Viewed from the road, it's a shocking sight. Heavy diggers, concrete pipes, mesh fencing and a mountain of earth have replaced the scruffy oasis of trees and flowerbeds. Officially, work hasn't yet started on the M74 Extension and there's no word of contracts being awarded. No-one can deny, though, that wheels are in motion at this site and 2 others along the route. Archaeology is being used as an amiable "dual use" method for preparing the ground and removing potential sites of community resistance. Note how the former Quarriers home in the background has had its roof removed. Kids can't do that, neither can an accidental swing of a JCB bucket.

The friendly and blameless HAPCA archaeologist showed us what's been revealed on site. Their dig has revealed a cobbled road with tramlines, outlines of tenements going back to the 1850s and numerous recent historical artefacts like toys and a Co-op school milk bottle. He describes its slide into neglect in the neutral terms of rooms-per-family. We see a marble pillar from the "Greek" Thomson tenement on Pollokshaws Road, demolished in the early 1970s. These aren't the people to ask about if the soil they've been digging is contaminated.

One area of the site turns out to be a mound that gave a now-gone street its name of "Rosehill". This excites the archaeologists because when they start in on that, they may uncover one of very few remaining traces of Medaeval Glasgow. They're attempting to piece together ignored parts of Glasgow history, matching maps and memories and collecting oral histories of the area.

And once their time is up (around December), they'll move off, write a report and Transport Scotland will concrete over this part of Glasgow's history.

Meanwhile, the director of the Merchant City Festival gives an Award for Innovation to Glasgow's Planning Dept and a firm of architects for a project called "The Urban Model". Some kind of laser-scanned, millimetre-precise map of the city's buildings that can be "flown" through in a Playstation style. An eternal, shining Now and Future Glasgow, all surface, seen from a lofty height. No people, no air pollution deaths, no worries. Scotland With Style.