Wednesday, April 1, 2026 — Edition No. 46 — The Cornmill Intelligencer

← Past Editions · Edition No. 46 · Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Today’s outlook: No fooling — April opens with a symphony of craft, community, and cutting-edge tech

Audio Film & TV

No Safety Net: How the Sound Team Behind Adolescence Pulled Off Television's Most Audacious Audio Challenge

With four hour-long episodes shot in single continuous takes, every whisper, shout and slammed door had to be captured perfectly — first time

Imagine recording an hour of live television sound — dialogue, footsteps, doors, ambient noise, everything — knowing that a single mistake means starting the entire episode again from the top. No punch-ins. No re-recording. No second chances hidden in the edit.

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What's On Glasgow

Free Easter Fun at the Burrell Collection: Spring Holiday Sessions for All the Family

Drop-in family sessions running 4–19 April offer crafts, music and hands-on object handling — all completely free

If you're looking for something to do with the family over Easter that doesn't involve spending a small fortune, the Burrell Collection has rather good news.

Glasgow's magnificent museum in Pollok Country Park is running free drop-in family sessions throughout the spring holidays, from Friday 4 April to Sunday 19 April. The Discover! Spring Holiday Weekend Sessions invite families to get hands-on with the collection through crafts, music and object handling — and not a penny changes hands.

The sessions are designed for families with children of all ages. Visitors can explore the collection through guided creative activities, handle real objects from the museum's extraordinary holdings, and take part in music and craft workshops led by the Glasgow Life Museums Learning Team.

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AI Model Releases

Google's New Voice AI Can Search the Web While You're Still Talking — Gemini Flash Live Goes Global

Gemini 3.1 Flash Live rolls out to 200+ countries, combining real-time voice conversation with live web search — and the accessibility implications could be transformative

When you need to look something up, you type. You scroll. You read. For most people, this is second nature. For the 183,000 Scots living with sight loss — and millions more worldwide who struggle with text-based interfaces — it has always been a barrier.

Last week, Google took a significant step toward dismantling it.

On March 26, Google DeepMind launched Gemini 3.1 Flash Live, its most advanced voice AI model to date, alongside a global rollout of Search Live to more than 200 countries. The combination means something genuinely new: you can now have a spoken conversation with Google's AI while it simultaneously searches the web for answers.

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What's On Glasgow

Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art Is Turning 30 — Here's How to Celebrate With the Kids This Easter

Free family workshops at GoMA explore the original 1996 commissions that launched one of Scotland's most-loved galleries

Thirty years ago, Glasgow did something rather bold. It took a neoclassical building on Royal Exchange Square — a former tobacco lord's mansion turned bank turned library — and reimagined it as one of Scotland's most ambitious contemporary art galleries.

The Gallery of Modern Art opened its doors in 1996, and the city hasn't looked back since. GoMA has welcomed millions of visitors, hosted everything from David Hockney to Banksy, and become as much a part of Glasgow's identity as the traffic cone perched on the Duke of Wellington's head outside.

Now, to mark its 30th anniversary, GoMA is inviting families to explore where it all began — with free Easter workshops inspired by the original artists who helped launch the gallery three decades ago.

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News Scotland

Choose Life, Again: Irvine Welsh Takes Trainspotting to the West End — as a Musical

Three decades after Renton first chose not to choose life, the author is co-writing original songs for a stage musical that promises to be as funny as it is brutal

It began as a novel that publishers weren't sure anyone would read. It became a film that nobody expected to gross $72 million worldwide. Now, more than thirty years on, Irvine Welsh is taking Trainspotting somewhere nobody saw coming: into the world of musical theatre.

Trainspotting The Musical will have its world premiere at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London on 15 July, with a limited run through to 5 September. Welsh has written the adaptation himself, with original songs co-composed alongside musician Stephen McGuinness — the pair having previously collaborated on a soul- and disco-inflected companion album to Welsh's 2025 novel Men in Love.

"It wasn't the most obvious book to be successful," Welsh told The Guardian. "And it wasn't the most obvious movie or stage play to be successful. It's confounded expectations — especially my own."

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AI Model Releases

Mistral Opens Up Voice AI: French Lab's Free Model Could Change Who Gets to Speak

Voxtral TTS brings near-human speech generation to developers, creators, and accessibility builders — no subscription required

Until recently, making a computer talk like a human required either deep pockets or deep compromise. The best voice AI tools — the ones that sound warm, natural, and convincingly human — have been locked behind expensive commercial subscriptions. The cheap alternatives sounded like sat-navs from 2012.

That changed last week when Mistral, the French AI company that has become one of open-source AI's most important champions, released Voxtral TTS: a free, open-weight text-to-speech model that the company claims can match or beat the industry's most expensive commercial offerings.

Text-to-speech — or speech generation — is exactly what it sounds like: you type words in, and a realistic human voice reads them back. The technology powers everything from voice assistants and audiobooks to accessibility tools that help visually impaired users navigate the web.

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Health

Ditch the Gym Guilt: Why 2026 Is the Year Exercise Became Fun Again

From open water swimming at Pinkston to Parkrun at Queen's Park, a quiet revolution is replacing punishment with joy

Something rather encouraging is happening in the way Britain moves. After years of gym guilt, punishing boot camps and diet culture that made exercise feel like penance, the biggest wellness trend of 2026 is gloriously simple: do something that makes you happy, preferably outside, ideally with other people.

The numbers tell a striking story. The Global Wellness Institute projects the worldwide wellness economy will reach nearly $9 trillion by 2028, up from $6.3 trillion in 2023. But the most interesting shift isn't about money — it's about attitude. Social movement, green prescribing and joy-led exercise are reshaping how millions of people think about keeping well.

The principle is straightforward. If you dread your workout, you'll stop doing it. If you love it, you won't.

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News Clydebank

New Youth Hub for West Dunbartonshire in £2.5 Billion UK Jobs Push

Area selected as one of just ten Scottish locations for pioneering youth employment hub backed by UK Government programme

Young people in West Dunbartonshire are set to benefit from a brand-new youth hub — one of just ten across Scotland — designed to bring jobs, training and support services together under one roof.

The hub, announced as part of the UK Government's £2.5 billion Youth Guarantee programme, will target 16-to-24-year-olds not currently in work, education or training. It will offer on-site Jobcentre support, careers guidance, mental health and housing help, skills training and direct connections to local employers with live vacancies and apprenticeships.

West Dunbartonshire MP Douglas McAllister welcomed the news, calling it "a huge boost" for the area.

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