Channel 5 in interesting documentary shock!
p. “Channel 5”:http://www.five.tv/ seems to be determined to disguise its informative documentaries cunningly with copious amounts of schlock. Exhibit A: earlier in the week I watched a documentary called “Killer Squid Attack”. That title could only be made closer to the Channel 5 archetype by inserting the word ‘Nazi’. I suppose that I could try to claim that I knew all along it would be interesting, but the truth is that I just thought it might be funny. Plus I’m a bit of a [“cephalopod-ophile(Dan Hon’s cephalopod links)”:http://danhon.com/ec/mtarchives/2003/08/09/preemptivelybowingtocephalopoidoverlords/index.shtml#000613].
p. Imagine my surprise when the documentary actually turned out to be quite interesting. True, there was rather gratuitous use of ‘Jaws’-like background music, and a lot of talk of aggression, ‘frenzied attacks’ and cannibalism. My view is that if you’ve just been caught on a barbed hook, yanked out of an environment in which you can breathe, and had a piercing to insert a scientific identification tag, you’re entitled to a certain amount of tetchiness.
p. The ‘killer squid’ in question are the Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas), or—as they were dubbed in the programme—jumbo squid. Really, the word ‘jumbo’ should be reserved for food portions, which I suppose might apply to this species. “Jumbo squid rings, anyone?” They live in the Gulf of Mexico at depths of 200-700m, and are a pretty mysterious species. They are predatory, very curious about divers, and yes—they can be quite agressive, but then they are predators, and that’s really part of the job description.
