As our senior editor Edward Keenan wrote after Rob Ford’s famed 911 call incident in October 2011: “Incivility and unbecoming behaviour are his whole brand.”

In light of the news you might have heard about Toronto’s mayor this morning, we’d just like to present for you again a few memorable incidents in the bizarre, troubled history of the ongoing Rob Ford clown show.

1999: Rob Ford is arrested for failing to take a breathalyzer test after being pulled over, and also charged with possession of marijuana.

2002: Ford refers to Councillor Giorgio Mammoliti as “gino boy.”

2005: Ford calls Councillor Gloria Lindsay Luby a “waste of skin.”

2005: Ford says the following: “No. 1, I don’t understand a transgender, I don’t understand, is it a guy dressed up like a girl or a girl dressed up like a guy? And we’re funding this for, I don’t know, what does it say here?”

2006: Ford says, “If you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS probably, that’s bottom line.”

2006: After being thrown out of a hockey game in which Ford berated those sitting nearby, he apologized, claiming he had been drinking and was under a lot of stress.

2008: That time he said “orientals” who “work like dogs” were “taking over.”

2008: Ford is charged with assault and uttering a death threat after a domestic dispute with his wife Renata. Weeks later, the charges were withdrawn.

2010: That time he offered to score a stranger drugs on tape.

2010: Ford endorses anti-gay-marriage pastor Wendell Brereton.

2011: A mother claims Rob Ford gave the finger to her and her six-year-old daughter after they scolded him for talking on his mobile phone while driving. Ford claimed this was “not accurate,” and responded to a television reporter’s question about it with a fit of sustained laughter, ending the interview. Later he clarified that he had been on his mobile phone, but denied making a rude hand gesture.

2011: Ford goes to the cottage instead of the Pride Parade.

2011: The unforgettable 911 call controversy.

2011: The Star reports that the Youth and Family Violence Unit was investigating two domestic disputes at the mayor’s house in two months, including one after his in-laws phoned the police.

2011: Ford draws a complaint from a women’s group after suggesting into a live microphone that he could think of a word that starts with “B” to call a woman speaking before his Executive Committee.

2012: Ford charges at a Star reporter on a parcel of property behind his house.

2012: Ford skips the Pride Parade again.

2012: Rob Ford, “party animal.”

2012: That whole conflict-of-interest thing.

2013: The Star reports Ford was “asked to leave a gala event celebrating the Canadian armed forces last month, because organizers were concerned he was impaired.”

2013: Sarah Thomson alleges Ford grabbed her ass at a party. The night before International Women’s Day.

2013: Ford goes on a “magnet blitz” in a parking lot.

Have we forgotten any of Rob Ford’s many unbecoming incidents? Please let us know in the comments section below.

Toronto’s growth spurt isn’t over just yet. While we’ve built or are building more super-tall skyscrapers (200 metres or higher) over the past three years than in all previous years combined, that’s nothing compared to what could be coming: There are a grand total of 16 buildings taller than 200 metres currently planned. Here’s how they’d measure up on our skyline.

Data courtesy of the City of Toronto’s City Planning Division. For proposed projects, only those for which planning applications have been submitted to the city are included (and those could still get taller or shorter—or, possibly, not be built at all).

GOT SOMETHING THAT YOU WANT THE GRID TO FIGURE OUT? E-mail it to ask@thegridto.com, and we’ll see what we can find.

At around 10:15 last Wednesday morning, as this month’s city council meeting was gearing up, speaker Frances Nunziata uttered a procedural phrase that seemed especially apt. “The mayor has not designated any key matters for this meeting,” she said. No key matters—that’s about the size of things with Rob Ford these days.

The mayor was there in body, sporadically, throughout the meeting. But if he had any particular hopes for what might get accomplished by this council he was elected to lead, he was coy about it. City council itself rejected his inability to prioritize, and voted by a two-thirds majority to have a debate on transit revenue tools that the mayor had tried to keep off the agenda. As city manager Joe Pennachetti got up to speak about how important this debate was—in the professional opinion of city staff and, according to a poll he’d conducted, more than 85 per cent of Toronto residents—Ford got up and left the room.

Rather than participate in the business of governing, the mayor went to the McDonald’s near the Eaton Centre, where reporters caught up with him while he greeted the Hamburglar and posed for photos. He spent a few minutes behind the counter helping serve burgers as part of the corporation’s McHappy Day fundraiser, then he got himself a Diet Coke and, before heading back to work, spent a moment talking to reporters. They asked him about councillors threatening to bring a vote to defeat his will on the question of casinos in Toronto.

