The curse of Copacabana

In the film "Blame it on Rio", Michael Caine plays a middle-aged man with marital problems who falls for his best friend's daughter during a holiday in Rio de Janeiro. The heady atmosphere of one of the world's most alluring cities is apparently the cause of this lapse in judgement. If only it were just a movie.

The list of Rio casualties is growing longer with recent additions including Mick Jagger, whose dalliance with local girl Luciana Gimenez sent wife Jerry Hall calling for her lawyers, and former UK trade minister Peter Mandelson, who had to vigorously deny local reports that he went on a tour of gay nightspots during a two-day visit to the city last July.

While politicians and pop stars are noted for slapstick at any latitude, one might expect that the serious-minded practitioners of the dismal science be immune from Copacabana's curse. Unfortunately not. In the...