ONE news item that caught my attention on the morning of the Euro 2020 England versus Germany clash at Wembley was the story of Yashoda, the 42-year-old ‘psychic’ elephant at Hamburg Zoo, who predicted that Germany will be victorious by picking the German flag from a box containing the flags of both countries.

How gullible can people be? Elephants have more scent receptors and a larger olfactory bulb than any other mammal – and they use the tip of their trunk as a moveable smell antenna.

All Yashoda’s German attendants need to do to ensure that the elephantine medium picked out their country’s flag is to liberally douse it with a scent that is irresistible to Yashoda.

Apparently she correctly ‘predicted’ that Germany would lose against France, beat Portugal and draw against Hungary in their earlier Euro 2020 games.

I’m only surprised that this remarkable beast wasn’t able to predict the precise scores (apart from the draw, of course, where presumably she pulled out both flags at the same time).

But I suppose, if it pleases people to believe such nonsense, there’s no real harm in it.

ROBERT READMAN

Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth