I’ve gone off the idea of being cremated when I die. I really want a Viking funeral but I’m pretty sure there’ll be a local by-law outlawing them.

I like George Monbiot’s idea and fancy being buried in the roots of a tree. It’s a kind of reincarnation - my molecules become the fruit and the leaves which are then eaten by caterpillars that then become butterflies. Or die of alcohol and cholesterol poisoning.

But then I read something like this…

The average cost of dying in the UK is nearly £6,000, research has shown.

…and think, sod it, just put me out for the bin men. Two and a half big ones just to drop my carcass in a hole in the ground? You can spend 98 quid on a death notice in the local paper and £149 on a funeral notice but the number people attending your send-off will be largely dictated by the weather.

Six grand? I’d rather my missus spent it on attracting a decent and reliable stud muffin who was nice to the kids. Nah, not really. I demand she commissions a forty foot statue of me that glows in the dark.