There is also lots of talk in Spain that the system being used by coach Gerardo Martino makes it harder for Messi to see quite so much of the ball.

Meanwhile, if you didn't toe the investment banks' line, they would cut you. Toby Lenk was the CEO of eToys, and in a 2006 deposition he was asked whether he ever "voiced any displeasure" with Goldman about the fact that they left so much money on the table. He said no - and added "a little story" about why it was never a good idea to annoy a big investment bank. In 2000, Lenk explained, when eToys was desperate for money, it raised some cash through a convertible debt offering:

"Probably no part of the world is changing so rapidly, in detail if not in the large, as Latin America."

Carrington's machine detected a silver spoon and a half penny in its first two beeps but he didn't know what he was going to find next.

Two more itineraries