Giant Betfair octopus stranded at Oxford Circus, Twitter melt down ensued

Yep, you read that right. This morning a giant octopus was stranded right in the centre of Oxford Circus in central London.

No one is quite sure why the polystyrene beast from the deep ended up stuck in the middle of the busy junction, but according to TfL it’s now out of the way and only causing minor traffic mayhem down Regent Street.

Of course commuters took hundreds of snaps as they walked past the surreal sighting on their way into work this morning, so Twitter is unsurprisingly packed full of octopus snaps and sea jokes.

Update: Rich Leigh from PR Examples has found out that Betfair is behind the fake octopus, presumably a tribute to Paul the “oracle octopus” who made headlines during the 2010 World Cup for having an 85% rate when it came to accurately predicting the scores of the football games.

But was the breakdown in the middle of London all part of the hype? Apparently not. Leigh writes: “I also questioned as to whether or not the breaking down was part of the campaign – hey, you never know – and he said ‘definitely not, and I’d like to apologise to all who’ve been affected by it’. What a nice bloke.” Hmm… We’re still not convinced.