Watching the World Cup
From Our Own Correspondent
BBC
4.4 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2018
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When football takes over from Lebanon's other national obsession: politics. Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories from around the world: Celebratory gunfire, fireworks, and moped motorcades are common sights in Lebanon usually used as shows of political power but not during the World Cup when Brazil flags replace those of Hezbollah and pictures of political leaders are replaced by Lionel Messi's image. For four week political and religious differences are put aside says Richard Hall. Nanna Muus Steffensen crosses the Turkish border into Syria to try and find out how the people of Afrin are faring since Kurdish fighters were forced out by Turkish troops and Syrian rebels. John Pilkington visits a country run by one of the world's most secretive and repressive regimes and is surprised by what he finds in Eritrea. James Jeffrey tries to locate the final haunts of his literary hero J G Farrell in the west of Ireland. And Laura Dawson hears how you can make money by spinning sob stories in rural Rajasthan. She meets an Indian man who has gone from making money from scamming tourists to using art to help others avoid lives of poverty or petty crime.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:03.0 | Hello. |
| 0:04.0 | Today we cross the Turkish border into Syria |
| 0:07.0 | to try and see how life has changed in Afrin |
| 0:10.0 | since Kurdish fighters were driven out of the town. |
| 0:13.0 | Awkward questions for our correspondent in Eritrea, |
| 0:16.0 | as people want to know why on earth he wants to be there |
| 0:20.0 | and so many others are desperate to get out. |
| 0:22.0 | We go on a literary pilgrimage in Ireland to the grave of |
| 0:25.8 | J.G. Farrell. And we hear confessions of an Indian trickster who once made money by spinning |
| 0:31.6 | tales to tourists. |
| 0:34.6 | In a week of Brexit chaos splits within NATO |
| 0:38.1 | and with the US President Donald Trump |
| 0:40.0 | about to land in the UK, a country he described as being in turmoil. The front pages today |
| 0:46.0 | are dominated by another story, England's performance against Croatia last night. So now we're out, but what does a football mad country do if its team is not even |
| 0:56.6 | in the World Cup? Lebanon failed to qualify, but football fever has swept the nation all the same as Richard Hall has |
| 1:04.9 | observed. An incredible transformation takes place in Lebanon during the |
| 1:09.6 | World Cup. The country is reorganized overnight. |
| 1:13.0 | Chairs and TVs are brought out into the pavements outside shops. |
| 1:16.0 | People crowd around screens in cafes, a deep haze of shishish smoke |
| 1:20.0 | swirling in the din of that exuberant Arabic commentary. |
| 1:24.4 | Barages of fireworks screech and bang across the sky whenever one of the favoured team's |
... |
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