Pauli: Better than Lawro...

It's World Cup Final day! And we're backing the octopus...

The problem with going to a World Cup in a magical and distant land, is that you begin to feel a little guilty after nigh on a month doing sod all bar watching football in bars and swanky new stadiums.

So with us at ToePoke being the cultured types (who’s that laughing at the back?), we’ve spent the time since our last update doing just what Lonely Planet told us to do.

It means to trekking Table Mountain we can now add a walk through Cape Town’s botanical gardens (featuring one feisty little bastard squirrel), a tour of the Castle of Good Hope, and a haunting trip to Robben Island, on which lies the prison cell that housed Nelson Mandela for 17 years.

Flaming absinthes with giant Brazilians, drinks with a Zambian calling himself Kenny G and a booze-fuelled wine tour of Stellenbosh led by a former South African Big Brother winner called Ferdy (“there’s no spitting on my watch") complete the week, with our shark dive delayed until next week because of the tide or something. Either that, or Jaws is just bottling his date with destiny.

In the meantime, the eye-catching Germans are out, as are the Uruguayans – much to the delight of the Dutch-leaning Saffas, and the rest of us still feeling aggrieved for Ghana – and a ruddy octopus called Pauli has inconceivably dominated the news headlines all over the globe. What is that all about?

Needless to say the slimy sod is showing Mark Lawrenson how it’s done and called the play-off right last night, meaning we have been forced to honour a drunken bet that we’d stick fifty quid on his final tip should he continue his 100% run. It means that if Spain don’t win today, we’ll be having calamari for breakfast.

We’re off to watch it among thousands of local and Dutch fans, a smattering of Spanish and a hulking great mountain at the Cape Town fan fest as we bid a near-tearful farewell to what has been a cracking tournament. The obligatory montages on the big screen are sure to set off the waterworks. But, like a lazy Jerry Springer, we’ll save our final thoughts til next week, so for now, keep your fingers, arms and tentacles crossed that Pauli is indeed the new Mystic Meg.