I recently made a visit to explore around Highgate Cemetery in London. The graveyard is the final resting place of two really well-known people from history. The first is Karl Marx. We have all heard of Marx a well-known communist, who the term Marxism is coined after. I don’t know a lot about his philosophies or Marxism.  But, to my understanding, it has a lot to do with equality, with reducing the divide between the rich and the poor. So, I think it is a bit ironic that the largest grave in the graveyard belongs to Marx himself. Karl Marx has the largest and most opulent, look at me, gravestone there is, with a giant stone carving of him on the top of it.

For me, the more interesting grave in the cemetery and the one people simply walked right past on the way to the Marx grave is that of Douglas Adams. Whenever see lists of top books of all time, often “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is on that list. For me, the book is in my top ten books of all time. When I first read it, I thought it was brilliant and still do. Yet, the man who created the fantastic worlds in his books has a very standard looking tombstone that is easy to walk past and not notice. In the front is a little placeholder for budding writers and literary pilgrims to place pens and pencils. luckily, I happened to have a pen in my jacket pocket, so I was able to place mine with the rest.

This last picture I am posting from the cemetery is the grave of Ann Jewson Crisp (1789-1884). Based on the size of it her family must have had some money. But the reason it is photo-worthy is, she is buried with her dog Emperor. As I have also made it clear to anyone who knows me, that my grave better include the ashes of my dog, I appreciate it when someone else does the same. I just hope the dog was already dead when buried with her.

Also posted to my substack page