Octopus Facts

• The average octopus eats ten times its body weight in human faeces over the course of any given week.

• All octopuses are fully paid up members of the Hermetic Order of the Octetic Dawn—an organisation dedicated to the occult, the literary arts and finding the best uses for those little twist-tie things that come with bags of fresh clam-pearls.

• The top speed ever recorded for a moving octopus was 138mph. This speed was recorded off the coast of Namibia by a vandalised speed camera dumped in the Atlantic ocean by criminals.

• Unlike Prince Andrew, octopuses are capable of sweating, they just choose not to.

• An octopus has eight tentacles, two eyes, one beak and a brain the size of a large dog*.

• Most octopuses hate other octopuses.

• Dolphins and octopuses get along just fine as long as there is no alcohol involved and no one mentions the war.

• In 1732 an octopus the approximate size of the Sydney Opera House washed up on the shores of Cocoa Beach, Florida. Its petrified carcass was later used to construct the Epcot Centre and some of the rollercoasters at Disney World.

• Contrary to popular belief, octopuses are perfectly capable of editing magazines, newspapers and other publications—albeit with limited assistance from humans/meat-droids. This was demonstrated in 1874 when an octopus briefly took ownership of GQ Magazine. The octopus worked as its chief editor until 1899 when it was ousted for its anarcho-syndicalist sentiments and controversial support of the Philippine Republic during the Philippine-American War.

• There are exactly zero documented cases of octopuses running bed & breakfasts, however, there have been at least sixteen octopus proprietors of luxury holiday resorts, mostly centred around the Iberian Peninsula and the Costa del Sol.

• Rumours of widespread racism in the octopus community have been overstated—it is a well-known fact that octopuses hate everyone equally. Sharks are thought to be the one exception and octopuses reserve a special kind of loathing for their kind—though this is speculated to be a result of the sharks’ infamous breaking of the Peace of Westphalia in 1701**.

• Octopuses are, on average, six times more intelligent than Reform UK voters and a staggering twenty-six times more intelligent than Reform UK Councillors. They are, however, equally likely to post something inflammatory on social media.

• The only person on Earth other than Marco Pierre-White to have made Gordon Ramsay cry was an octopus by the name of Myggzymyz. According to legend, Myggzymyz had been caught by an octopus hunter from Barcelona and was destined for one of Ramsay’s Michelin Star restaurants. On arrival in the kitchen, however, Myggzymyz serenaded Ramsay with a rendition of The Bonny Light Horseman, which they had learned from a British Hussar circa 1809. So moved was Gordon Ramsay that he instantly hired Myggzymyz as his sous-chef and they now own and run their own establishment—The Singing Cephalopod—located in Shepherd’s Bush. The clams are exquisite.

• Rumours that Jane Austen was actually an octopus in disguise are, sadly, unfounded. The confusion likely arose as a result of misinformation spread after her death by Charlotte Brontë—an octopus herself. Why Brontë wanted to propagate such lies is unknown, though some speculate it was an attempt to gain favour with her brother, Branwell, who was known to despise Austen’s work, as well as being one of the few sources of high-quality octopine in early Victorian Britain.

• While dogs are widely thought to have been the first animals in space, with faithful soviet space-hound Laika being sent into orbit in 1957, octopuses have actually been visiting the final frontier since at least 1304AD. Unlike their canine counterparts, however, octopus cosmonauts a) don’t brag about it, and b) visit space by choice, rather than being crammed into space-capsules by a bunch of sweaty humans and being sent on suicidal research missions with zero chance of survival. Their favourite place to visit is Andromeda, where it is said there is an entire planet of octopuses just hanging out by the pool, sipping clam-juice and slamming betrabrax pills while listening to jungle remixes of Les Rallizes Dénudés.

• Whatever an octopus might tell you to the contrary, there is no such thing as a “rare nine-legged octopus”—any octopus that tries to convince you otherwise is likely an exhibitionist and a pervert, and should be reported to the leaders of the octopus community at once.

* In countries that have adopted the metric system this equates to one small lion.

**Not to be confused with the human version which brought an end to the Thirty Years War.