OK I read this on the BBC website today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/f ... 196011.stm
The article reminded me of an incident in my life which happened in 1999 and which whenever I recall, people accuse me of making up. But you have to trust me on this it really did happen.
Back then I was working at a chartered accountancy exam board. Most of the African and Asian countries still take the British accountacy exams (since they 'belonged' to us back in the bad old days of the Empire).
Anyway one guy, a student from Ghana, was actually a prince or something or other of a tribe and his father died. This father was "the second biggest poultry producer in Ghana" and had a chain of chicken farms.
Now, I don't know if you've ever had any dealings with 'real' Africans but they are extraordinarily friendly and polite and this guy (forgotten his name now) invited the exam board staff, me included, to attend the funeral of his father in Ghana. Apparantly Ghanian funerals are alittle less grave than Western funerals are and basically this thing was going to be a week long celebration.
Alas, as you'd expect everyone had to politely decline but a couple of weeks later the Bloke from Ghana send us an expensive printed booklet. It was the souvenir funeral programme. Now this programme had the guys life story in it complete with pictures (my favourite picture of all time was in it - a picture of the Ghanian tribal leader dressed in 'scientist' outfit sitting in a 1970's German lab next to a bunsen burner and an egg in an egg cup).
It also had pictures of the funeral 'celebrations', the highlight was this bloke being buried in a GIANT CHICKEN COFFIN. A coffin, painted and shaped to resemble A GIANT CHICKEN.
So anyway that's the story. I don't suppose many people have been invited the funeral of a Ghanian tribal leader being laid to rest in a giant chicken and sometimes I think back to that time and wonder why I passed up on the opportunity.