“Whatever,” he shrugged.

He said something about hating taxes and people voting for him and then he was gone.

Later, back at the meeting, he ducked out to check the score of the hockey game.

The next morning, as the transit debate he wanted to avoid pressed on, councillor Chin Lee stood up to complain about a lack of leadership at City Hall. “I will put my neck on the line to lead, and not be a coward,” he said. The mayor was not in the chamber.

The meeting devolved into chaos, as a rudderless council divided into 44 individual factions in a two-day debate, eventually voting on more than 50 convoluted motions. They wound up approving nothing of substance on the transit issues at hand. By widespread agreement, it was as low a point as anyone could remember at this council.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Ford told reporters afterward. “This is one of the greatest days in Toronto’s history right now.”

Of course he would think that. For more than a year, he’s repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t particularly care if the business of the city gets done. For Ford, chaos might be the preferred course for Toronto’s government. After getting elected, the mayor spent close to nine months intimidating city council into doing whatever he asked. As soon as some councillors started standing up to him last year—burying Ford’s transit fantasy plan and replacing it with an LRT plan he hated—he stopped trying to govern and started campaigning for the next election, which is still 17 months away.

Since then, council has staggered around under the temporary and varying leadership of a shifting cast of councillors, changing its mind on plastic bags, bike lanes, and zoning bylaws; all the while, Ford’s opinion has been absent from the debates, preferring to tell listeners to his radio show that the 2014 campaign has already begun. His fellow CFRB host (and former mayoral candidate and leader of the provincial Conservatives) John Tory has become exasperated by this, recently telling an Empire Club audience that with the election a year and a half away, “the public would have, in my view, every reason to remind the current administration that they were already elected to govern and to deal with issues like transit, not just to get ready for the next election.”

In the meantime—as we heard last week—the mayor is bringing nothing to the table. In recent months, his biggest talking points—perhaps his only talking points on issues of substance—have been about supporting a casino in downtown Toronto and wanting to cancel plans to provide bike parking at City Hall. He was comprehensively defeated in a council vote this week on the latter question, and appears set to be defeated on the former at a special meeting on May 21. Even on those issues, you can’t really say he’s engaged in the debate and trying to lead council. Beyond sloganeering, he has certainly shown no signs of making a case for any of his recent propositions.

The only thing he actually wants to get done is to find himself re-elected in 2014. Everything else, the business of actually governing the city—of building it, improving customer service, watching costs, all of it—is, as he might put it, gravy.

When word first started circulating that council would overrule Ford about the transit debate this month and raise the issue anyway, his chief of staff told the press how excited he was by the prospect of council defying the mayor. He said they’d make posters of the councillors who wanted to have a debate about raising taxes and use them in the next campaign. It seems that Ford is happiest when things are out of his control, and when council explicitly thwarts his will because it will provide another slogan for his election signs. In effect, Toronto’s mayor now acts as the official opposition to the municipal government.

When he won office in 2010, he did so as an outsider ranting about how the arrogant government was led by bums who never listened to regular people like him. And now that he’s proven incapable of changing that, he’s trying to position himself to run as an outsider opposing an arrogant government led by bums who never listen to mayors like him. His demonstrated incompetence at leading those bums, er, councillors, is presented as the key reason to re-elect him. It’s a bizarre proposition. Still, it could be effective. He appears to have a base of about 30 per cent of voters who are rock-solid supporters, and for them, anything that humiliates the mayor only serves to increase their sympathy for him—underscoring their conviction that the elites are out to get them, and him. And he’s carefully chosen which issues to sloganeer on—subways for Scarborough, no new taxes, and so on—to try to pick up a few more disaffected voters along the way.

But why would he want to remain mayor if he never gets to implement his policies? If he’s unwilling—as he’s shown he is—to perform the kind of negotiation and diplomacy that will actually move the city closer to the track he wants it to be on?

That is to say, why run again to lead the city if his defining characteristic is his refusal to lead?

Perhaps he’s already answered that question. When he said that the chaos, pettiness, and rudderless indecipherability that characterized last week’s transit votes made it among the “greatest days in Toronto’s history,” maybe he meant it. Because maybe the city government under Ford’s brand of non-leadership is showing signs of becoming the out-of-touch, selfish, directionless waste of resources he’s always said it was. City council sunk to the level of incoherence and undisciplined short-sightedness that has always characterized both Ford’s rhetoric and his performance. They’ve followed his lead, in a way, all the better for him to complain about the dysfunction and campaign to continue being the complainer-in-chief.

