Happy New Year. My return to the office was brightened by a bright pink brochure sent to me by snailmail from Lyon in France announcing this year's Funexpo.

Apparently Funexpo has been going for 30 years, although I have never come across it before. What sort of fun can it be, I wondered. It turned out to be a funeral exhibition, as I'm sure many in the memorial side of the business will know. It's a name you can't help feeling should have been run-by someone who could speak English all those years ago.

Not that 'fun' is a word that should necessarily be divorced from the death care industry – not, at least, its exhibitions. I have attended the Funeraire exhibition in Paris and the National Funeral Exhibition at Stoneleigh in the UK many times and have had a lot of fun at both at them.

Still, you can't help questioning the wisdom of calling a death care exhibition Funexpo, can you? Even some of the architectural side of the stone industry get a little touchy about the memorial side.

Eric Bignell, Editor