Let us kill the octopus

GREG KELEBONYE
Staff Writer | Thursday July 15, 2010 00:00

 

Waiting patiently as my order was being prepared I kept wondering: 'Why are these people burning rubber?' You would not know what rubber felt like in your mouth until you ate the badly cooked egg-white-like chewy, bumpy tasteless thing the chef called octopus. I was told later that I should have visited one of the numerous Greek restaurants in the city as they cook the best octopus. But the damage had been done, and I swore to myself never to eat the creature again. Once back home, I took time to study pictures of this slimy animal and wondered what had gone into my head that I should even think of eating the strange looking 'fish'.

The memory of that summer day in Barcelona, came back during the just-ended World Cup. The trigger: that creature called the octopus. This time around it was the one given the name Paul by its keepers in Berlin, Germany.  This boneless soothsaying creature correctly predicted the winning team in eight games. The octopus has eight tentacles! The spongy necromancer became a worldwide celebrity for precisely predicting the winner in all seven games played by Germany and the final between Spain and the Netherlands. The owners say they did not play the ouija (the talking board), or the tarot or even throw the dice before consulting the octopus. They say they simply placed two clear boxes in his tank, each containing a mussel snack and the flag of teams slated to face off. The two-and-half year old would simply pick the winning team.

The creature failed the patriots test when he predicted Germany's 1-0 loss to Spain. No wonder so many Germans wanted him dead and cooked to be put in his right place - the stomach. Even more disconcerting is the fact that the slimy psychic out-manoeuvred two wild kingdom rivals throughout the World Cup: Singapore's Mani the parakeet and Australia's Harry the crocodile.

Mani, the green parrot, owned by a fortune-teller shot to international fame by correctly predicting the World Cup's semi-finalists. However, perhaps in blind faith, it later wrongly picked Uruguay as a finalist and Holland as the eventual champions.

Mani made his predictions by choosing from two pieces of paper printed with hidden flags. Mani on Friday picked Holland when asked which team would lift the World Cup in a change of heart after the bird several days earlier selected Spain.

Harry, a 700kg Crocodile lives in a Darwin Crocodile Park in Sydney, Australia. He was given chickens wrapped under Spanish and Dutch flags, but chose the Spanish flag.

I am not sure if Harry can jinx anybody. His pick must have been out of sheer instinct. Mani is owned by a fortune-teller so many have had some of the necromancer's abilities rubbed off  onto him - impartation it is called.  But I can find no good excuse why a slimy creature such as Paul the octopus could so correctly make so many predictions about the World Cup.

I waited 116 minutes for my favourite Holland to win - with the troubling realisation that Paul the octopus had predicted a win for Spain. Somehow as extra-time was added, I knew Paul's prediction would show him for the trickster that he is.

And damn the creature. Come the 116th minute he was proven right. So like that summer day in Barcelona, this time around sitting in my living room, I was left with the chewy, bitter tyre-like taste in my mouth and I purposed that if I had the power, I would sentence the creature to death. So I say, let us kill the octopus. The creature is anathema.