At first sight, there is little in common between Riode Janeiro and Belfast. I mean Mardi Gras is hardly the GLorious Twelfth.
And the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games in 2016 is hardly the World Police and Fire Games which are coming to Norn Iron later this summer.
But there IS a connexion. The rioters in Brazil are out on the streets protesting because they feel totally disconnected from these two massive vanity projects. The Police and Fire Games…not to mention G8 Summit, Titanic, City of Culture nonsense, MTV Awards and the rest are vanity projects dreamt up by Government aided and abetted by a compliant media to produce a “progressive narrative” for Norn Iron.
Are those fleg protestors, Orangeutans not merely on the streets because they feel “alienated” as the academics tell us.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 
I was in Scotland recently and happened to meet a couple of cyclists, who turned out to be Spanish policemen. One of them was a pretty serious athlete and had been hoping to compete at the forthcoming games in Belfast, until he discovered how much it was going to cost him. He spent his holidays in Scotland instead.
He is a very wise man.