The Octopus Man

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The yacht comfortably accommodates 12 esteemed guests and a committed crew of 42, ensuring a seamless and lavish yachting experience. Accommodation includes a large VIP cabin, four guest cabins, a children’s cabin, and two additional cabins for staff or doctors. Gibson began researching the book by compiling the notes and journals of his cousin who lived with the diagnosis of schizophrenia and mysteriously died at age forty. The character of Tom is informed by Gibson’s cousin but not a depiction, allowing for greater creative liberty and for Tom’s story to unfold on its own terms. Gibson also consulted renowned voice-hearer Jacqui Dillon, Chair of the National Hearing Voices Network in England, who shares a snapshot of her journey in the book Living with Voices. Dillon asserts that the plethora of voices she hears are her mind’s creative coping strategy to surviving horrific childhood abuse, “a perfectly natural, human response to devastating experiences” (p. 190). Psychiatry’s attempt to pathologise an understandable response to abuse was deeply damaging to Dillon, who eventually learned to engage and collaborate with her voices rather than suppress them, finding deeper meaning and self-understanding in the process. On May 19 th, Dillon and Gibson joined forces to present at a ISPS UK and Hearing the Voice, Durham University webinar, hosted by Angela Woods, to discuss the ethics and impact of telling stories that reframe and humanise the experience of psychosis and voice-hearing. A recording of their discussion can be accessed here. It was during those first few days that she gained her name. “When you first put animals in the tank they look for a place to hide and then they often don’t come out until they’ve had a chance to assess the place,” Scheel says. “We had anticipated that and bought several large snails and released a few crab in the tank. They all hid as well but over the next 10 days or so they disappeared one-by-one in the night time. When she realised there was nothing dangerous, she started to come out during the day.”

Tom is put into terrible dilemmas – faced with impossible choices. To take the medication that might separate him from his closest companion, the Octopus God, or to continue on a downward spiral which is destroying his own life and the health of his beloved sister Tess. Lürssen Yachts is a luxury yacht builder based in Bremen, Germany. The company was founded in 1875 and is known for building custom-made motor yachts, with sizes ranging from 50 to 180 meters in length. Lurssen yachts are known for their high-quality craftsmanship, attention to detail, and use of advanced technology. The company has a reputation for building some of the world’s largest and most complex yachts, and has a long history of working with top yacht designers and naval architects to create innovative and unique yacht designs. The most notable projects include Azzam, Dilbar, NORD, and Scheherazade. Espen Oeino

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Octopus has assisted on several occasions in recent years. Including an air and sea search in the waters of Palau. Looking for missing police officers and their pilot. Musashi

The Octopus Man is an incredible piece of writing. It's a story about schizophrenia and psychosis that cleverly observes and examines the problems and contradictions within the British mental health system. Espen Øino is a Norwegian yacht designer who is known for designing some of the world’s largest and most luxurious yachts. He is the founder and principal designer of Espen Øino International, a yacht design firm based in Monaco. Espen Øino has designed over 200 yachts, including many of the world’s largest and most technologically advanced yachts. Oeino is considered to be one of the world’s leading design studios for large luxury motor yachts. Notable projects include Flying Fox, Crescent, and Octopus. More About Info About This YachtInspired by the life of Jasper Gibson’s cousin, Ed Metcalfe, who died in 2011 after suffering with schizophrenia for 20 years, the book follows our character Thomas Tuplow’s life. Humans have basically zero in common with octopuses. We share a camera eye with a retina, but oddly, we gained it entirely independently of each other. Our evolutionary paths diverged nearly twice as long ago as human’s did with any other vertebrate. It is often said that they are the closest analogues we have to alien life on Earth, and even scientists largely agree. The copper-based protein is more efficient at transporting oxygen molecules in cold and low-oxygen conditions, so is ideal for life in the ocean. Tom never seen himself as having a mental health problem and from the beginning Tom was being labelled as a schizophrenic and put into a mental health clinic to subdue his thoughts just because his thoughts and behaviour was out of the ordinary.