Maybe for Rob Ford and his close advisors, that has been the ultimate goal all along.

The 2014 campaign starts now! (And now. Also, now.)

Oct. 24, 2011

“I’m already out campaigning.” One year into his four-year term, Rob Ford celebrates the
vote to contract out garbage collection by declaring the next race open.

March 22, 2012

“We came up a few votes shy, but this is an election issue. Obviously, the campaign starts now,”
Ford told reporters after city council voted to replace his idea of a Sheppard subway with
the previously planned LRT.

Sept. 7, 2012

“So folks, I’m not going to list all our accomplishments, but I have to tell you one thing!
The campaign for the next election has started today. The next election is two years away,
we have to get out there, bang on the doors,” Ford says at a “Ford Fest” barbecue for his
supporters in his mother’s backyard.

Jan. 14, 2013

“I love campaigning, I love debating, I love knocking on doors and telling people what we’re
doing and then it’s up to [the electorate] to tell people who [they] want,” Ford told CP 24 as an appeal court prepared to weigh in on his possible removal from office on conflict of interest charges.

May 6, 2013

“If 30 councillors want to put their name to implement taxes on the back of hardworking
taxpayers in the city, I’ll hold them accountable in the next election. I’ll guarantee that.” Ford
suggests the battle at City Hall over transit funding is just the backstory of a vote 17 months away.

May 14, 2013

In the midst of a heated community council debate, Ford leaves during deputations to wander the parking lot, slapping “Rob Ford Mayor” magnets on vehicles. When asked by Toronto Star reporter Daniel Dale if he thought this behaviour might be considered strange, Ford replies, “Some people might find you strange.”

In his new book, The Butler Speaks, Charles MacPherson (a.k.a. Charles the Butler) shares his hard-won wisdom on everything from entertaining to organizing Asian cutlery. We caught up with the Toronto-based founder of North America’s first and only butler academy to discuss cellphone no-nos, famous fictional butlers, and why there’s nothing rude about tooting—as long as you own up and say excuse me.

I don’t want to make too fine a point of it, but we were supposed to talk at noon and it is now 1:30. Does one’s etiquette fly out the window while promoting one’s etiquette book?

I am so embarrassed. We had two of the numbers in your phone number inverted. Normally, I would never be late.

One of the things you suggest in your book is that before an event, a host should brush up on recent headlines.

People are sometimes afraid to go to an event because they don’t know what to talk about. By picking up a newspaper, it’s easy to get a general sense of what’s going on, so that you can either make conversation or at least be able to listen and comment intelligently.

So, if I was hosting you at a dinner party, I might say, “Charles, I just read a fascinating article in the Business Insider where Mark Zuckerberg says that checking your smartphone at the dinner table is not rude.” And you would say…

I completely and respectfully disagree with Mr. Zuckerberg. The reason is that sitting down to have a meal is about giving your attention to that person or that group. If something is so important that you have to be emailing or checking calls from the table, then you obviously don’t have time for the people you’re with.

And you’re also implying that your time is more important than anyone else’s.

Exactly. I will excuse it if the person I’m dining with is a surgeon and has someone else’s life in their hands, but that’s about it. Mothers may not like this, but just because little Johnny is sick, there’s no reason to disrupt the whole table. In that case, you need to put your phone on vibrate, then excuse yourself to the washroom if you need to make a call.

In general, does the shift towards an on-the-go, efficiency-obsessed society fly in the face of old-school etiquette?

It doesn’t fly in the face. But it means that etiquette needs to change. Etiquette is really about social interactions amongst ourselves and being respectful of each other, which is hopefully something we all still care about.

Is there still a big market for butlers out there? I know people with housekeepers and even drivers, but beyond a few billionaire families, who uses butlers?

There is actually a large demand, and it’s not just billionaires. In the movies, the butler is a person who answers the doors and spills soup on you if he doesn’t like you, but in reality, he is running errands, making an appointment with the air conditioning guy, picking up dry cleaning, and making sure the kids are with their tutor after school.

I was reading that a graduate from your academy can expect to make $50,000 in his or her first year on the job. No, wait—I say “his or her,” but is there such a thing as a female butler nowadays?

There is. Right now, about 10 per cent of butlers in private household service are female, but in the hotel industry it’s about 50/50.

Okay, back to the 50 grand. That is a huge starting salary for a job that doesn’t require a university education.

