Getting their story straight

SPANISH diplomats have been issued with set of official answers to the awkward questions that are being asked about Judge Baltasar Garzon.

His 11-year ban for tapping the phones of suspects’ lawyers in a corruption case might be coherent with the finer points of Spanish law.

Outside Spain it looks closer to an incoherent settling of accounts and the crib will clearly be much-thumbed while trying to convince critics that the verdict was reached entirely on judicial and not political grounds.

Taking a gamble

RIVALRY between Madrid and Barcelona means more than football and both hope to be chosen by US magnate Sheldon Adelson for a complex of casinos, hotels, conference centres, golf courses, theatres and shopping malls.

Uppermost in all minds are the jobs this would bring – but who will the clients be?

The cash-strapped will stay at home and the rich will go to Monaco or Las Vegas.

Train of thought

ATTORNEY GENERAL Eduardo Torres-Dulce announced an investigation into the remains of trains blown up by Islamist terrorists in Madrid in March 2004 and later broken for scrap.

Conspiracy theorists who still diagnose an ETA-PSOE connection were overjoyed although their hopes were dashed when Torres-Dulce insisted that the 11-M verdicts were indisputable.

Never mind: fresh fantasies can soon be dug up and trailed on the internet.