Crematorium video botch

By the time done seven letters and twenty three emails with attached letters to invite people to our CBS stakeholder meeting next week yesterday morning, my brain was scrambled. I couldn't face doing more, so I went home and did very little until it was time to eat supper and drive to Tai Chi class. The preparation tasks are not yet complete so I counted on a physical workout to re-balance me, and was not disappointed.

This morning I had a funeral service to take at St David's in Ely, concluding at Thornhill Crematorium's Briwnant chapel, the smaller of the two. Since my last visit there, some months ago, a video display screen has been installed above the altar, suspended in front of the curtain serving as a decorative backdrop. 

I understand this building is used by people of all faiths and none. A video screen can be used to show religious symbols (or not). It can be used to show a photo of the deceased, play a last music video request, or even a video message from the deceased at the service. These days, the range of bereavement consumer choices is immense and goes far beyond the simple dignified reticence of traditional rites of passage. A municipal facility needs to keep up with what rate payers ask for.

What irked me was the aesthetic incongruity of this innovation. The alignment of the screen was not perfectly symmetrical in relation to the curtain it was hung in front of. Indeed the folds in the curtain would have made this difficult to achieve, so the outcome looks ill-considered. Was the architect/interior designer consulted about this? As there's blank wall to the right of the curtain, above and behind the officiating minister's head, there was sufficient space for a less intrusive but equally visible installation.

After saying farewell to the mourners, I raised the matter with the crematorium attendants, and was told it had been installed without soliciting their ideas about location suitability. Nothing could now be done, as a hole had been cut in the (very expensive) curtain hanging for the screen's mounting arm and cables. 

In a year's time I shall ask a local councillor to enquire of Bereavement Services how often funeral arrangers have requested use of this screen, and how often staff have displayed palliative default images on their own initiative, because they found the empty screen above the altar in distractingly poor taste. All in the interests of learning if this is value for money - of course.