We place butlers starting at 50 to 60 [thousand dollars] and we’ve done up to a quarter of a million dollars. It really depends on level of service that is expected: Are you running just one households or three households? If you are in charge of three houses that each have a staff of 10, that’s 30 people you’re in charge of. That’s like managing a small company.

Did you watch Fresh Prince? I’m reminded of the episode where Geoffrey tells Hilary that there is nothing demeaning about serving other people.

I don’t recall that exact episode, but I can hear him saying that. The truth is that the work I do is not at all demeaning. Look at the incredible people I’ve been able to meet. Where else would little Charles MacPherson have had an opportunity to sit down to tea with the prime minister? I’ve met movie stars and captains of industry and watched history unfold.

Speaking of fictional butlers, you must have your favourites.

Of course. There is the fabulous Mr. Carson on Downton Abby, but probably my all-time favourite is a sad one—Anthony Hopkins in The Remains of the Day. He is the perfect butler, but he is such the perfect butler that he sacrifices love in his life.

How have you managed to balance your personal life and professional life—is there a Mrs. Charles the Butler?

There is a Mr. Charles the Butler. We’ve been together for over 20 years. In the early years, I was very lucky that he was a really patient person. He worked as a flight attendant so we were used to being separated and it was okay.

Last question—I came across a video clip of you where you are offering etiquette advice. You say, “If you’re going to accidentally toot on the plane,” and then it cuts off.  Can you complete the sentence?

Well, everyone toots—it’s just a fact of life. You just say excuse me and carry on.

LIGHTNING ROUND!

Swiffer or old-school mop?
Never a Swiffer.

Salt or pepper?
Pepper.

Prince Harry or Prince William?
Prince William.

Best subject in school?
Theatre.

Favourite colour?
Red.

Favourite breakfast?
Oatmeal.

Desert island album?
Kylee Smith.

Biggest indulgence?
Homemade yogurt.

Last year, Metro East’s 12 courtrooms handled almost a fifth of Toronto’s 53,280 criminal cases. Found in an Eglinton East strip mall across from a Winners, the low-ceilinged, fluorescent-lit space is the city’s second-busiest courthouse after stately, crumbling Old City Hall. Here’s a snippet of the human drama that played out on Wednesday, May 8.

› 9:30 a.m., courtroom 407: Presiding over a busy, low-level administrative court was Justice of the Peace Chimbo Poe-Mutuma (one of only two black men behind the bench at Metro East on this day, where the caseload was largely black and brown male defendants). To save the cost of transporting prisoners, some of the briefest interactions happen via video link. The court clerk scrolled through a menu of Ontario jails using a remote. On the Sony Bravia, men in orange jumpsuits appeared grainy and askew.

› 10:25 a.m., courtroom 408: Of the 5,481 youth trials in Toronto last year, 1,215 happened here. A black teenager with glasses and a slightly pointed goatee sat in the prisoner’s box, his long-sleeved maroon t-shirt a sign that he was being held in Roy McMurtry Youth Centre in Brampton. He was charged with two murders, 21 counts of aggravated assault, and discharging a firearm. His lawyer couldn’t be found so a police officer put him in handcuffs and walked him back down to the holding cells below the courthouse.

› 10:45 a.m. courtroom 405: A woman in a pale aqua salwar kameez was seated next to a translator, crying through her son’s sentencing. He was tall, with a short ponytail, and had been in custody for 184 days. Last year, when he was 17, he stabbed two people. One ended up with a collapsed lung. The Crown wanted a two-year jail sentence. The defence lawyer argued for a group home, so the accused can attend mosque and spend time with his wife.

› 11:40 a.m., courtroom 413: Sixty per cent of Toronto’s murder arrests make it to trial. Ahmed was accused of shooting a man at a bar in September 2011. A forensics expert with a flashy watch explained how to distinguish between a stab wound and a gunshot wound (length, depth, and abrasions at the entry point). After the testimony, Ahmed’s trial ended for the day.

› Noon to 2 p.m.: Most courtrooms closed for lunch. One judge headed to Pho Saigon around the corner.

› 2:02 p.m., courtroom 407: About 20 people piled in for an information session before their first court appearance. A short, straight-talking white woman with a long, brown ponytail introduced herself as duty counsel, the government-appointed lawyer who can help those accused navigate early appearances (but can’t represent them at trial).

