Rag!

How do other people find the time to write more than a line or two?

I.
Not long ago D made a suggestion about using mothballed development sites as temporary art displays. A neighbourhood group in Glasgow has done something in a related vein:

A developer is to hand over a site to the community following complaints from people in Govanhill about the condition of derelict land left by the demolition of the former Clada club.

In addition, someone has made a short video about the neighbourhood. It is embedded in Google map results for Westmoreland Street, Govanhill, and features a 1977 Lou Rawls tune called ‘Let’s Clean Up the Ghetto‘ instead of dialogue. In a cruel twist, the comments take on a similar theme, but with a distinctly bigoted slant. But back to the main story:

This afternoon local campaigners are to hold a “common-unity day” festival at the site in Westmoreland Street, in an area dubbed Ground Zero because it is regarded as the epicentre of social problems in the area. Organiser Cathie Cowan (who also runs the local community health and care partnership) said: “I know of so many people committed to making Govanhill a better place and the street event is a great opportunity to make a difference to the area.

The site has lain vacant since the former Hampden Picture House was pulled down exactly two years ago, following the closure of the Up ‘n’ Down club which had taken over from the Clada. Mr Singh submitted an application to build 16 flats and two shops on the site but with a downturn in the housing market, is delaying the project.

There you have it. Get a community healthcare organisation to treat demolition sites as an environmental and social health project, bring in the various partners, and make something of it. Urban farming, festivals, art projects. 

II.
What next? Spotify. It’s a new music streaming service that’s got an ad-supported version for those of us who don’t go paying for every new thing we come across. I got myself an invite to the beta version client, and am happily listening to the likes of Annie Ross, Kenny Burrell and Eric Dolphy. The client is an improvement on Last.fm or Pandora in that if you search on ‘Annie Ross’, it returns 30 of her tunes, and will play them directly. Similarly, if I search on ‘Just a-sittin and a-rockin’, I get a dozen versions of the tune. Voice ads are interspersed every few songs. Some of them are truly obnoxious, but they’re over in 35 seconds. I’m lovin’ it.

III.
If you’ve know about ego-surfing, UserNameCheck does a limited version, running queries on a long list of webservices for a given username.

It ran 72 queries for me, showing 14 as taken. I recognise all but one of them, a service called Uservoice. Have I signed up for it and completely forgotten? Is someone else using this name?

IV.

Inspired. I’ll have a t-shirt of this, please.

Is that everything? I’m sure there was more. But as I’ve already spent 3 hours getting this far, it’s well past time to quit.