Paul the Octopus in Transfer Bid
The octopus that predicted the winner of all Germany’s matches correctly and also predicted that Spain would win the World Cup, has been the subject of a transfer bid from a Spanish zoo. The octopus became a media and internet sensation during this World Cup, due to the fact that he was said to have psychic abilities and his success rate for picking the winners of all the matches which Germany played in was 100%. He became a superstar and people wanted to get as much news about the octopus as they could. It seems he will be staying firmly put in Germany after the transfer bid was rejected.
What is it with people trying to predict the answers to facts they possibly cannot know? They really cannot know for certain who will win a match of football but that does not stop them from trying to predict the winner. There is no scientific proof to any sort of psychic powers; people simply cannot know who will win a match until the end of it. The idea of an animal predicting the result of the match is quite outlandish. So when Paul the Octopus burst onto the scene and started correctly predicting match winners, people stood up and took notice of him.
Paul resides in a zoo in Germany and over the years developed a reputation for being able to correctly pick the winners of football matches. He was used in the European Championships and also in the 2010 World Cup. During the European Championships his success rate hovered around 70%, which is still pretty good. Yet for some reason during the World Cup just finished he was a star, predicting all of Germany’s matches with 100% accuracy and also picking Spain to win the Cup in the end. This in true football style has prompted a transfer bid from a zoo in Spain to bring Paul over to Madrid.
Paul became a superstar in Spain and Madrid Zoo contacted Oberhausen's Sea Life centre in Germany in hopes of buying the octopus from them. The offer was turned down. Officials at the Madrid Zoo had wanted to exchange Paul with a creature that they had in their Zoo. After becoming a celebrity in Spain, the people wanted to bring Paul over to honour him properly. The strangeness of this story does not end there; a town in Spain has made Paul an honorary citizen and another has planned a festival to be held in his honour. Are things not getting a little bit out of hand here with making an octopus a citizen and holding festivals in his honour? The odd part about this is the fact that Paul is not even aware that he is a celebrity. He also has no idea that he has an uncanny ability to pick a winner from two tanks with a mussel in it.
People all over the world are trying to capitalise on this poor octopus. There is even an iPhone application that features Paul the Octopus. The application is called Ask the Octopus and it is a pretty simple programme that starts up and a person just types in two different items out of which they want one to be picked and the application tells them which one to choose. A lot of money seems to be following Paul the little octopus at the moment. A Spanish businessman has offered €38,000 to buy Paul from the above mentioned Sea Life centre in Germany. That itself is a lot of money for an octopus, albeit it is a psychic one.
However Paul the Octopus is a fad and he will soon be forgotten in due time. In the meanwhile, people are trying their best to capitalise on his fame as quickly as possible. This story just shows us the intense power that football has over its fans and also the ability of social media and social networks to bring something to the world’s attention so quickly. Soon Paul will go back to eating mussels in peace, living out the rest of his days in a nice little Sea Life centre in Germany. That is unless the Spanish make a daring kidnapping plan and bring Paul to Spain to honour him properly.
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