If you go down to Hackney City Farm today, you’re sure of a big surprise. Well, in 2012 you were. When the UK was in the grip of Olympic fever, a new celebrity rose amongst the athletes; a donkey pundit in the middle of London.
While I was trotting around the Olympic park, pretending I had a clue what was going on, two children in an inner-city farm were presenting a donkey with two buckets of food.
Employed by the Telegraph newspaper, Larry the donkey was hired to make daily predictions as to the outcome of various sports. Hackney City Farm is just a short sprint from the Olympic park, and was ideally placed for a large newspaper to harvest a novelty story to link to the main event. Using his ‘clairvoyant powers’, two children would present two buckets of donkey feed, each with a printed picture of a different athlete taped to the front. These athletes were primarily members of Team GB, and helped to drum up a little more enthusiasm for the national teams. However, for all of Larry’s psychic decision making, he really was a crap clairvoyant. Time after time, he’d pick the wrong athlete, or try to eat from both buckets.
Prior to the Olympics, Larry wasn’t marketing himself as a psychic, just as an ordinary donkey, without an agent or media presence. Much like the parents of dance school kids, the Telegraph thrust Larry into the limelight, documenting his ‘performances’ for a modest gathering of YouTube viewers. While Larry was asked to predict sports’ outcomes, he also managed to incorrectly predict ‘traffic chaos’ and other disasters that ultimately left him as a psychic failure and, to quote the Telegraph themselves, ‘Larry’s hopeless predictions have been one of the few British disappointments of this year’s games’.
Thankfully, the ‘mystic mule’ was not shunned at home, as his agent Chris Pounds, and other farmyard friends – including girlfriend Clover – didn’t seem to take his failings to heart and continued their day to day activities unperturbed. Speaking on Larry’s predictions, Pounds said that perhaps the donkey was influencing the public – while he predicted traffic chaos, the whole of London may have listened and decided to try walking instead. It’s a good point, and a good attempt at covering his ass…
Larry was ultimately a donkey walking in the wet footprints – or should that be tentacle prints – of Paul the Octopus, who accurately predicted the outcome of each game in the 2010 World Cup. Paul the octopus, who lived in a German aquarium, achieved dizzying heights of fame before dying three months afterwards in decidedly fishy circumstances. Perhaps Paul’s untimely death was a warning for all psychic animals, living a brief and brilliant life, bookended by admiration, and assassination.
Thankfully for Larry, he seems to have survived his string of Olympic predictions and bowed out of the public eye shortly after the closing ceremony.
***
Liked this post? Then why not join the Patreon clubhouse? From as little as £1 a month, you’ll get access to tonnes of exclusive content and a huge archive of articles, videos and podcasts!
Pop on over, support my work, have a chat and let me show you my skulls…www.patreon.com/burialsandbeyond
Liked this and want to buy me a coffee?
To tip me £3 and help me out with hosting, click the link below!
https://ko-fi.com/burialsandbeyond
***
Find lots of Larry’s triumphs and failures on Youtube:
Burials & Beyond 
Leave a comment