffins for those who like to, well, “die” on the wild side!

“Go to work on an egg” used to be an old marketing slogan in the United Kingdom. However, going to the afterlife in an egg may be seen by some as taking it too far. Personally, I am with Woody Allen on this one – it’s not that I don’t like death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens. Even more so if my relatives had planned to do a Faberge on me. Eggsactly!

So, what did come first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, the chicken. Slightly strange coffins have been all the rage for an age in Ghana, and this is a prime example of their style. Perhaps too much white meat is bad for you after all, and you know what they say: the first symptom of heart disease can be quite irritating – sudden death.

Nothing goes better with a little lightly grilled chicken breast than a glass of fragrant chardonnay. Whomever this coffin was designed for obviously had a love of the tipple, and was probably popular in life as they were in death. Or so it is hoped, and let us hope that lots of people said a great many lovely things about them at their funeral. It’s just sad that they will have missed it by a few days.

Perhaps the coffin was designed for a person that liked kite flying. Perhaps it said something about their intake of certain illegal substances. Who can say? At least this person lived in hope that after their demise they would be uplifted, as it were. I would expect this to be the coffin of an agnostic, who perhaps ordered this so that he who may or may not exist could lend a helping hand if he only, you know, kinda existed.

Of course, if the wind is off on the day of your funeral, you may not get the particular levitation necessary to reach the clouds. So, why not choose a UFC – Unidentified Flying Coffin. I personally don’t believe in UFOs, but I really should, considering where I was brought up. This aside, a lot of people believe that death is terrifying because it is just so damn ordinary. At least this person wanted to go out in an extraordinary way!

Oh, the shark has pretty teeth dear, and he shows them, pearly white. Or so goes the old song, even though this shark looks as if it didn’t keep his dental insurance up to date. So, who would get buried in this? A fisherman? A mafia godfather? Churchill once said that he was ready to meet his maker. He just wondered if his maker was ready to meet him. Ditto the great creator if (s)he comes across this chap before he pops out of his coffin!

When some people decide that there is no use living if they have to be good, they invariably die young. This coffin perhaps indicates that the person was good at something at least, in a Billy Elliott kind of way. This reminds me of a joke. Do you know what ballet is adored by squirrels the world over? Why, The Nutcracker of course! Now, what was that joke, I seem to have forgotten. Angelina Jolie certainly won’t be buried in this one. She once said that when she saw other little girls longing to be ballet dancers, she wanted to be a vampire.

Well, one thing you can say about vampires is that death becomes them. I can imagine Lestat taking a fancy to this little number, then becoming bored with it and possibly going for something quite different again. This looks like a small coffin, though. Perhaps it was made for a vampire child who hadn’t been taught not to run with wooden stakes. One more thing: if Dracula can’t see his own reflection in the mirror, why is it that his hair is always so immaculate?

This is another one from those whacky Ghanaians. One can only hope that the person who ordered this coffin just grew them for a living. Or perhaps his relatives bought it posthumously as an ironic au revoir to him and his proclivities. Or perhaps, as Sheridan once said, he (or she) was the very pineapple of politeness. Whatever that means.

One can only hope that it is the base of this guitar-shaped coffin in which the intended is supposed to lie, and not the whole thing. Whether by accident or by nature, this person would have to have been giraffe-man in order to make a proper fit. Decca records, when they refused to sign the Beatles, said that they didn’t like the sound of the nascent super group and that the guitar was on its way out. To be replaced by what exactly? The stylophone? Perhaps Rolf Harris can have one made in that particular shape when he climbs his very own stairway to heaven!

Contributor: R J Evans