Are you feeling World Cup fever?
The global tournament kicks off today
as one of the three hosts, Mexico, takes on South Africa in Mexico City.
Over the coming weeks, nearly half of the world's population
will tune in to watch 48 teams slug it out.
The World Cup, you might think, exemplifies two big trends:
that entertainment culture is more globalized than ever,
and that America remains the soft-power superpower at the center of it all.
Well, on both scores, you'd be wrong.
From music to television to gaming, and even in some sport, audiences are embracing the homegrown.
So we're asking, is global culture dying, and if so, does that matter?
I'm Adam Roberts, the foreign editor.
Welcome to the Insider.
This week, as Gaby and Anne are both away, I'm stepping in.
You might think I'm defying our history by devoting a show in part to football.
Rest assured, I'm respecting tradition.
I checked our archive last night,
and we first wrote about football in our May 18th edition 182 years ago, back in 1844.
So, we have the chance to then bring some sporting fanatics and some cultural fanatics together
to talk about what's going on.