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May 17, 2008
53. A Stone's Throw... Unexplained cases pertaining to the sudden appearance of mystery objects from seemingly nowhere have, most certainly in the past, been blamed on the eerie aspect of the poltergeist, or 'noisy ghost' – an unseen phantom energy said to throw objects and make others appear. On the 27th April 1872 the London Times reported on a strange incident in Bermondsey. From 4 o'clock, Thursday afternoon, until half past eleven, Thursday night,...
Continue Reading "The Saturday Strangeness"
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FA Cup final day dawns and, as supporters representing the competition's former temporary home in Cardiff return the visits made by Arsenal, Chelsea, West Ham and Millwall they are joined by fans of Portsmouth, the club who have retained the trophy for the longest time courtesy of beating Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-1 in the last pre-war running of the world famous tournament. Many devotees of both teams are exiled in the capital and one such...
Continue Reading "FA Cup Final: A Portsmouth Fan's View"May 16, 2008
For the first time since Tottenham Hotspur dashed Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough's dreams of FA Cup glory in 1991 the final is being contested without a representative from English football's current Big Four. Just before 3pm on Saturday the fans of Portsmouth and Cardiff City will watch their teams stride out at Wembley for a match which will decide which of them will parade the famous trophy that neither has lifted since the...
Continue Reading "FA Cup Final: A Cardiff City Fan's View"May 15, 2008
If you're an Armani junky with a Primark budget, help will soon be at hand: Oxfam has opened the first of a new chain of 'boutique' stores which will sell designer threads to West Londoners with a conscience (or without a trust fund). The new store in Westbourne Grove will still sell donated clothes – but beige cardies and discarded Christmas jumpers will be banned in favour of Miu Miu skirts (a snip at...
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May 14, 2008
There can be few Londoners who have not now heard of Camila Batmangeilidjh and her visionary creation, Kids Company. Camila has been working her extraordinary magic on kids for over 10 years now, sweeping the streets of those left behind, the ones that fall through the social net, the children no-one knows what to do with. The charity is now well established and much admired, and there are plans to replicate it all over the...
Continue Reading "Interview: Camila Batmangeilidjh, Kids Company"May 12, 2008
This Week In London’s History Monday – 12th May 1967: Pink Floyd stage their ‘Games for May’ concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. The concert is notable for being the first ever live performance to use a quadraphonic sound system. Unfortunately, the use of bubbles and daffodils during the performance stain the carpets and seats, resulting in the band being banned from the venue. Tuesday – 13th May 1966: Alison...
Continue Reading "Monday Miscellanea"May 11, 2008
This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 44. Neighbours So do you talk to your neighbours? Some of us do, some of us don’t. Some of us are polite but wouldn’t engage in a street party, some of us prefer to have the wonderful anonymity that London brings. Is being part of a community a good thing or a bad thing? Good...
Continue Reading "The Nice Movement"
A series celebrating the talent of our friends over in the Londonist Flickr pool who make our site look pretty with their fabulous photographs. Here, they introduce themselves and share their favourite London shots. This is one of my all time favorite shots. From the top floor of Erno Goldfinger's Balfron Tower After being unceremoniously dumped I came to London nearly 20 years ago. I've lived all over and currently reside south of the river...
Continue Reading "Londonist Behind The Lens: D I C K S D A I L Y"May 10, 2008
Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week lead character Speed Racer stars in the film Speed Racer (see what they did there) and Morgan Spurlock bottles it like a shandy in Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? It’s difficult to forgive the Wachowski brothers for the lameness of the Matrix sequels and their bid for redemption, Speed Racer, isn’t going to win them any new fans....
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52. Snake Attack! When you consider just how congested the capital is, how on Earth do so many mysterious creatures suddenly appear within the hustle and bustle of it all? We've spoken of huge birds, wolves, mystery exotic cats, pigs in the sewers, seals in the ponds... and now... snakes! Adders are of course common in the UK, but for a handful of other relatives to suddenly appear in London over the course of...
Continue Reading "The Saturday Strangeness"May 9, 2008
With 2008 racing from winter to summer with nary a hint of spring to be scented, mid-May finds us enjoying glorious weather and turning our thoughts to happy days at the local lido. Despite dozens of closures over the years since the lido's post-war heyday - inspiring such evocative imagery of lost sites in books like Paul Talling's Derelict London - many of London's lidos are still going strong, and some, like London Fields,...
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As we supped a coffee in a Wembley Stadium cafe with the landmark venue's Head of Music and New Events, Jim Frayling, we admired a large photo of the May 1975 attempt by daredevil motorcycle ace Evel Knievel to launch himself over thirteen single-deck AEC Merlin buses in the old stadium. Knievel succeeded, but crashed on landing and promptly announced his (brief) retirement. Last New Year's Eve his 21st century successor, Australia's Robbie Maddison,...
Continue Reading "Interview: Jim Frayling on Wembley and Track Sports"
It's considered the most lucrative game in world football. The team that wins the Championship playoff final earns entry into the Premier League and all the trappings of fame and money that come with it. Some estimate that promotion can earn a club upward of £60 million, so for the managers, chairmen, players and fans, the next two weeks are likely to see nails bitten down to the quick. Things kick off tomorrow, and...
