Russell Hoban, One Less Octopus at Paxos

Russell Hoban, the writer, died on 13 December 2011.

His very short story  One Less Octopus at Paxos, a model of flash fiction (although it's probably a true story), appeared in Granta Magazine in 1983. It's the second story in this Granta Travel Issue link.

Eight reasons why octopuses are the genius of the ocean (BBC)

Herbert List, Octopus, Corfu, 1938

On Greece: Broken Marble, Broken Future (BBC)

"Modern Greece has lived through the Asia Minor disaster of 1922, Axis occupation in 1940s, civil war and military dictatorship. But in those critical times there was at least an enemy, a cause and the belief that popular action could bring about significant change. But the current national crisis feel different. Different every day, different every week, different every month. As the most recent 48 hour national strike gripped the nation, the writer Maria Margaronis navigated her way through her beloved country to hear - above the din of protest and the hiss of the tear gas - those voices trying to make sense of this spiralling crisis in Athens and in the mountains and villages beyond".