Octopus Update Update

See post below for context.

I am probably telling you things you already know now, but then again, perhaps I am your only source of psychic octopus intel.

If that's the case, he has predicted Germany will come third and tipped Spain to win.

Octopus Update

Three further things about Paul the psychic octopus, who you might remember from a week and a bit ago, and even if you don't, you must have heard about by now because he is becoming quite the media darling (trending all over Twitter as I write):


1. The Germans are quite cross with him because he predicted Spain's win last night. He did this live on national television, further proof of his growing fame.  My favourite line from the news coverage:

Bitterness at Germany's 1-0 defeat to Spain turned to anger with some sections of the 350,000-strong crowd in Berlin insulting both Paul and his mother.

2. He might be predicting the final (big news, since so far he's only been consulted on Germany matches) but only if he's a) not too tired and b) hungry enough to still care about mussels* after predicting the Germany/Uruguay result.

3. He has his own Wikipedia page.



*Paul makes his predictions by picking one of two musssels; each is kept in a glass jar with a national flag on it, and the one he picks first is his tip.

Media Studies 101

Have you met Paul?

He's an octopus (in case you hadn't noticed) who was born in Weymouth but now lives at the Oberhausen Sea Life Aquarium in Germany.  The staff there have discovered his amazing talent for predicting World Cup results.  They put two glass jars in his tank, each marked with a flag and both containing a mussel, and wait to see which mussel he picks first.  So far he's predicted all of Germany's matches correctly, including Sunday's win.  On Sunday he didn't just take the German mussel, he also climbed into the jar and pulled the lid over his head. Clearly he'd heard a few things about English football fans.

I'm probably telling you things you already know, because he's been all over the papers.  He has even been making international news; the Herald Sun in Australia reported the story with the rather brilliant headline Ink Germany in, says Paul the octopus.

Closer to home, the papers have all put their unique stamp on the story.

The Daily Mail focuses on the fact that Paul is English born, and brand him a traitor. everyone knows you can't trust a mollusk, they say. The Guardian, as well as poking fun at how the Mirror and the Sun cover the story, tackle the human rights issues it raises.  From Shaun Ingle's live football blog:

Apparently Paul had an 80% success rate in Euro 2008. Now, if he's two-years-old now that means he was forced into this gig from birth. The labour laws in Germany need to be looked at.

I couldn't find the Sun's version online but if the Guardian are to be believed, they use the story as an opportunity for a spot of German bashing. When I searched for octopuses (octopi? I'm never sure) on the Sun website, the closet thing I found was a story from a few years ago: Man admits to Octopus Porn. The mind boggles.

The Times focus on aesethetics, describing Paul as a "particularly ugly octopus".  I suppose that means a post-World-Cup career in the apparently flourishing octopus porn industry is out of the question.  Other quotes from the Times:

Sceptics claimed that Paul’s accuracy was well within statistical norms. Eight legs, two glasses - you do the maths. 

One thing is for sure: if Paul gets it wrong, the 22-legged England team will be entitled to tuck into a celebratory dinner in South Africa. The grilled calamari is said to be particularly tasty. 

They don't seem to care  much for cephalopods, those people at the Times.

Vuvuzelas aside......

I probably shouldn't be blogging about football, for all kinds of reasons. Whatever to that. 

I've just watched the England/US match and, like everyone, my thoughts are focused on Rob Green, our goalkeeper.  (I'm saying "our" because today I'm English.  Tomorrow I'll be Australian, and if Australia and England both do as well as I want them to they will have to face each other at some stage, which will probably make me spontaneously combust with confusion.  But let's not worry about that until it happens.)

Rob Green, as you probably know, let in a goal just before half time.  You may also know (unless you were watching in HD, apparently)  that we had scored very early on, so the miss brought the score to a level 1-1.  As misses go, this was a particularly bad howler.  You probably knew that too.

What you probably also knew, but *might* have forgotten by now, is that then, half way through the second half, he saved a goal. It was a pretty good save, as far as I could tell.  Also according to the commentators, who I assume know more about these things than I do. 

The match ended up in a 1-1 draw.  Not a great result for England, but not as bad, by definition, as a loss would have been.  I'm no expert, but as I see it,  Rob Green did two key things tonight: just before half time he turned our lead into a draw, which was bad, but then, part way through the second half he stopped our draw turning into a loss, which was good.

Ignoring, for a moment, the unknown qualities of whoever would have replaced him, let's imagine Rob Green hadn't been there. In the first half, we would have been ahead 1-0, but then the US would have scored that goal  in the second half and the game would have finished EXACTLY THEY WAY IT FINISHED TONIGHT.  A 1-1 draw. 

Like I say, I'm no expert.  But I bet everyone forgets this tomorrow, and blames poor old Rob Green for the fact we didn't win.  I say, for what it's worth, let's big him up a bit.  After all, he also stopped the game turning into a 1-2 loss.