Recommended: Terry Pratchett - Shaking Hands with Death

Sir Terry Pratchett died yesterday.  In 2010 he gave the annual Richard Dimbleby lecture on the subject of "Shaking Hands with Death", which the BBC taped and is available on YouTube here.  As his Alzheimer condition had already progressed to the point where he had trouble reading his speech, he had his good friend the actor Tony Robinson read his speech for him.

It is classic Terry Pratchet, full of humor and insight, but passionate in his appeal for the right of people suffering from an incurable disease, like himself, to choose the time and place of their exit from this world, surrounded by friends and family whom they still recognize, rather than existing as a living corpse sustained by tubes and machines.

I don't know (and perhaps the public will never know) if he availed himself of that choice yesterday, but it would have been in his character  - and in my opinion, his absolute right - to do so.

This lecture, running about 45 minutes, is well worth listening to.