› 2:45 p.m., courtroom 411: Justin, who’d been there since 10 a.m., was sentenced to a year of probation and 50 hours of community service. He has a record for robbery and weapons possession. This time, the white twentysomething stole a $52.70 bottle of champagne on Valentine’s Day.

› 3:20 p.m., courtroom 406: A blond female police officer with a full tattoo sleeve observed the final day of trial for a chubby man named Bilal, who faced 16 counts of identity theft and fraud. The judge promised a decision by June 5—it takes, on average, 160 days for a case at Metro East to make it from first court appearance to completion, 34 days higher than the provincial average.

› 3:30 p.m., courtroom 407: The people left in the room weren’t on the docket (a daily list of the accused, their charges, and scheduled appearance times), so the court clerk started pointing at random to determine who would go next. Last of all was an old, heavily wrinkled little man holding his official appointment sheet. No one could figure out what was supposed to happen to him here today. Poe-Mutuma signed the sheet to prove he showed up. “Don’t lose that,” said the JP. “Hold on to it for at least six months so the police can’t charge you again.”

› 4 p.m.: Metro East was done for the day.

I forgot how much this hurts.

On Monday night, half a period away from the second round of the playoffs, the Toronto Maple Leafs held the game and the season in their hands. They had come back from an impossibly imposing deficit in the series. And then they blew an impossibly imposing lead in the final minutes of the last game. And then it was all over.

I shouted, loudly, in my living room. My wife turned off the TV. My seven-year-old son, up way past his bedtime to watch the game, burst into tears. He continued sobbing in his bedroom for quite a while, standing staring at the Leafs stickers arranged on his wall, clutching the hockey card of a long-retired Leafs player he’d dug out as a lucky charm for the team’s first playoff appearance of his lifetime. “I guess,” my wife said to me, “he’s learning what it’s like to be a Leafs fan.”

It’s the Toronto condition. If, like me, your twin preoccupations are the Leafs and Toronto city politics, this has been an especially punishing period emotionally. A week ago, poised to finally make a significant statement about transit funding—ready to take another step towards transforming Toronto—city council devolved into chaos and cowardice.

And now this.

I went to my son’s room and picked him up, and we slumped into his Maple Leafs beanbag chair and cried together. “I know,” I told him. “I know.” This is not the first time I’ve been reduced to tears by the results of a Leafs playoff game. It almost certainly will not be the last.

It seems silly to cry about it, to care about it so much. It’s a game. But it’s not just that. It’s a story—an ongoing narrative unfolding in distinct chapters over generations—and while we’re individually powerless to change its outcome, we participate in the story by investing our faith in the team, our belief in the significance of the outcome, and our close attention to how it unfolds. We’re part of something larger, a mass of millions who share our hopes and frustrations. It matters so much because we care so much.

That sometimes leads to pure ecstatic moments. And it leads just as often to crushing disappointment. Both are better than the kind of indifference inspired by the uninterrupted futility the Leafs went through for most of the past decade. A tough loss doesn’t rob a game of significance—that comes only from apathy, from losing faith in the possibility of victory, or from simply ceasing to care about it. Politics is like that, too—hopelessness can emerge in reaction to politicians turning an opportunity to improve the city into an orgy of selfish, grandstanding obstructionism. And the uninterrupted futility of a city government that’s mired in its own petty squabbles can be a breeding ground for cynicism.

There is much more at stake in politics than in sports, of course; the consequences can be literally life-and-death. Still, many of the lessons you learn are the same. You can be a part of a large community of people who care, who invest energy and hard work into a cause larger than themselves. (And you can change the outcome: Just this week, a group pushing the perpetual lost cause of electoral reform through ranked balloting won the chance to put the idea before council in June for a vote they could actually win.) Often, the common striving is a victory in itself, as important in its way as the result.

But when defeat comes, in politics as it does in hockey, there is solace to be found in the people alongside you whose belief in the possibility of a better outcome makes working towards it meaningful. As long as we have hope to invest in the future, the story isn’t over. Defeat is not permanent, even if it is recurring. The end of every struggle, no matter what the result, is the start of the next one. There will be other days, other fights, other votes, other games.

I didn’t say all of this to my son. We have a lifetime to reflect on the bigger picture. We had this moment to deal with the pain. I held him there in the dark, and we cried together. And I said, “I know. I know.”

