We’re watching a BBC Horizon show “How Much is Your Dead Body Worth?” and discussed what we’d do with the other’s remains after we drove each other over the edge. She’s already assured me “you’re going to be the first to go, let’s get that clear right now” but she knows nothing of the special seasoning I’ve been putting in her lattes. Anyhow…

I don’t care what happens when I can no longer open the eyes and think; hang my bloated corpse from the front of the castle, or make Soylent Green. Donation to a medical school is more than likely if I go by way of Cancer or some other non-transplant style route, but for the most part the decision isn’t one that affects me.

Tania says that there’s this memorial reef where people can have their remains placed in an underwater garden. Of course, I ask the obvious question that you’re probably thinking too; “So, they just tie a weight around your ankles?”

Apparently that’s not how it works, and the real story is nowhere near as cool; you get cremated in the everyday old-fashioned way, and then your ashes are mixed with concrete and formed into sculptural furniture. No waving arms, no gape mouthed leering, and no little fishes nibbling at your various tasty bits. I’d like to think that my version would be so much better for the planet. Sure, there’d be that one diver who gets freaked out with an octopus floats by sucking on someone’s detached head, but you have to take the good with the bad.

The real (boring) reef project is online: nmreef.com, but maybe they’d accept human shaped sculptures like the ones in the image at the top of this page, which is from The Underwater Sculpture Gallery in Grenada, West Indies. It is a project started in May 2006 by sculptor Jason Taylor, with the support of the Grenadian Ministry of Tourism and Culture. This is a unique artistic enterprise, celebrating Caribbean culture and highlighting environmental processes, such as coral reef re-generation.