The week that was

Are the Russians coming?
It must, you would think, feel slightly unreal. There you are, a president of a region of Spain, heading off to a jolly event in a foreign capital as though nothing was happening some 1,400 kilometres to its south. Not that one can blame a president of a region of Spain for attending such a jolly event. Just that it must be hard to maintain that it's business as usual when one is in full knowledge of manoeuvres down Crimea way. But brave-faced business as usual it was, and not just for President Bauzá and the faithful tourism minister, Jaime Martínez. Another week, another travel fair. Moscow's fair is fast becoming an important occasion, an addition to the big three of London, Madrid and Berlin. There is now a Grand Slam of travel fairs for the Balearics to attend; they really should take Rafa Nadal along, as he knows a thing or two about Grand Slams. Not of course that Rafa would get anywhere near a travel fair nowadays. He's presumably got better things to do anyway, but in these days of austere, minimal promotional spend, the last thing that Martínez is going to agree to is a first-class ticket and some five-star accommodation for someone who is more than capable of paying for both himself; in fact, more than capable of paying for Jaime, El Presidente and the rest of the Balearics entourage to slum it in five-star Moscow luxury as well.

Someone who wasn't in Moscow was the man who is ostensibly in political charge of Spain's tourism, minister José Manuel Soria. And why was he not in attendance? Was this some form of diplomatic snub to Putin? Was Canaries Joe still sick, as he was when the Berlin fair was going on? Or was he making sure he didn't have to bump into Bauzá? The two of them really aren't best friends, and just to emphasise this, Bauzá caught up with his presidential counterpart from Soria's home islands in order to discuss joining forces against Soria. Yep, it was that oil business again. Really? Who would be Soria? But if he was prepared to take the Rajoy shilling and head a mega-ministry of incompatible components - industry, energy and tourism - as he was, then he only has himself to blame.

Balearics Joe was able to inform his Russian hosts that the Balearics have "numerous possibilities" for the Russian tourist. "The complete and varied offer of our destination," said the president "is more than just sun and beach and can be enjoyed 365 days a year", thanks to golf, sailing and gastronomy. And on the last of these, the faithful Jaime, never knowingly underfed, was doubtless nodding in agreement. There was one slight possible drawback to this complete and varied, 365-days-a-year offer. Flights. Oh, and all that stuff about Brussels putting visa relaxation on the back-burner. Still, brave face and all that. Optimistic noises were made, but there was a touch of realism. The Balearics can expect the same number of Russian tourists this year as last year, which is not how it was meant to have been. There were going to be more. In fact, there were some pessimistic noises, too. Russian tour operators were talking about a two per cent fall in tourism to Spain, the less-favourable exchange rate being the principal reason.

A Council of sense
The Balearics School Council is the leading advisory body for primary and secondary education. It has offered proposals as to the way forward with the implementation of trilingual teaching. Thank God that someone has. Moreover, the government's headmistress, Joana Camps, appears to have been listening for once and has given the Council nearly full marks and a gold star.

As a result, what is likely to emerge is what was in fact more or less originally proposed in the drafting of the legislation for TIL - before the government started moving the goalposts and generally messing around. There will not be an arithmetic division of teaching hours between the three languages and will be more hours for Catalan teaching (at the discretion of individual schools). Furthermore, the introduction of TIL at secondary level will have a longer phase-in period, with the number of hours of teaching in English reduced for now.

Though the Council's recommendations won't satisfy some of the hardline Catalan- and-nothing-but-Catalan elements knocking around the unions and the Teachers' Assembly, they appear sensible. So sensible, that one has to ask why it has taken this long for some sense to prevail and why indeed the government ever engaged in its goalpost-shifting? The politics of education are rarely anything other than weird, but the regional government has managed to out-weird even Michael Gove, which is saying something. Perhaps they can just get on and behave themselves - government and teachers - or it will be the naughty step for all of them. Though don't count on things not changing. There is always Francina Armengol and PSOE lurking in the anti-TIL electoral background.

Campanet cupcakes
I have mentioned before that there are hours of endless amusement to be had from entering the names of Balearics politicians into Google Translate and seeing what bizarre results you get. I am delighted to report that there is a new name for our list of unlikely politicos. Cupcake Solivellas. Who she? Magdalena is her actual name and she is the lady mayor of Campanet, a small town known for virtually nothing other than the springs, the caves and silly goings-on at the town hall. The latest have to do with the budgets and the wish of Cupcake's party (the PSM Majorcan socialists), which governs in a minority, to, among other things, raise property tax. The opposition have been having none of it.

Budget approval has been linked to a vote of confidence in the mayor, and the PP and PSOE/Greens opposition rejected this idea last week. The PP wants Cupcake to resign, PSOE/Greens don't seem to know what they want, and the budget may or may not be approved within a month with or without a vote of confidence or indeed with or without a different mayor. Confused? Not as much as they are at Campanet town hall. But then we are talking the same town hall at which a couple of years ago there was a break in cordial coalition relations between the PSM and PSOE on account of the then PSOE mayor (Joan Amengual) having taken umbrage at PSM councillors having formed a committee to organise festivities for Three Kings without telling him. And this was just one part of a saga that had gone on for twenty years, as Amengual had started it all in 1991 when he withdrew PSOE coalition support for the PSM mayor who had called a meeting with village pensioners also without telling him. There is more to this feud, but it really doesn't bear going into because it does get far too complicated. Let's just accept that Campanet manages to present itself as a shining example of coalition politics at their best.