this is exactly the kind of thing that we, as writers, should be looking for and reading. These are the dark and uncomfortable and horrific corners of human life where we ought to be looking and from which we should be learning.

One should never shy away from the darkness, for that is how it grows and takes hold.

JB

this is exactly the kind of thing that we, as writers, should be looking for and reading. These are the dark and uncomfortable and horrific corners of human life where we ought to be looking and from which we should be learning. There is nothing sick about posting this.

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Dee

Yeah I found it fascinating though not particularly pleasant. But that's life, I guess.

I don’t think the world will be a better or safer place without me.

I think that'll stick with me. Thanks for posting.

Nik

PS I don't think you're a prat either. Any of you.

I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am.

...is the one that got me.

JB

Have to agree that, personally, I find this a bit sick, Rog. To find, under the heading 'Inspiration and Ideas', something which intrudes into the final moments of the victims of an oppressive, cruel and indefensible manifestation of state violence....

I kind of agree, but I also think this is exactly why these comments are so fascinating. What would you say in that situation? What could you say that would seem meaningful? Yes, of course it's voyeuristic and prurient to read such things - but maybe it's best to accept that's precisely what most of us are (some of the time)? I liked the comment about the last meal being really good.

Is the mike on?

That can't be true surely?

I don't see that there's anything worse about this than, say, a graphic description of a murder in a novel (or Dickens' description of Bill Sykes's last moments in Oliver Twist). None of the quotes are attributed, so it isn't as if the writer is taking advantage of the death of any identifiable person. Besides which, why shouldn't the realities of execution be open to scrutiny?

Alex