Octopussy
OCTOPUSSY in that James Bond spy movie by the same name was not an octopus and she was certainly not in the kind of trouble that an octopus named Paul is in today.

Octopussy gave James Bond spy trouble, the kind of spy trouble that has the United States and Russia now talking about a spy swap. The U.S. and Russia are telling each other in spy code – “You catch my spy; me catch your spy; give me my spy and I’ll give you your spy.”

That’s easy Octopussy stuff compared to the travails Paul the octopus has found himself in. He is in such deep trouble that he’s probably wishing he was in the deep, deep sea instead of making headlines around Germany.

Up until Wednesday, Paul was a huge celebrity in Germany and other parts of the world. He was a star with his photos in German newspapers and almost his every move shown on German television.

Now, overnight, he has fallen into disgrace. The Germans want to publicly barbecue poor Paul and some say he’s trying to flee Germany as fast as he can on his eight legs.

And it’s not Paul’s fault that the Germans thought that he was sibylline (meaning prophetic or oracular).

The Germans were so mesmerised by their dreams of becoming football’s 2010 World Cup champions in South Africa that they firmly believed that an octopus named Paul was psychic.

Grown people, supposedly intelligent, believing in an octopus predicting the future? Mein Gott!
And some people pour scorn on those who try to read tea leaves or see signs in cloud formations to try to discern the future.

Remember the trouble the so-called oracle from India got into the other day when he opened shop in Guyana, claiming he could tell your fortune for a fee? He could have been jailed for false pretence.

At first, I couldn’t believe the Paul the octopus story. A nation ranked among the so-called developed world, full of people looking for football guidance from an octopus?

A colleague at work thought that I was making this story up but dropped her disbelief when she checked it out on the internet.

From media reports, it appears that Paul, who was quite content doing his antics in his tank, was tempted with morsels of food to begin picking winners in World Cup fixtures involving Germany.

And he began picking winners. The oracle octopus correctly picked the winners of Germany’s first five World Cup matches. It even predicted Germany’s 1-0 defeat by Serbia but the Germans did not lose faith in their oracle octopus.

Their mood changed, however, when Paul shocked the country on Tuesday by picking Spain as the winner of that do-or-die semi-final.

His prediction was so stunning that German TV interrupted programmes to break the news and a pall of doom set in over the land as the clash with Spain neared. One media outlet proclaimed that this was a bad omen.

And as millions of German faithful watched, the Spaniards wrapped rings around the German team and many probably wished Paul was on the field trying to help them with his eight legs.

German newspapers yesterday mourned the country’s semi-final loss to Spain and wondered what happened to the scintillating team that captured the nation’s hearts with their goal-filled run to the last four.

“Aus der Traum” (The Dream is Over), the best-selling daily Bild wrote in giant letters on its front page.

Well-placed sources yesterday said the German secret service was investigating whether Paul was a Spanish spy planted to play psychological warfare with the German football team. After all, they said, look at the current spy troubles between the U.S. and Russia.

Stay tuned for the next thriller in the Octopussy series.