On a Spanish morning news programme, the story of King Juan Carlos I and his mistress Bárbara Rey is under discussion

Let me try to recount this absorbing tale in brief. Juan Carlos I, now a king in retirement, abdicated in favour of his son in the summer of 2014. He is now 86, bears the title of Emeritus King and lives in self-imposed exile outside Spain. The final years of Juan Carlos's reign were clouded by a great many scandals involving financial affairs and mistresses, among them the king's transfer of tens of millions of dollars to certain women.

Juan Carlos does not live with his wife, Queen Sofía of Greece and Denmark; she, for her part, is the darling of the nation and represents the Spanish crown, residing in Spain.

Bárbara Rey, the mistress, is not the only one, but she is the most conflict-prone. She has repeatedly been caught up in episodes of extorting money from the king. Not the most ancient of the scandals concerns the handing over to Bárbara, by her own account, of hundreds of millions of pesetas in one go and fifty million every year.

The news reports call it: Bárbara y el Rey. It is amusing that the model with a Miss World career behind her, the actress Sofía Cruz, known above all for her love affair with the king, el rey, took the stage name Bárbara Rey. Lest anyone should happen to be unaware of so significant a biographical fact.

Bárbara has admitted that she asked the crown for certain sums of money, but in her own defence she stated that she has at her disposal certain recordings of an intimate nature, including ones from the bedroom