1. Decapitation
The removal of the human head has always been popular as means of offing one's enemies from John The Baptist to Count Dooku in Star Wars via Anne Boleyn and a whole load of posh blokes named Thomas in England (I'm not kidding. Wikipaedia that sucker, every other name is Thomas. It's weird). In the war between the drug cartels of Mexico it's the "go to" method of punishment. Which reminds me, the "capital" part of the phrase "capital punishment" actually comes from from the Latin word "caput", which means "head." The questions this method of death raises are twofold: is a severed head aware of what has just happened; and does it still feel pain? It was once argued that a beheaded person instantly loses consciousness due to the huge drop in blood pressure and blood flow to the brain. However, ongoing conjecture about the length of time that the head remained conscious after it has been removed from the body inspired some to suggest the guillotine was a loathesome contraption of the most abhorrent torture rather than a quick and efficient murder machine. There are countless eyewitness reports and anecdotal evidence in history which relate a few moments of awareness in the victim between the moment of decapitation and death: blinking, the eyes looking around and the lips moving have all been reported. Specific facial expressions have been seen on the faces of the beheaded, ranging from an initial shock and confusion to horror and anguish. Charlotte Corday, who was beheaded for the murder of Jean-Paul Marat during the French Revolution, was said to have given a look of indignation when her severed head was pulled of the basket and her face given a slap. We humans are so clever that we can put the notion of death in a little box and bury it so deep in our subconscious that we never think about it. The truth is that by ignoring our mortality - and that of those around us - we're entirely unprepared when Mr G Reaper Esquire comes a'knockin'. Another consequence is that we fail to live our lives to the fullest. I've read and seen some hideous things that I can neither unread nor unsee in researching this piece. I'm going to need a serious lie-down for a while, but when I wake up I'm going to buy myself a ridiculously tight leotard and get in touch with Misty Copeland.