5 People Who Died During Sex: And 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists Paperback (25 page)

“shocked amazement.”

6

A nineteenth-century German missionary, Reverend Schwartz, was revived by the sound of his favorite hymn being played at his funeral. Mourners were said to be

“surprised” when the prematurely buried priest joined in the singing from within his coffin.

7

When the author Thomas Hardy died, it was his wish that his final resting place should be his birthplace, Stinsford. The authorities, however, decreed that he was far too important for such a humble interment. A compromise was reached: It was decided that most of Hardy’s remains should be sent to Westminster Abbey, but that his heart could be buried at Stinsford. On the morning of the ceremony, his sister inadvertently left the open casket with the heart on the kitchen table and the contents were consumed by the family cat.

277

[Ten Postmortem Adventures]

8

Lenin has been dead since 1924, but Russia’s most popular embalmee has still managed to get through several dozen new suits. Under his tailored blue acrylic three-piece, the father of Communism also wears a rubber wetsuit, into which is poured the solution that keeps him from falling apart. Twice a week the parts that show—his hands and face—are painted with fresh embalming fluid, and every eighteen months the whole body is lifted out and given a good soaking. Every four years, a sample of Lenin’s skin is scraped off and microscopically examined for signs of deterioration. An estimated 60 percent of his body is now made of wax, including his ears: The original pickling was botched and bits of him have “gone off ” since. He also sports a growth of fungus around his neck and the back of his head that definitely wasn’t there when he led the Bolsheviks to power in 1917. When Communism was still popular, Lenin had to be refrigerated with equipment from a German fish-freezing plant to stop his body parts from melting from the body heat of visiting tourists.

9

Because of a fault in the embalming process, the body of Chairman Mao Zedong is apparently shrinking at a steady rate of about 5 percent a year. The official line given by the mausoleum director is that this is merely an optical illusion caused by the curious lighting effects in the hall that contains his corpse.

10

William the Conqueror, or William the Bastard as he was known out of earshot, survived a a lifetime of warring and bloodletting to die at the ripe old age of sixty, when
278

[Ten Postmortem Adventures]

his horse stumbled on hot cinders, thrusting the corpulent king against the iron pommel, mashing his left testicle and causing fatal internal injuries. There was worse to come. His body was carried to Caen in France, but a fire broke out and the coffin-bearers had to rush off to fight the blaze. Eventually the procession continued, but William’s rotting corpse had been forced into a stone coffin that was far too small; this, combined with a stifling hot day, caused the corpse to explode and the cathedral had to be evacuated. In 1562, looters stole everything from William’s tomb, including most of his body. Eighty years later, a new monument was built containing all that remained of William—a thighbone.

279

Ten

10

Lavatorial Deaths

1

ROMAN EMPEROR ELAGABALUS (218–222 AD)

Hacked to death by the Praetorian Guard as he sat on the toilet. His body was thrown down a Roman sewer.

2

KING EDMUND II “IRONSIDE” Murdered in 1016

by a Dane, armed with a long sword, who was hiding in a cesspit beneath the wooden royal commode.

3

KING HENRY III OF FRANCE Stabbed to death as he sat on the toilet by a Dominican friar, Jacques Clément, egged on by the pope, who had

excommunicated the French king, calling him “an assassin, a heretic, and an infidel.”

4

RUSSIAN EMPRESS CATHERINE “THE GREAT”

Died of heart failure while straining to overcome constipation.

5

KING GEORGE II According to his German valet, one evening a roar emanated from the palace toilet that he judged to be “louder than the usual royal wind,” and he found the king dead on the floor. George had fallen off the toilet and smashed his head on a cabinet.

6

LUPE VELEZ In 1934, this thirty-six-year-old Hollywood screen actress, known as the “Mexican Spitfire,” attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills but miscalculated the required dosage and merely got violently sick. As she made a dash for the bathroom, she slipped on the tiled floor and was flung headfirst into her toilet bowl. Her maid found her the next day with her head jammed into the bowl, drowned.

280

[Ten Lavatorial Deaths]

7

KING HAAKON VII OF NORWAY In 1957, he

slipped on soap in his marble bathroom and smashed his head on some taps, fatally fracturing his skull.

8

JUDY GARLAND Found dead by her fifth husband, Mickey Devinko, on June 21, 1969, sitting on her toilet.

Official cause of death: accidental barbiturate poisoning.

9

ELVIS AARON PRESLEY The King died of heart failure on August 17, 1977, while straining to overcome constipation on his Graceland throne.

10

MICHAEL ANDERSON GODWIN Having spent

several years awaiting South Carolina’s electric chair for murder, Godwin had his sentence reduced to life in March 1989. Shortly afterward, attempting to fix his TV

set, he bit into a wire while sitting on a metal toilet in his cell and was electrocuted.

281

20

No Nearer My God to Thee:

Quotes from Twenty

Dead Atheists

1

DAVID HUME, SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHER

(1711–76) “When I hear a man is religious, I conclude that he is a rascal.”

2

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, FRENCH EMPEROR

(1769–1821) “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.”

3

THOMAS JEFFERSON, AMERICAN PRESIDENT

(1743–1826) “Religions are all alike–founded upon fables and mythologies . . . the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

4

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY, ENGLISH POET

(1792–1822) “If God has spoken, why is the world not convinced?”

5

KARL MARX, GERMAN POLITICAL

PHILOSOPHER (1818–83) “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

6

OSCAR WILDE, IRISH AUTHOR (1854–1900)

“When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.”

7

MARK TWAIN, AMERICAN AUTHOR

(1835–1910) “It ain’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t
282

[Quotes from Twenty Dead Atheists]

understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”

8

THOMAS HARDY, ENGLISH AUTHOR (1840–1928)

“After two thousand years of mass, we’ve got as far as poison gas.” (poem, Christmas 1924)

9

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, GERMAN

PHILOSOPHER (1844–1900) “God is dead.”

10

THOMAS EDISON, AMERICAN INVENTOR

(1847–1931) “Religion is all bunk.”

11

SIGMUND FREUD, PIONEER PSYCHOANALYST

(1856–1939) “In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.”

12

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, IRISH PLAYWRIGHT

(1856–1950) “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

13

BERTRAND RUSSELL, BRITISH PHILOSOPHER

(1872–1970) “Religion is based . . . mainly on fear . . .

fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.”

14

ALBERT EINSTEIN, SCIENTIST (1879–1955) “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded
283

[Quotes from Twenty Dead Atheists]

admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”

15

ROBERT BURNS, SCOTTISH POET (1759–96) “Of all nonsense, religious nonsense is the most nonsensical.”

16

VICTOR HUGO, FRENCH AUTHOR AND

DRAMATIST (1802–85) “There is in every village a torch—the schoolmaster, and an extinguisher—the parson.”

17

ERNEST HEMINGWAY, AUTHOR (1899–1961)

“All thinking men are atheists.”

18

W. C. FIELDS, ACTOR (1880–1946) “Prayers never bring anything. They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy, but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas.”

19

GENE RODDENBERRY, CREATOR OF
STAR

TREK
(1921–91) “Religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain.”

20

SAMUEL BECKETT, IRISH-BORN WRITER

(1906–89) “The bastard! He doesn’t exist!” (
Endgame
)
284

10

Dying Optimists:

Ten Last Words

1

“I think I could eat one of Bellamy’s veal pies.”

—William Pitt the Younger, British prime minister, 1801

2

“Sergeant, the Spanish bullet isn’t made that will kill me.”

—William “Bucky” O’Neill, American war hero, 1898

3

“It’s nothing.”

—Franz Ferdinand, Austrian archduke, 1914

4

“I’m getting better.”

—D. H. Lawrence, British author, 1930

5

“Get my swan costume ready.”

—Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina, 1931

6

“I think I’m going to make it.”

—Richard A. L oeb, American playboy

and convicted murderer, 1936

7

“I’ve never felt better.”

—Douglas Fairbanks Sr., American actor, 1939

8

“Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.”

—John Barrymore, American actor, 1942

9

“Go away. I’m all right.”

—H. G. Wells, British author, 1946

10

“Do you know where I can get any shit?”

—L enny Bruce, American comedian, 1966

285

Twel 12

ve Suggestions

for Further Reading

1

The Romance of Leprosy
by E. Mackerchar, 1949

2

Why Bring That Up? A Guide to and from Seasickness
by J. F. Montague, 1936

3

Penetrating Wagner’s Ring
by John L. Digaetani, 1978

4

Jews at a Glance
by Mac Davis, 1956

5

Constipation and Our Civilization
by J. C. Thomson, 1943

6

A Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating
—Anon., 1981

7

A Government Committee of Enquiry on the Light Metal
Artificial Leg
by Captain Henry Hulme & Chisholm Baird, 1923

8

Daddy Was an Undertaker
by McDill, McGown, and Gassman, 1952

9

A Short Account of the Origin, Progress and Present State
of the New Rupture Society
—Anon., 1816

10

Amputation Stumps: Their Care and After-treatment
by Sir Godfrey Martin Huggins, 1918

11

A Study of Masturbation and Its Reputed Sequelae
by J. F. W. Meagher, 1924

12

Sex After Death
by B. J. Ferrell and D. E. Frey, 1983

286

KARL SHAW is the author of
Gross: A Compendium of the
Unspeakable, Unpalatable, Unjust and Appalling
and
Royal
Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty.

He lives in Staffordshire, England.

[H1 Head]