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)