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Saturday, June 26, 2010

I know I promised - but


I promised I was done with football - but I just had to share this. From the Sydney Morning Herald. 
Disastrous news for England fans ahead of the crunch last-16 match with Germany Sunday: an octopus in Germany with a perfect track record of predicting World Cup matches has plumped for a German win.
Two plastic boxes containing tasty morsels, one with a German flag and one with an England flag, were lowered into the tank that houses Paul the octopus at his home in Sea Life in Oberhausen, western Germany.
Paul immediately climbed into the German box to a huge roar of approval from the crowd.
A two year-old octopus "Paul", the so-called "octopus oracle" predicts Germany's victory in their World Cup last 16 clash against England.
A two year-old octopus "Paul", the so-called "octopus oracle" predicts Germany's victory in their World Cup last 16 clash against England. Photo: Reuters
Earlier in the tournament, the mollusc medium correctly predicted Germany would beat Ghana and Australia in their group D matches and was also right to predict they would lose to Serbia.
And the eight-legged oracle is also coming off a run of good form at major championships. He had an 80-percent record for Germany games at the European Championships.
England fans have reason to feel somewhat betrayed by his latest prediction. Paul should by rights be an England supporter, having been born at Sea Life in Weymouth, on the south English coast.

5 comments:

  1. I see salt and pepper squid in his near future. Served English style with mushy peas.

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  2. Well Paul was devastatingly right.

    As an Engländer, is it OK for me to say that I'm actually happy Deutschland trounced us? Probably not. But I'm feeling Schadenfreude nonetheless.

    Yesterday I visited the website of the Daily Mail (Britain's most disgusting rag). It's not something I usually read, but I had to see if they'd finally grown out of the moronic Teutophobia that afflicts the British whenever we play football against Germany.

    In short, they haven't. I can't find the offending piece now, but there was one line which read something like 'Of course we can't hold generations born after the war responsible for Nazi crimes...' and then went on to do precisely that through shameless, vindictive and bigoted stereotyping. Hmmm, which German political movement does that remind you of?

    Just desserts doesn't begin to describe it. 4-1 is marvellous karmic justice. Wunderbar.

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  3. Yes sometime I actually believe in Karma.

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