Friday Fucktopus

Well the Vuvuzelas have been piled on the proverbial garbage heap (shame they're not biodegradable) or perhaps they've been distributed to the SA police for use as whipping sticks. Spain is still partying hard after their World Cup win, my wonderful Aussie hat has been relegated to the back of the wardrobe and I guess it's just a matter of time before I have to give back the MASSIVE borrowed digital television loaned to us to watch the footy and which I will sorely miss.

This week's Fuckwit . . .the person who named the psychic octopus who accurately predicted the outcome of all the final 8 games "Paul!" . . what were you thinking!

I know! Had to post this, who ever thought of an erotic octopus but hey . . I digress.

This isn't really a Friday Fuckwit but it's a cute story anyway.  

Octopus Paul may very well have psychic powers and an ability to predict the future, says one of Australia's top cephalopod researchers.


Museum Victoria's head of science, Dr Mark Norman, has been studying octopuses, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses - otherwise known as the cephalopods - for more than two decades.

While Dr Norman admits to being an Octopus Paul sceptic, he says the sea creature should not be underestimated.

"They're clever animals with big brains and they do amazing things," he said. "It's very impressive what Paul has done and I don't know if it's psychic or not, but they're animals that are capable of amazing things, so who can tell.

Octopus Paul has become a World Cup sensation by correctly forecasting the results of Germany's seven games in South Africa and finishing the tournament in style by predicting a Spanish victory in the final.

The eight-limbed Mediterranean octopus would make his prediction by choosing between two containers of food marked with the flags of the competing countries. But Dr Norman says he is wary of the science behind Paul's string of eight correct predictions. For one, he says octopuses are colourblind, so the colour of the flag is irrelevant to Paul.

"But having said that I don't want to underestimate how amazing these animals are and how clever they are... they're doing pretty well for a super snail relative.

"They can recognise individual people in a crowd, they can unscrew the lids off jars, they can collect up half coconut shells and carry them around like portable armour and jump inside if something comes along.

"So they're doing cool things out there beyond their psychic abilities."  Better than psychic. Dr Norman says in the wild, octopuses do far more interesting things than predicting the future.

"We've got one octopus called the mimic octopus in Indonesia that we discovered that impersonates poisonous black and white sea snakes by putting six arms down a hole and waving the other two around like a writhing sea snake," he said.   "It can also swim up in a water column impersonating poisonous lionfish with all the barbs sticking out on its body so it's sort of like the ultimate shape changer."  He says all octopuses have an amazing ability to shapeshift and camouflage.  "Their skin is a super high resolution colour changing organ - they were doing 3D high definition TV as skin about a hundred million years before we got out of the trees," he said.  "And because they've got no hard shell, an animal that's a metre across could squeeze through a hole the size of about a 20 cent piece, they can squeeze their eyes out of shape and pull their soft brains through the middle of these holes.


"They're also very clever at finding their crab or prawn or fish prey, they can drill through shells and poison the occupant inside and then crawl inside and eat the scallop or whatever it is."

He says Australia has 76 recognised octopus species, including the spaghetti octopus, which has long, thin arms that look like spaghetti, and the deadly blue-ringed octopus.  "They have flashing blue police lights to warn everybody to keep away because they're full of poison, which is enough to kill people in about two minutes," he said.  "Some of the big octopuses get to a three or four metres arm span and some of them are the size of your fingernail, so there are many octopus variations."


Dr Norman says whether Paul has psychic powers or not, one thing is for certain: this is Paul's last set of World Cup predictions.  He says most octopuses only live to be one to three years old, and Paul is already two-and-a-half.  "It's definitely Paul's last World Cup prediction, unless he becomes a champion of octopus longevity.

A Spanish town which celebrates an annual octopus festival has requested that Paul, be allowed to join them as a guest of honour this year.  O Carballino, in the north-western Galicia region, hopes the eight-legged oracle would be allowed by aquarium staff in Oberhuasen, Germany to travel to the festival on August 8.

Paul has already been rewarded with honorary citizenship of the town with several Galician businessmen collecting 30,000 euros to make an offer to buy the soccer soothsayer, according to press reports.


He has become a symbol of Spain's World Cup victory with Andres Iniesta, the scorer of the winning goal over the Netherlands in the final, carrying a plastic octopus as the team were acclaimed in Madrid on Monday.

Travelling to this region of Spain could prove hazardous for Paul, as octopus is a delicacy, particularly in Galicia, where the speciality is boiled and served finely sliced with paprika, olive oil and boiled potatoes.

Thank you so much for your well wishes regarding the job. It's been a hard slog trying to get there but I feel good about this one.

It's a beautiful sunny but cold Friday in the antipodes . . .you northerners keep cool while we southerners stoke our fires.  Have a good one folks!

Oh and if you play Theme Thursday and you DON'T (sorry 'e') properly link your post and not your blog to the Mr Linky widget, I will out you next Friday. Name you and shame you. We Saturday catcher upperers need to link directly. Please possums. Don't make me do it. I loves yous all!