A tale of two cities: Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco, Sunday June 30, 2002

Roderick Barman, the Brazilian history specialist at the University of British Columbia, reports "It was not just in Rio de Janeiro (and elsewhere in the country) that Brazilians celebrated their triumph. Last week central London was just full of ordinary Brazilians who had come to view the final games from a more convenient time zone. The "ouroverde" (gold and green) colours were prominent, though I think many Londoners did not appreciate just how extensive the Brazilian invasion was. I watched the England-Brazil game; it was very exciting and played with great skill".

My comment: Of course Brazilians were celebrating everywhere. Not only Brazilians: at Stanford there will be on Thursday a Latin American party, evidence of a nascent Latin American solidarity. London in "a different time zone? There is a nine-hour time difference between London and Korea/Japan. The latter time zone has several bends in it, one to include both Koreas in the same time zone as Japan, a second to include the tip of China is the eastern zone of China. It is interesting to look at a map of time zones to see how they have been twisted to suit political boundaries. That applies to the time zone where San Francisco is located. Soccer fans around the world must have been up at odd hours. I wonder if any of the teams suffered from time lag?

Ronald Hilton - 7/2/02