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Is Jack the new Paul?

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

Jack

Readers may recall the meteoric rise to fame and subsequent tragic death of Paul the octopus, the much-vaunted predictor of the outcome World Cup football matches (you can read his obituary here).  A natural celebrity, Paul was the subject of numerous trade mark applications which were filed to protect his name and image.

Paul, it seems, now has a possible successor, Jack.  This Newcastle-based monkey has so far predicted correctly the outcome of the first two cricket test matches between deadly rivals England and Australia in the Ashes series.  His technique is based on the selection of a banana from one of two food bowls, one of which is designated 'England', the other 'Australia'.  Jack does not make his choices lightly and has been known to vacillate between the two bowls in a state of clear uncertainty before opting for one or other of them.

So far, says the IPKat, it does not appear as though the Intellectual Property Office has been flooded with speculative applications to register Jack or his likeness as a trade mark.  Merpel says, anyone can predict the outcome of sporting events; if this little chap is going to be of any value, let him try predicting the English weather ...

Further commentary on this outstanding creature and on the mathematics of sports event prediction can be heard on the BBC Radio 4  programme "More or Less" (here).
Jack turns his hand to football predictions here

Full post as published by IPKat on December 17, 2010 (boomark / email).