Animals have always been something that have interested me, both domesticated and wild, all humans are animals (in Wayne Rooney’s case, the resemblance is a bit too uncanny), however not all animals are human, and that is a very important thing to remember.
I, to be honest, am not an animal lover, but I appreciated that other people are. I know when I go to a friend’s house and if they have a dog; I will get covered in dog hairs and I also appreciate that some cat owners may erroneously believe that their cat is a child. However, I do not appreciate being accosted in the street by a dog with sharp teeth who rears up, salivates all over me and puts their mucky paws on me – even if the dog is “only playing”. Likewise, I don’t particularly like it when my friend’s dogs/cats decide to hump my leg – as I said, I’m not an animal lover, literally.
In fairness, my main gripe isn’t so much towards the animals, as it is towards the owners of said animals, quite how a dog/cat owner knows when their dog is “only playing” or that their cat is “really clever” is beyond me. Indeed, can animals even be all that intelligent?
Well… presumably… yes. As this week it was revealed that a German Octopus called Paul tried to predict the outcome of 8 World Cup games and he got them all correct – this makes him significant cleverer than the person who decided to call an Octopus Paul. Paul would also be an unusual name for a German, however, Paul was apparently born in England – so along with Howard Webb, he ensured that England had some form of involvement with the World Cup final.
Whether it was skill or guesswork is a mystery, the likelihood of Paul’s guesses being pot luck are quite rare at 1 in 256 – which carries the same chance of putting the entire songbook of Westlife on, and happening upon a good song. Or alternatively, the same odds as Prince Phillip going on a Royal visit and not making an offensive remark. (By the way, my favourite gaffe from Prince Philip was when he saw a badly fitted fuse box on a tour of a factory in Scotland and commented that it, “looked like it had been fitted by an Indian” – a remark that managed to offend over one billion people in one fell swoop, which is an impressive number, even by Prince Phillip’s standards).
Getting back to Paul, he should be congratulated for his feat, predicating as many games correctly as you have legs is tricky for an animal and I for one am certainly looking forward to David the Hungarian Millipede’s predictions for the 2014 World Cup.
Paul’s method of predicting the winners was simple, he sat on the box of the country whom he thought was going to win – the original plan was for him to point to the county he thought was going to win, but when he tried it out in a practice run, all he broke loose as their were tentacles gesticulating all over the place.
Whether Paul is that intelligent is a topic for debate, whilst he managed to predict the result of the World Cup final, he failed to predict that it would be a terrible game and he would have been rendered useless if Germany had drawn any of their group games. Furthermore, if Paul was that intelligent then surely he would have tried to place a few bets on his predictions – he could have earned himself a few squid. *
I think that our obsession with Paul, and creatures such as him, is because we as a human race like to claim we know exactly what an animal is thinking. Often people say that snakes are more frightened of humans than humans are of snakes – I can assure you that this isn’t the case, there is no way whatsoever that if I came face-to-face with Oliver the Burmese Python, that he would be more terrified than me. The idea that he is more scared of me is like suggesting that if I was convicted to death by firing squad, then the fighting squad would be more concerned about their safety that I would be about mine – although this may be a legitimate feeling if it’s an American firing squad, what with their well known ability to shoot their own allies.
I can understand people’s desire to get near to animals, particularly dangerous ones, as it is a form of flirting to the unknown, a thrill-seeking endeavour, however, as Steve Irwin proved things can go horribly wrong. This week the land Down Under gave another example of this, when it was a revealed that a heavily intoxicated Australian named Michael Newman, was on his way home from a pub, when he decided to try and ride home on a Crocodile – Mr Newman now no doubt regrets walking into his local taxi office and saying, “can you find me something to take me home… and make it snappy”.
Note, these are all allegations made by the police – hence the police can now be legitimately referred to as “the alligators”.
The poor man was savagely attacked by Macro the Australian Crocodile; following this he then went back to the bar he had previously been drinking in with chunks of flesh missing from his lower body. Mr Newman has been heavily intoxicated on many occasions (he’s Australian), however, this time… he was… quite literally… legless…
* I greatly appreciate it if you continued reading this blog after the “squid” joke…
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