A commercial running on Japanese TV at the moment shows an astronaut being told to go on a space trip by his boss. He complains, saying that he has tickets for some World Cup games. But his boss insists he has to go. The astronaut reluctantly goes leaving his tickets on the floor. The boss picks them up and grins.
Now, here's the question. Can the boss use these tickets to attend the games? (The answer comes later in this column.)
On Friday, the third round of sales of World Cup tickets for residents in Japan started and, over the first six hours, some 20,000 people registered for tickets.