The Wait List – and the frantic ticket-seeking scrum surrounding it – is a window into the Fifa machine and its ability to wring every last drop from a global passion
And what did you see my blue eyed son? And what did you see my darling young ones? I saw a Peruvian TV anchor with a sweat-soaked pastel blazer. I saw a Thai radio crew in a state of mild hysteria. I saw the man from the Deccan Herald being elbowed by Spaniards. I saw 200 tired, flustered people with digestive problems carrying Sochi 2016 rucksacks and pleading in 17 languages for an overflow desk.
It is generally assumed Bob Dylan’s haunting, visceral lyrics to the song A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, quoted above, were inspired by a vision of impending apocalypse. Perhaps the terror of the Cuban missile crisis that year or the spectacle of America’s gathering military-industrial complex.
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