The greatest heroes are often accidental heroes – retiring, reluctant, thrust into the limelight by chance. Paul the Octopus did not set out to be famous. He didn't want to be revered, or celebrated, or vilified, or threatened. He just wanted to eat mussels. Last June his keepers at the Sea Life centre in Oberhausen, Germany, gave him two – each in a clear plastic box with the different national flag stuck on it. All Paul had to do was choose which one to eat, or at least which one to eat first.
In this manner Paul correctly picked the winner of the World Cup group stage match between Germany and Australia. He went on to predict the result of all seven of Germany's World Cup matches, and in addition tipped Spain to beat Holland in the final. Paul's perfect record is slightly tarnished if you factor in his Euro 2008 picks – when he got only 12 of 14 match results right – but we should leave those past failures aside, partly because it spoils the story and partly because there are rumours that the Paul of 2008 was an altogether different octopus.
Although a hero to many, Paul was a villain to some. Argentinian supporters threatened to eat him. German fans turned on him when he picked Spain over Germany in the semi-finals. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad labelled him an instrument of western propaganda saying: "Those who believe in this type of thing cannot be the leaders of the global nations that aspire, like Iran, to human perfection."
There was controversy, too. Officially Paul was English, having been born in Weymouth two years previously. But after he got famous his keeper, Verena Bartsch, claimed she caught the four-week-old Paul off the coast of Elba as recently as last April. Suddenly Paul's provenance mattered. Normally you wouldn't care if an octopus was local or not unless you were ordering it off a menu.
Like all good heroes Paul died young, although not particularly young for an octopus – he passed away on 26 October. If you believe the Elba story, this means Paul was born, came to fame, retired from public life and died in the same year, making him the perfect hero for 2010. Some people may say there's nothing heroic about a cephalopod opening eight random boxes and getting lucky eight times in a row, but they're overlooking the fact that it's pretty impressive for an octopus to be able to open a box in the first place.
