June 2, 2012

Amsterdam petting zoo looking for ‘Holland’s next Octopus Paul’

Filed under: Animals,Shows,Sports by Branko Collin @ 3:43 pm

In 2010 a German octopus called Paul made worldwide headlines by correctly ‘predicting’ the results of South African football World Cup matches.

A petting zoo called De Pijp in Amsterdam (after the neighbourhood) is now trying to ride Paul’s famous name by organizing an ‘eviction show’ called Holland’s Next Octopus Paul in which twelve animals compete for the honour of being the most prescient.

The format is similar to a lot of reality shows. Animals have to predict the outcomes of a 2012 European Football Championship match by eating from a container with the flag of a competing country. The animal that gets it wrong, gets the axe—not literally, we hope. Parool reports that the contestants include a sheep, a horse, a donkey, a mouse, a cat, a guinea pig and a chicken.

The first predictions, for the Netherlands v. Denmark match, are now in:

(Photo of an octopus by NOAA, which means it is in the public domain. Video: Youtube / ‘octopus paul‘)

Tags: , , , , , ,

July 9, 2010

Psychic parakeet picks the Netherlands to win

Filed under: Animals,Sports,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:24 pm
oranges1

Silly season (lack of newsworthy news, due to summer vacation, aka ‘komkommertijd’ (‘cucumber season’) is upon us.

And whether we like it or not (we do, of course), nothing counts more right now than the Dutch winning the World Cup football.

After Paul the Octopus from Oberhausen predicted all the German matches correctly, including their loss to Spain, Mani the psychic parakeet in Singapore has chosen the Netherlands as a winner over Spain to win the World Cup football.

“Muniyappan, Mani’s owner, has helped him predict the future for five years at a table in front of a restaurant in the Little India neighbourhood, but this year’s World Cup is the first time the parakeet has attempted to forecast the outcome of sports competitions.”

We are all dying to find out what Paul thinks, too. The rumours so far are that he has predicted Spain, but considering the lack of links and typos in those links, I’m not sure Paul has spoken at this time.

The Netherlands currently has the biggest bout of ‘oranjekoorts’ (‘orange fever’) in over 32 years. Everything everywhere from the baker to the cafe on the corner is decorated orange, worse than on Queen’s Day. Win or lose, we’ll surely be taking pictures.

UPDATE: Dutch telly has shown footage of Paul the Octopus choosing Spain.

(Link: guardian.co.uk)

Tags: , , ,