Ways to kill Portillo

[TheDoctor]

Whereas, for reasons I don't want to go into, I came away feeling slightly comforted about something.

It was disturbing, especially the electric chair bit - I came in just as they were showing the footage of Edisons experiment to electrocute an elephant, which I'd heard about on QI. And the pig experiment, with the burning and the melting fat.... But sometimes, it takes a bit of shock to make people think...

That's so, so wrong.
Unlike the bit on 'Blazing Saddles' where they had a horse on the gallows, which was highly amusing.

 

[Arch]

That's so, so wrong.
Unlike the bit on 'Blazing Saddles' where they had a horse on the gallows, which was highly amusing.

According to QI, the elephant had form, having killed a keeper who was trying to feed it lit cigarettes... It was all done as a stunt by Edison who bleived that 'his' type of electricity was safe, as opposed to his competitors type (something to do with direct vs alternating current). So he rigged the elephant up to the competitors leccy...

Pete: cyanide was mentioned, but discounted as 'perfect' because for it to work quickly the prisoner has to cooperate by breathing in deeply. They used a demo with CS gas to show that breathing in deeply and calmly, even with a gas you know is only an irritant, not deadly, is virtually impossible. They showed it used on a rabbit (in a US jail test), which thrashed about a fair bit before death.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

He should do a follow up programme...How to kill a motorist.

 

[Alan Frame]

He should do a follow up programme...How to kill a motorist.

Tell him fuel is going up to £10 a litre at midnight.

 

[Hover Fly]

As for hanging: a student with whom I used to share a flat, had an elder brother, or cousin, or whatever, who was in the Prison service and had some dealings with (British) executions back in the 1950s and 60s. He was very assertive about the '11 seconds' rule, that was: the maximum time from when Pierrepoint (or whoever) marched into the condemned cell, opened the secret door, manhandled the prisoner to the gallows, shackled him, pulled the lever, left him stone-dead in the noose ... all this time was supposed to total no more than eleven seconds. Having watched dramatic stagings of the act in several movies, which I think are accurate portrayals, I can believe in the timing up to the drop, yes. Whether the victim really did become unconscious or dead once he had dropped, or whether he remained conscious and in agony for many minutes thereafter, as some claim ... this is still open to debate.

For me, 'barbarous' sums it up...

It varied from prison to prison, some, Wandsworth for instance, had a door directly from the cell into the "drop room" as it was called, at others like Strangeways, the prisoner had quite a walk to the drop room. The hangman or his assistant never touched the prisoner until he was on the trapdoor, two Warders had the job of "escorting" them, often with the aid of truncheons.

 

[Melvil]

Has anyone read the J.G Ballard short-story about an execution?

The condemned shared a house in the middle of nowhere with his executioner and they played chess a lot. The condemned had no idea when or how his execution would take place, only that it was certain. It brought a certain tension to the proceedings...

Now that would be a pretty horrible way to go...

 

[marinyork]

I saw it. About the usual style and tempo of Horizon if we're honest. Technically speaking the programme wasn't correct as shooting Gilmore or Taylor style is still a back up in some places in the US but that'd probably have added another ten minutes to the programme.

Was a reasonable programme although I suspect it would have seriously wound-up quite a few people in the states, putting Lethal Injection in such a bad light.

 

[Aint Skeered]

I started watching it, but had to turn it off after a while, I was quite shocked especially by the rabbit in the gas chamber.
What did they think was the most humane method should be?

 

[marinyork]

I started watching it, but had to turn it off after a while, I was quite shocked especially by the rabbit in the gas chamber.
What did they think was the most humane method should be?

None of them, even Lethal Injection got a drumming. They decided hypoxia via something cheaper than an altitude chamber would be desirable so came up with nitrogen gas. Why cost was a consideration I don't know, they spend a fortune on the processes in the states.

 

[TheDoctor]

According to QI, the elephant had form, having killed a keeper who was trying to feed it lit cigarettes... It was all done as a stunt by Edison who bleived that 'his' type of electricity was safe, as opposed to his competitors type (something to do with direct vs alternating current). So he rigged the elephant up to the competitors leccy...

Edison and Westinghouse were competing not to get the contract for electric chairs, IIRC. Because if your power is used to electrocute people, well it can't be safe to light your house with it, can it? Stands to reason...

I personally think the ellyfant was in the right here. If someone tried to feed me lit cigarettes I'd get a bit miffed too! Note to self - don't take cigarettes to Whipsnade.

 

[Pete]

Edison and Westinghouse were competing not to get the contract for electric chairs, IIRC. Because if your power is used to electrocute people, well it can't be safe to light your house with it, can it? Stands to reason...

The US had a moratorium on the death penalty for several years round about the 1970s. Then it ended and executions resumed. One of the first after the resumption, was an 'old sparky' execution in Florida. I remember reading in an article at the time: that the prison had to lay on its own generator specially for the job. The State electricity company had threatened to disconnect the entire prison's supply, if they attempted to wire up the chair to the mains.

Just shows: we may think of our energy suppliers as faceless monolithic mega-monsters, but sometimes they do show a human face...

 

[Arch]

Edison and Westinghouse were competing not to get the contract for electric chairs, IIRC. Because if your power is used to electrocute people, well it can't be safe to light your house with it, can it? Stands to reason...

I personally think the ellyfant was in the right here. If someone tried to feed me lit cigarettes I'd get a bit miffed too! Note to self - don't take cigarettes to Whipsnade.

Oh yes, I'm on the side of the elephant too. In fact, it's generally the better side to be I imagine, unless the other side have elephant guns...

 

[TheDoctor]

Oh yes, I'm on the side of the elephant too. In fact, it's generally the better side to be I imagine, unless the other side have elephant guns...

Guns that fire elephants? Is that like the bit in the Holy Grail where the Frenchies launched a cow from a ballista?

'Fetchez l'elephant!"

 

[Maverick Goose]

I'd eat his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti