When my wife was offered a job in Ghana, I jumped online to research the place that was to become our new home. As I scoured the web for mundane information on housing and the availability of a preferred brand of dog food, an article that had piqued my interest several years previous, on the fantasy coffins of the Ga tribe, sprang to mind. Although it was a relatively new ‘tradition’, only dating back to the 1950s, a group of craftsmen in Accra had succeeded in transforming the humble wooden overcoat into something quite spectacular. Intoxicated by the recollection and weary of my original task, I googled up some photos.

As images of coffins in the guise of mobile phones, fish and BMWs filled the screen, I knew I had a project on my hands.

The concept of the fantasy coffin is quite simple: the deceased is buried in a casket representing their career, interests or aspirations. A soft drinks distributor might be buried in a Coke bottle, a carpenter in a lathe or a farmer in a spring onion. The skills of the coffin builders mean that nothing is too outlandish a request - a car, a crab, a corn cob, a camera; if you can dream it, they can build it.

So, I knew I wanted a flamboyant custom-built coffin, but in what form? Having run a design and communications company for many years I momentarily toyed with the more obvious stereotypes denoting creativity, including a pencil and a Mac (though for the record, I never for a moment stooped as low as a lightbulb).

Awakening from this cliché nightmare, I scrapped this approach and just as well, for my wife would never have lived with an over-sized brain in the living room, the most appropriate embodiment if I’d pursued this concept to it’s logical conclusion…

The key lesson I had brought away from this thought process was the idea that my casket should be at least vaguely dual-purpose. It was not going to be the most diminuitive of souvenirs and should therefore probably have at least a pretence of practical use if it was to take up prime real estate in our home.

The next dumb idea was an iPhone. It could stand in a corner with a minimal footprint and have removable shelves, a repository for books until it was called on for a higher (or rather lower) purpose. Genius!

Until the new one came out and my coffin was obsolete.

By the time I expire the iPhone will probably be an injectable pellet and so if I am going to do technology, I may as well go for the original Motorola brick as today’s latest model.

What to do? The anguish! But woah there...the answer was right under my nose. Literally.

An acre or so of old-growth forest had been in residence on my upper lip for a couple of years by this time and had, to many, become my most defining feature. Not only would it be representative of me at this point in my life, but how many others could lay claim to having a coffin in the form of a handlebar moustache?

With some careful planning it could have a sheet of toughened glass laid over the top, supported by the tips and the point of origin, to create a hirsute sideboard that would become the envy of the world’s moustachioed elite!

I could be onto something here…

With this web site I will document the development of my curly creation from concept to delivery, along with a few other random discoveries as I make them during my time in Ghana.

I’ll post smaller nuggets of interest as I go on a Facebook Page called Moustache of Death and on Twitter @MustacheofDeath (I know, I know, it’s the American spelling but the English is one character too long for a Twitter name - pfffffff). Please leave any comments or suggestions on Facebook as I can’t currently enable them on here.

Yours truly,

Moustache of Death xx