It appears that Paul, the recently retired ‘psychic’ World Cup octopus, has been awarded a cup of his own. Paul’s owners at the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, have given him a trophy filled with mussels as a reward for predicting successfully all of Germany’s results in the 2010 World Cup, and the winner of the final, by picking mussels or oysters out of a jar marked with a competing country’s flag.

Paul’s 100% record in the World Cup has made him a worldwide celebrity. However, he didn’t go down too well with fans of teams that he predicted to lose: his tip that Argentina would lose to Germany caused an Argentinean chef to post an octopus recipe on Facebook, whilst German fans sent Paul death threats when he picked Spain to win their semi-final. (He’s lucky he didn’t have to pick a bad result for South Korea; otherwise, this fate might have befallen him.)

Although he lives in Germany, Paul was actually born in an aquarium in Weymouth. You can tell what a desperate state of affairs the English national team is in when the most successful English appearance during the World Cup came from an eight-armed, aquatic cephalopod (which, despite being an invertebrate, still had more backbone than all of the England team combined).

Paul Bovey

As the 2010 World Cup kicks off (and as the tabloids kick-start the England hype machine into full effect), the excellent footy site Midfield Dynamo has created some tongue-in-cheek World Cup ‘I spy’-style bingo cards to accompany the matches.

My particular favourite has to be number 11: “Gareth Southgate saying the word ‘obviously’ three times in one comment.”

With these kind of stories, we normally hear about somebody seeing an burnt image of Jesus after they left the pitta bread under the grill for too long. Instead, we now have one of the all-time greatest computer game characters appearing on the side of the moon.

Elsewhere, if you look really closely at the rings of Saturn, there’s a raging blue mist around them that resembles Sonic the Hedgehog at full pelt…

No? What about a mushroom cloud on Mars that looks like Mushroom from the Mario games?

Oh, whatever…

It’s been a bit of a sad month in the music world. Firstly, there was the death at 47 of Mark Linkous, the singer-songwriter behind Sparklehorse. Guardian journalist Tim Jonze described Linkous as “[taking] the cruel, the twisted, the ugly and [making] them beautiful”, which is a pretty good summation.

Linkous leaves behind an impressive back catalogue, including four studio albums - Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, Good Morning Spider, It’s A Wonderful Life and Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain. A collaborative effort with Danger Mouse and a plethora of guest singers called Dark Night Of The Soul was curtailed for legal reasons, but may get an official release later this year.

Each Sparklehorse album has moments of brilliance, but my particular favourite is his third album, It’s A Wonderful Life, which has guest appearances from PJ Harvey, Tom Waits and Nina Persson from the Cardigans.

Linkous’s death was followed 11 days later by the death at 59 of Alex Chilton, the lead singer of the Box Tops (who had a 1967 top ten hit with ‘The Letter’) and the cult rockers Big Star. The latter group never had much commercial success in the 1970s but gained a critical renaissance following the band’s split, becoming particularly influential on future generations of alternative rock bands, including REM, the Replacements, Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream, to name but a few.

For a sample of Messrs Linkous and Chilton’s brilliance, go here and here respectively.

Paul Bovey

The sound is rocky and relatively raw and unpolished which gives it an emotional feel. Greaneys voice is distinctive and you could be forgiven for thinking JJ72 were back with new materal.

To summarise if you liked JJ72, especially the voice of Greaney then check out the link and listen to what he is up to now. Currently unsigned its unclear wether the EP will get released officially so make the most of it while you can.

Sadly, there’s no cover version of Neil Hannon’s ‘My Lovely Horse’ on the Priests’ new album; maybe they knew that they could never live up to this definitive version.

Freddie reflected upon learning he'd failed the audition to become the face of Oil of Olay

An alternative Halloween playlist

The Birthday Party - Release The Bats
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Halloween
Grooverider - Where’s Jack The Ripper [Origin Unknown Remix]
The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf
The Phantom Band - The Howling
Ebsen & The Witch - Skeleton Swoon
Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
David Bowie - Scary Monsters And Super Creeps
Tricky - Hell Is Round The Corner
Aim - Demonique

Paul Bovey

Before the 1982 World Cup, England manager Ron Greenwood had a dilemma: who, between Peter Shilton and Ray Clemence, would be his number one goalkeeper in the forthcoming tournament?

Many commentators criticized him for his indecisiveness, but how much would Fabio Capello give to have such a luxurious dilemma? A dilemma between two brilliant, consistent keepers, proven at international level, each with at least two European Cup trophies to their name with their respective clubs. It just highlights the current dearth of world class keepers available for Capello in the run up to next year’s World Cup, a situation that The Mirror’s Martin Lipton has prophesised may turn out to be England’s ‘Achilles heel’.

Out of the current crop, David James seems to be the more preferable option for the number one position, although, at 39, his age indicates that he’s not a long-term prospect. He’s still a good shot-stopper, but his occasion blunders (remember Austria in 2004?) have seen him yo-yo in and out of favour on numerous occasions. He’s certainly a much improved player from ‘Calamity James’, the nickname he earned at Liverpool, but his lack of consistency has never seen him make that number one shirt his own, despite nearly 50 caps.

Robert Green’s sending off against Ukraine in the World Cup qualifier, which gave him the dubious record of being the first ever England goalkeeper to receive a red card, was unfortunate, but this shouldn’t dent his confidence too much. He made some good saves in the 5-1 defeat of Croatia and although he’s had little international experience compared to James, he’s arguably the most consistent England keeper at club level, despite West Ham’s struggle in the league. A good Premiership campaign to curb his team from relegation may do his cause the world of good.

So, James and Green look like current favourites to go the World Cup next year but when you start to look for a third choice, it’s not so clear-cut. Paul Robinson seems to have overcome his descent in form to put in some solid performances for Blackburn, while Ben Foster’s chances remain slim as second choice to Edwin van der Sar at Manchester United.

Manchester City’s Joe Hart has received praise from Capello but some commentators feel this World Cup has come ‘too soon’ for him. Scott Carson has overcome his howler against Croatia in the Euro 2008 qualifier but, like Green, Hart, Foster and Wigan’s Chris Kirkland, he’s yet to gain much international experience.

As is the case with outfield players, the lack of outstanding English goalkeepers is being attributed by some commentators to the influx of foreign players in the English league. Certainly, the top teams at the time of writing all have foreign first-choice keepers: van der Sar (Manchester United), ?ech (Chelsea), Cudicini (Spurs), Almunia (Arsenal) and Given (Manchester City), but surely that doesn’t explain the fact that England can’t produce at least one outstanding goalkeeper? We used to be renowned for it.

It’s something we’re in desperate need of; a solid back line can only improve if it has the confidence of a reliable goalkeeper between the sticks. The performances of the English goalkeepers for the remainder of this season will be keenly observed by Capello and Italo Galbiati. With a World Cup place to play for, the post of England number one is still very much in the players’ own hands.

Paul Bovey