Life returns to normal for Singapore’s parakeet Mani

SINGAPORE - Star treatment has ended for Singapore tipster Mani the parakeet with the final whistle blown at the World Cup and the parrot out-forecast by never-failing Paul, Germany’s psychic octopus, a newspaper reported Monday.

The green bird, owned by fortune teller M Muniyappan, shot to international fame by correctly predicting the World Cup’s semi-finalists, but later Mani wrongly picked Uruguay as a finalist and Holland as the eventual champions.

Life would now return to normal, 70-year-old Muniyappan told The New Paper.

After charging 50 Singapore dollars ($36) for Mani’s World Cup forecasts, prices for predictions would also return to pre-World Cup levels, he said, with five Singapore dollars for lottery numbers and four Singapore dollars for football results.

Mani made his predictions by choosing from two pieces of paper printed with hidden flags. Mani Friday picked Holland when asked which team would lift the World Cup trophy in a change of heart after the bird several days earlier selected Spain as the team to go all the way.

German-based Paul, however, kept a clean record and firmly chose Spain as the winner, starting a bird-octopus rivalry spurred on by the international media.

Although Mani is set to return to day-do-day business at his owner’s shop in Singapore’s Little India, his fame might last for a while as the bird already has a page on the internet encyclopaedia Wikipedia.