(L to R) Fashion designer Robert Young of The Cloth with Wendell Manwarren and Roger Roberts of Trinidad and Tobago rapso band 3canal. Wendell and Roger are wearing jackets Robert designed for their upcoming tour of India.

Caribbean Free Radio #51 is a command performance of sorts recorded at Little House, home of 2/3 of my house band 3canal. I was summoned there last night to talk with Wendell Manwarren and Roger Roberts about their upcoming tour of India.

Also discussed: Roger’s participation in the New York City Marathon (bib #18722, in case you’re interested) this coming Sunday! I’ve just signed up with the Marathon’s Athlete Alert service so I can track Roger’s progress on race day.

As seen on the streets of Accra from Georgia Popplewell on Vimeo.

Like most countries in the developing world, my own included, Ghana has a vast informal economy in which street vendors play an important role. According to a 2003 study done by the Natural Resources Institute in collaboration with the Food Research Institute and the Department of Agricultural Economics at the University of Ghana, street vending employs over 60,000 people and has an estimated annual turnover of over US$100 million with an annual profit of US$24million. Given the pace at which a city like Accra has been growing in the past decade, I’d imagine you’d have to multiply the ‘03 figures by several to arrive at a current estimate.

The video above offers only a minute and relatively uninteresting sampling of the range of items I saw on sale on the streets of Accra. A more complete list would include:

hats, caps, neckties, fans, sponges, clocks, full-length mirrors, volumes of Kwame Nkrumah’s speeches, electric lamps, copies of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, kente-patterned boxes of tissues, briefcases, eyeglasses, world maps, culturally inappropriate colouring books, foodstuff, fruit, including apples neatly packaged in stacks of two and three in long, narrow plastic bags, chewing gum, candy, garden shears, footballs in Ghana colours, dog leashes and muzzles, cufflinks, SIM cards, mobile phone airtime, Livestrong-style wristbands, television antennas, razors, toilet paper, shoe polish, shoe brushes, pens, garments, framed paintings.

"Wesley Gibbings, president of the ACM [Association of Caribbean Media Workers], says:

This is to advise of the imminent introduction of a Model Professional Services Bill to Caricom member states which calls for, among other things, the registration and licensing of media workers.

The bill is meant to 'regularise' and harmonise standards among professionals in a wide range of categories under the ambit of the CSME.

The subject was raised at a CSME workshop in St Lucia on October 12 by Caricom officials.

I have already advised that this matter is not subject to negotiation. It is a well-established fact that the licensing of journalists constitutes an outright threat to freedom of the press and other rights. There is also a growing body of international judicial precedents which determines its unlawful nature.

We will be mobilising international support for the campaign."

It’s hard not to take notice of South African telecoms giant MTN’s presence in Ghana, thanks at least in part to the colours in its logo. Vodafone, the country’s flagship telecoms operator, does a fair amount of this kind of branding as well, but Vodafone red can’t hold a candle to MTN yellow, especially under the West African sun.

There’s a branding/design lesson in there somewhere.

Filmed this down and dirty little video yesterday at the National Museum in Accra, Ghana. In it I ask three Africans–two Ghanaians and an Ethiopian–what they think about Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize win.

“Manhattan Valley Viaduct (yellow cab)” – New York, September 2009

“Manhattan Valley Viaduct (town car)” – New York, September 2009

“Cae la noche (rojo)” – Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain, November 2007

“Cae la noche (negro)” – Vilanova i la Geltrú, Spain, November 2007

They removed the ceiling boards yesterday, so this morning I had a glimpse of what my house will look like from the inside when the new roof is done; as that relates, as least, to the slope of the new ceilings.

Sadly, I will be losing much of that glorious view of the sky.

I wish it were possible in this climate to install a glass roof that wouldn’t turn the place into a green house. Or that roofs weren’t necessary at all.

Because cell phones mics are optimised for capturing the human voice, the files Audioboo records are of pretty good quality. The app’s truly winning feature, however, is its simplicity: hit “record” —> put phone to ear and speak —> garnish with optional title, metadata, image —> hit “publish”. The other audio microblogging services I’ve played with all involved dialing in to phone numbers (that were usually international long distance for me) and other rigmaroles.

The downside to Audioboo is that in order to record a “boo” you need an iPhone, at least for now. (Another downside is that the recordings are called “boos”, though who would ever have dreamt that the word “tweet” would come to roll off the tongue in as it does today?)

Will Audioboo rekindle the podcasting fire in me? Hard to tell. But here are my first two boos, and two images to illustrate them. If I decide to boo further, you’ll find the lot archived here.