My Dog Errol

The octopus looked in my eye
As he clung to my shivering thigh.
‘Man is scarcely unique,
Just a hideous freak,’
He observed. I could make no reply.

Alarmingly the octopus sets out to debunk Descartes‘s teaching, that ‘animals are mere machines, but man stands alone’, but its intentions are contradicted by the scenario itself. For one thing, the man is not ‘standing alone’. For another, only a unique species could fantasise such a damning put-down from a ‘mere machine’ – and then be too stupid to come up with an appropriate riposte.