Flat Earth: Barca mad

THE delight of some people in Spain at our arrest of Augusto Pinochet is contributing, a correspondent in Barcelona tells me, to the most cordial relations between ordinary Britons and Spaniards since the days of Philip II and Mary Tudor.

So deep is the affection, he claims, that a friend who is Catalan, and therefore a fanatical Barcelona devotee, told him on the eve of the Barca- Manchester United match that she had decided to support Man U that night. Clearly the fraternal spirit permeated on to the pitch, where the score was 3-3, just as it had been in the earlier Champions' League meeting at Old Trafford.

I am disappointed to report that all this generous feeling was not reciprocated by a Mancunian to whom I told this story. "Barca are playing so badly at the moment that they might just as well support us," he snorted.