Tuesday night offered yet another community meeting spurred by strong opposition to local development. However, unlike the recent debates about Ossington or The Beach, this one happened in central Etobicoke in the Humber Valley Village neighbourhood. While the rough outline of the plan might be similar to developments across the city, the details are different. With that, here are six things you should know about the Humbertown-development debate:

1. Mega-meetings deserve mega-churches

Typically, community meetings take place in modest church basements or similar settings, but this one was different. The Humber Valley Village Residents Association, which has been rallying opposition to the development, rented out a 3,200-seat church on The Queensway to host the meeting. They didn’t need that much space as the evangelical house of worship was mostly empty. But hey, there was plenty of parking, especially since the church is located across from IKEA.

2. The development details

Developer First Capital Realty hopes to transform the Humbertown shopping plaza site at Royal York and The Kingsway, which, as they point out out, looks like an island of concrete on Google Maps. The original idea was to erect five buildings on the site with retail at ground level and the tallest building being 21 storeys. After a couple of revisions, the developer reduced the tallest building to 12 storeys and promised to increase the local tree canopy by 40 per cent. All told, the development would add 604 residential units, or, roughly, 1,500 people.

3. The local community doesn’t like it

Humber Valley Village residents have been vocal and well-organized in their almost-unanimous opposition to the proposed development. Before last night, 1,600 people came out to the two previous community meetings, a massive number for a development-proposal discussion. One individual last night produced a binder-full of research and said he spent 400 hours on the matter in the past few months. Some residents also hired architects to devise an alternate proposal, which calls for 200 units on the site, a third of what the developer wants. (Some speakers last night conceded that up to 250 would be okay.) The community expressed their concern using the slippery-slope principle, arguing that allowing a 12-storey building would give license to 43 nearby rental buildings to reconstruct to a similar height. One speaker, Joan Canning, compared the effect to “crabgrass,” even though she lives in a 14-storey building across the street from the proposed site. (There’s also a 17-storey building nearby.) Other concerns included increased traffic, a lack of surface parking, crowded schools, and the fear that busing kids out of the community to school would cause psychological damage.

4. Humber Valley Village is not downtown

As residents reminded councillors repeatedly at last night’s meeting, Humber Valley Village is not downtown. Many residents spoke fondly of it as a “village,” even though its planning and demographics are more like that of a conventional suburb. With an average household income of $256,000, Humber Valley Village-Edenbridge (in which the mayor and his brother Doug reside) is very affluent, and with an 18 per cent senior population, it’s one of the oldest communities in Canada. It’s also a community that has experienced a steep population decline of over 20 per cent over the past few years, as there are 5,000 fewer people who now live in the area compared to 2008.

5. Rob Ford will steal the show wherever he goes

The mayor showed up to the event, popped in, and then bolted out to… put Rob Ford magnets on car doors. According to the Toronto Star‘s Daniel Dale, Ford’s staffer (and former high-school football coach) David Price had put the magnets on cars earlier, but His Worship did another round himself. When it was pointed out by Dale that some people might find this strange, the mayor responded with the classic “I know what you are but what am I” defence, saying people find the Star journalist strange. (The mayor, you’ll remember, charged at Dale in a public park behind his house just over a year ago.)

6. Whatever happens will happen at the OMB

This process is just a formality. Etobicoke York community council voted in unanimous opposition to the proposal last night (although councillors Sarah Doucette and Giorgio Mammoliti were absent). But whatever the outcome, the City will likely find itself at the Ontario Municipal Board arguing against the developer. The OMB is the board of appeal for development disputes such as this one, and it has a reputation for favouring the developers. First Capital will point to precedents in the area and studies that show traffic flow will still be within capacity post-development. And then we’ll repeat this story somewhere else in Toronto.

It’s not exactly navel gazing, but council spent a whole bunch of time last week deciding things that would or wouldn’t happen in and around Nathan Phillips Square. Here’s a rundown of what’s going where.

Click here for a close-up view of the graphic below

As a purgatory between home and where you want to be, airports tend to crush the spirit of weary travellers. Sometimes, the only thing that breaks up the blandness is the occasional nuisance.

But then there’s the Singing Baggage Handler, located just after U.S. Customs at the departures area of Pearson’s Terminal 1. He’s a ray of hope, tossing baggage where it needs to go to the tunes of Bob Marley—and if anything can make travel go down easier, it’s a good Bob Marley cover.

The still unnamed Singing Baggage Handler seems to connect with people, too. Actor and director Sarah Polley enthused on Twitter that he deserves presents for his vocal contributions. Former Degrassi: TNG actress Lauren Collins tweeted that he always calms her nerves, and blogger @stressbubbles refers to him as a “day-changer.” We’ll just call him the only good thing about standing in line at customs.