Well, the first round of group matches at the World Cup have been completed and if you’re anything like me you’re suffering from too much alcohol (“I’m sure I saw Spain let in five”) and sleep deprivation (“What do you mean Wayne Rooney didn’t score an equalizer?”)
However, it seems to me with this rag devoting four pages to sports over the opening weeks, we seem a little devoid of mystic wildlife, such as Paul the Octopus four years ago in South Africa.
Fear not dear reader, I intend to put this right, as there are several of our furry, and not so furry, friends just begging us to take note of their predictions.
Photo: screengrab of a YouTube video
Last week, the BBC reported that Alf, the head of a colony of Gentoo penguins at the National Sea Life Centre in Birmingham (no idea how he got the gig), and his chums predicted a draw for England in their opening game against Italy, only to change their minds when cornered by reporters and go for an England victory.
So fickle. So wrong.
Then Brazilian macaws Sarge and Oscar correctly predicted a win for the hosts in their opener, but were less confident about England’s chances.
“I do hope they are wrong,” John Nattrass, the birdkeeper at working farm The Gincase in Silloth, Cumbria, told the BBC.
Seems they’re smarter than you, John.
Miniature donkeys Alistair and Derek were also hoping to become successors to Paul. The asses at Puxton Park in Somerset (no offense) had been choosing between food boxes containing the flags of the competing nations and they sniffed out England as winners against Italy.
Asses.
A team of panda cubs lined up to predict the scores were then given the red card by the Chicoms just hours before the big kickoff, the animals’ keepers told Agence France-Presse on Thursday last week.
The pandas were billed by media as China’s answer to Paul after they were set to predict match results by picking food from a choice of baskets and by climbing trees.
“The predictions have been halted by the authorities,” a spokesman at the China Center for Research and Conservation of Giant Pandas told Agence France-Presse.
Killjoys.
With all these mystic pretenders turning out to be failures, what we need is a World Cup octopus.
Have no fear, because the good people at UK betting Web site Betfair have created a giant octopus for the firm’s latest ad campaign and boy can this squid play table tennis.
You can view the ad at www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCaSM2HwyP4.
Scary.
However, the firm had to apologize two weeks ago after bringing central London to a standstill.
In what was in no way, oh no, a publicity stunt, a truck carrying the giant octopus “broke down” in Oxford Circus. Cue the most improbable excuse for being late for work ever heard.
“True story: Late for work today thanks to giant squid blocking traffic on Oxford Street,” the London Evening Standard reported Fred Dutton as saying.
So much for my dog ate my homework.
(You still use that one: Ed).
While protests and strikes were forecast to wreak havoc at the finals, so far the only hiccup has been the lack of any national anthems ahead of the France-Honduras clash on Sunday.
Do I smell the whiff of a conspiracy theory, with the only cock-up so far involving the national anthem of Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally taking part in Brazil?
Surely the Chicoms don’t have that much influence, do they?
(I’m just throwing that one out there to see if anyone runs with it — yes, I’m looking at you the Taiwan Solidarity Union.)
So after the first round of matches, time to hand out some early awards — the Johnnies as I like to call them — and yes, they are as cheap, plastic and naff as you are imagining.
The “Worst Week of My Life” Johnny goes to the whole Iberian Peninsula — yes, even you Madeira — who, after seeing their teams clean up in European club competition last season, were brought right back down to earth.
First, reigning champions Spain were humiliated 5-1 by the Netherlands on Friday last week, before Portugal and Ballon d’Or winner Cristiano Ronaldo were well and truly “Muellered” 4-0 by Germany on Monday.
The “Comedy Injury” Johnny goes to England physio Gary Lewin, who became the team’s unlikely first casualty of the tournament when, in a bizarre turn of events, he jumped to his feet and stood awkwardly on a water bottle while celebrating Daniel Sturridge’s 37th-minute equalizer against Italy on Saturday, dislocating and fracturing his ankle.
Ouch, but come on Gary, at least slightly amusing.
The “Access All Areas” Johnny goes to the Croatia squad, who are refusing to speak to reporters after photos of them bathing nude were splashed all over the Internet.
“How would you feel if someone took naked pictures of you? They are adamant that they won’t speak to you lot anymore,” Reuters reported Croatia coach Niko Kovac as telling Croatian reporters on Sunday.
The “Using the World Cup for Political Gain” award goes to the Thai military junta, who struck a blow for freedom on Thursday last week — the freedom to watch soccer.
As part of its goal to “return happiness to the Thai people,” the junta engineered a World Cup coup that will enable soccer fans to watch all of the tournament’s 64 matches for free, The Associated Press reported.
“We hope that every Thai will receive happiness from viewing the 2014 World Cup games. Please watch and enjoy, all of you,” army-owned Channel 5 overlord Chatudom Titthasiri said.
Finally, the “Bunch of Amateurs” Johnny is jointly awarded to our own Chunghwa Telecom and ELTA TV.
The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper — our brother newspaper Taipei Liberty was ostracized after an unfortunate incident involving an owl, a corkscrew and a Chinese Nationalist Party legislator) reported that AC Nielsen’s rankings showed that Chunghwa’s hichannel had surpassed 1.12 million viewers in three days, while those watching ELTA on MOD surpassed 550,000 on Sunday.
All well and good, except that on Saturday during the Colombia-Greece match, when Colombia opened the scoring, the ELTA “so-called” high-definition broadcast pixelated and ground to a halt.
All the other midnight games and, to a lesser extent, the 3am matches have suffered similar problems, constant pixelation of the picture, which, I remind you, is supposed to be high definition.
Then the final straw during the France-Honduras match on Sunday. ELTA’s much advertised English-language commentary failed to materialize in the second half, presumably because the high-school student on work experience put in charge of the audio switch decided to go the convenience store, grab a coffee then take a smoke break.
So, instead of the FIFA-appointed commentator broadcasting from the stadium in Brazil, Johnny was left with ELTA co-presenters Tweedledum and Tweedledee in a studio somewhere in Taiwan — less a commentary than two overexcited kids who’ve found themselves locked in a candy store overnight.
After 25 minutes of the kind of torture that makes waterboarding the equivalent of an all-expenses paid trip to the World Cup final, Johnny had had enough. So I checked the ELTA Web site, got the phone number and got on the blower, finally getting commentary in English (and Mandarin), but not the sort I was seeking — a lovely woman, I presume, telling me in a recorded message that the number I had dialed “has yet to be assigned.”
Finally, 38 full minutes into the second half, Mr Work Experience obviously sauntered back to his desk, peered out of his hoodie and noticed something wasn’t right and, after a few more glitches, the English commentary finally returned.
However, Johnny’s experience is nothing compared with the good residents of Yonghe, New Taipei City, including netizens abc1598741 and comjj45, who were, to say the least, rather irate when they posted to the ptt message board in the early hours of Tuesday morning after their signal completely vanished and the Chunghwa Telecom service desk was too busy to be bothered to take their calls.
I did briefly consider contacting Chunghwa Telecom and ELTA so that they could relate their side of this story, but seeing as though ELTA can’t be arsed to put the correct telephone number on their Web site and Chunghwa Telecom can’t be arsed to answer their customer service line (according to our Yonghe netizens), I couldn’t be arsed to phone them either.
JOHNNY’S MIDTERM REPORT
Chunghwa Telecom: If you’re going to take people’s hard-earned for an Internet high-definition TV service then at least build a network that can deliver it.
ELTA: Seriously chaps, must try harder.
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