Why we must not underestimate the clever and talented octopus

WHEN you are young, you believe anything and everything you are told by anyone older than you. For example, irresponsible adults made me really superstitious and I believed all kinds of nonsense. I would never walk under ladders, I stayed in bed every Friday the 13th and I would always throw salt over my shoulder into the devil’s eyes.

It was only a matter of time, I thought, until UFOs landed on the green in front of Lews Castle and I so believed Free Presbyterians I knew back then were right to shun TV and cook their Sunday dinner on a Saturday to make sure they had a comfortable time in the next life. We Free Churchers were so sloppy compared to them. Way to go.

Now I’m not so sure. Obviously, I am still expecting to see some weird and utterly unintelligible creatures shuffling about on the castle green this week, but that will be just after the bar closes at the Hebridean Celtic Festival.

So I am still struggling with my belief in this octopus called Paul that has predicted the results at the World Cup.

Of course, it is all coincidence, probably, and the stories just made me hungry, thinking of a plate of calamari.

Paul at work

Being the big-hearted fellow that he is, Cameraman had a word with his big brother. Skelly, major, is a fisher of men. So, on Saturday evening, in comes Cameraman with a carrier bag full of octoplops.

These guys are both real Christians. I was very grateful. Then reality hit. What do you do with 40 tentacles late on a Saturday?

As with Paul, I first decided to name my next five dinners. Julian, Dick, Anne, Georgina and Timmy – after Enid Blyton’s Famous Five.

Technology means there is little about food preparation that can stump me. I found websites showing, in all its slithery detail, how to clean and prepare octopus.

I was to sort of turn each one inside out and remove the beak. Georgina has a beak? Is she a cross between a denizen of the deep and a parrot? Sure enough, I found it.

Dick was difficult. Looking like a bundle of slimy rags in need of a good rinse, his beak was hidden deep in its bits and bobs.

So, after preparing myself with an alcohol sanitiser – I find Trawler Rum is easier to drink than the stuff they offer in every hospital corridor nowadays – I put on my best surgical gown (actually Mrs X’s best apron), pulled on a pair of those specialised rubberoid surgical gloves, reached for the sharpest bread knife in the drawer and prepared to make my first incision.

Suddenly, ssschhwelppp. Dick was off skiting along the linoleum. Maybe the cephalopod mollusc had somehow slithered back on to this mortal coil. Maybe it decided the worktop in my back porch was not the healthiest place to be then. Maybe my surgical gloves, which were actually Mrs X’s Marigolds, were too wet and slippery. Whatever, have you tried picking up a partly-operated-on octopus? Like eating soup with a fork it was.

I then chopped the heads off before tugging out the really yucky, squishy bits. Sorry if I’m confusing you with all these medical terms.

To get them chewy but not rubbery, the secret is to boil for an hour before sauteeing and adding garlic, mushrooms and baby tomatoes. That’s now done and after leaving overnight I will have Georgina and Dick for a wee supper when Corrie is on tonight.

As no one else in this house will come within half a mile of me when I’m scoffing my seafood surprises, it may not be that wee.

Everyone is going on about Paul, that blinking German octopus. There was even a suggestion that he might be lined up as a surprise housemate on Big Brother. Well, he’ll need an income now that the World Cup is over. Otherwise, he could end up on squid row.

The octopus thing has even reached Stornoway. A guy walked into the Clachan Bar on Friday with one under his arm. He plonked it on the bar and announced that, like Paul, his was also a very talented octopus. His was not psychic, though, but was very musical and could play any instrument. He was prepared to put a bet of £20 on it.

Not believing a word of it, a fellow from Parkend grabbed his guitar and put it down beside the octopus, who by this time was on his second packet of prawn cocktail crisps.

Two tentacles darted out and, in seconds, the octopus had the Clachan jumping as he strummed a rollicking version of The Fields of Athenry. Unlikely, I know. But they probably thought the octopus could be cheaper than that one-woman band, Sandie.

It was better than any of the legends – Clapton, Cobain, Costello. The man from the end of the park dug deep and paid his £20.

Another guy from south Harris jumped up with an accordion. Same thing. The octopus played the box no bother. His tentacles flew up and down the keys better than Fergie Macdonald and Iain MacCorquodale combined. The Hearach lost his two tenners.

A third guy from Laxdale produced a set of bagpipes. With a squeal of delight, the octopus wrenched it off him and in seconds his long arms and suckers were all over the drones, the bag and the chanter. A hush descended. What was the octopus going to play? The Skye Boat Song? The Water is Wide? Shoals of Herring?

The slithery sea creature suddenly put it down with a confused look in its bulging eyes.

“Ha,” the Laxdale man shouted. “You can’t do it, can you? Haoi you, geez ma 20 notes. Now.”

The octopus looked up at him out of the corner of one of his eyes and said: “Don’t you worry, cove. Me and this one’ll make sweet music together. Just give me a minute to figure out how to get her pyjamas off.”