In Tom, Gibson has created a character with wit and humour, endearing the reader to him. I found myself smiling and laughing with him...but hurt all the more for him in his pain, sadness and suffering.

Finally, why do octopuses have blue blood?

Many of us will probably describe themselves as progressive, modern, even woke, but we all have our taboos, and schizophrenia and mental health are most certainly some of them. Corsens, D., Dillon, J., Escher, S., Morris, M., Romme, M. 2009. Living With Voices. Monmouth: PCCS Books, Ross-on-Wye. Decades ago, as a child, I read a book about a guy who befriends an octopus, becoming aware of its intelligence and curiosity and then having to live through the drama of his friend dying. My Octopus Teacher is basically the same thing, only it's a documentary. Octopi are marvelous creatures, both in their weird biology and their incredible intelligence. Numerous anecdotes have them use tools, enjoy beauty and create artistic work, be able to personally connect to the people they encounter. That is amazing from a completely non social creature that can rarely live more than a year. In terms of intelligence, no animal or man comes close in that small time span. After succumbing to the drug trial, Tom falls into the lauded arms of biomedical recovery, a return “to ordinary life, to normality—the consensus perversion (p 313).” The world here is sapped of colour, a stable yet meaningless road of navigating benefits, bad dates and medication regimes, and determining how to afford and prepare a bowl of pasta on PIP with a heavily sedated brain. Compared to the vibrancy of his life as a voice-hearer, when a walk in the forest satiates all senses with beauty, Tom explains his so-called improved life: “I cannot enter these woods as before. I am a ghost now, and cannot share its life (p 200).” But these are just facts. The documentary is a personal account from a guy who by chance became fascinated with such a creature and spent a year diving underwater without a wetsuit or an oxygen tank and studying it, earning its trust and caring about it. You can see, in his narration, how difficult it was to just keep the distance necessary to observe the life of the octopus and not become part of it. There are scenes when the creature jumps on his hand and then explores his chest, cradling to it and accepting warmth and petting. It is that personal approach to the documentary which makes is so powerful.

Following Tom who has been living with the Octopus god Malamok. The Octopus controls everything Tom does and as his life breaks down around him, Malamok and his sister Tess are all he has. I got divorced, and er, the ex took most of the living room furniture,” explains ecologist David Scheel, when asked just how he could accommodate the enormous salt-water tank necessary to keep an octopus in his home for a year. Tom Tuplow is a very engaging character and I totally fell for him. He is kind and brave and insightful and intelligent. But his world has been taken over by his relationship with The Octopus God – a strict and punishing god that appears to be leading him on a path of spiritual enlightenment but whose methods include electrocuting him and forcing him to do and say things that he, Tom, doesn’t want to. Launched in 2009, SuperYachtFantransitioned from a gallery of yacht imagery to a pivotal resource, culminating in the Super Yacht Owners Register—a meticulously compiled database featuring over 1,450 yacht owners. Heidi’s appearance wasn’t purely a result of Scheel’s divorce. He has been studying octopuses for the past 25 years when he was presented with the opportunity to live with one and document their cohabitation by a television production company.The novel also focuses upon the relationship between Tom and his sister, Tess, and how his condition deeply distresses her. There were some quite harrowing scenes between them as Tom seems to be unable to appreciate the pain his behaviour continues to cause her. I came to care very much about Tom, Tess, and his quirky fellow patient, Missy. Brian Eno’s long out-of-print collection of essays taken from his diary for the year 1995 is rightly regarded as one of the seminal books about music. This 25th-anniversary reissue, complete with new introduction and up-to-date notes by Eno, is an invaluable insight into the mind and working practices of one of the industry’s undeniable geniuses, even if the ostentatious self-regard that he displays (“I have a wonderful life,” he boasts early on) seems harder to swallow now than it might have done in his heyday. The Octopus Man Inspired by his cousin, who suffered for more than 20 years on long term medication as a diagnosed schizophrenic, Jasper Gibson’s novel is heart-felt and deeply moving. The ship was sunk during World War II. Despite numerous eyewitness accounts, the exact location of the ship was unknown.