Continue Reading "Preview: The Championship Playoffs"
Remember this? Flickr folk let loose in the London Transport Museum with cameras a-go-go? Well, true to their word, the best 5 Flickr pics now adorn the Museum's website. Featured in there are a couple of Londonist Flickr pool favourites, including Chutney Bannister and Phill Price. Hooray! See more of the photos from the Flickr London Transport Museum meet here. Thanks to Annie Mole for reminding us about this excellent initiative! Metroland, one of...
Continue Reading "London Transport Museum - Now With Added Flickr"Advertisement: Londonist Continues Below!
May 8, 2008
Oh now here’s an emotive issue. Londonist charged at this story, all spluttering indignation…and then promptly changed our minds. It’s about Thames lock-keepers and their chi-chi little cottages. The Environment Agency is to sell off 10 of them, and let out 12 others: all in all a third of their 57 Thames-side properties are to be turned into revenue. There is much hand-wringing, especially from Unison. They rightly point out that the lock-keeper’s wage is...
Continue Reading "Locked Out"May 6, 2008
London's history has been told many, many times. Such is the volume of literature on the subject, it can't be long before someone writes a history of all the history books available. So we were curious what Historic London by Stephen Inwood might add to the mix. And yes, at first glance, this looks like another scholarly account of our city's 2000 year adventure, weighing in at some 400 pages with additional photographic plates....
Continue Reading "Historic London, An Explorer's Companion"May 5, 2008
"Everything is better with a bit of humour." So said Roberto Donadoni, as Italian football manager the incumbent of one of the most pressurised posts in the world, last Monday night in a special seminar organised by Birkbeck College Sport Business Centre. A healthy dose of self-deprecation is a useful asset in a job where your public always let you know who you're working for and what you should be doing: "This happened just...
Continue Reading "Football: Italy Coach Donadoni at Birkbeck"May 4, 2008
Bostonist went to ROFLCon, a semi-academic conference about the internet and its enthusiasms, and ended up with a Brawndo hangover.Seattlest opened the floor to a few local hip-hop artists who were stirring about Reverend Wright’s controversial comments.Gothamist was amazed to hear that an NYU student decided to eat a muffin found in a classroom--only for the muffin to be filled with razors, leftover from a different professor's class ("ideas in absurdism and randomness," etc.)....
Continue Reading "Week Around the Ists"
This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 43. Tube guilt I often experience a huge amount of guilt when I am travelling on my way home from work and someone I know from the office is on the same tube carriage as me. If I know them well I force myself to make contact but if I don't know them that well,...
Continue Reading "The Nice Movement"
Between Morden and High Barnet travel the sexiest passengers on the network according to the results of Qype's Love on the Tube survey. About 300 people completed the cheeky survey and the prevailing wisdom is the Northern Line's where it's at for ‘spiky-haired indie kids’ and ‘hot City types’. Unsurprisingly, no mention of the swollen handed alcoholics or the billion tourists who get on between Waterloo and Leicester Square. Dowdiest is the Hammersmith and...
Continue Reading "Northern Line Hotter Than Usual"May 3, 2008
"By the end of the 20th Century," reckons Chris Stephens, Head of Displays at Tate Modern, in his Introduction, "London could claim to have become the world capital of art...signalled by the opening of Tate Modern." Well, he would say that, wouldn't he? But he's got a point. As well as the Tate, the past 15 years have seen the rise of the 'Young British Artists', a blossoming of public sculpture, and street art...
Continue Reading "Book Review: Art In The City - London"
Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan... This week, Robert Downey Jr. gets suited and booted as Iron Man, more romantic comedy nonsense in Made Of Honour and Joy Division get the referential documentary treatment. Like the first lamb of spring, the first comic book film of the summer marks the changing of the seasons. With Hellboy, Batman and the Incredible Hulk all just around the corner Iron Man is,...
Continue Reading "Saturday Cinema Summary"
51. The Abbey Wood Anomaly! Something has been disturbing chickens coops and pets around Abbey Wood, Belvedere, Welling and Plumstead for a few years. Many believe it is the so-called 'beast' of Bexley, or it could even be the 'beast' of Bluewater... although these mystery cats are possibly one and the same. However the is growing concern, despite scepticism, is that these exotic felids are roaming closer to the city as housing developments eat...
Continue Reading "The Saturday Strangeness"May 1, 2008
The unfeasibly appropriately named Phillip Catt is in line to pay court costs of around £25,000 after his second appeal to keep a special Savannah Cat breeding enclosure in his back garden was lost. The Finchley feline fanatic built the first of four 10m by 8.6m cages at his home in Finchley Garden Village Conservation Area in 2006 much to the annoyance of his neighbours. Mr Catt now has 1 month to take down...
Continue Reading "Catt Man Don't"
What You Think: The Londonist Reader Survey
We'd like to say a big thank you. A big thank you to all our readers for reading but an especially big thanks to the 274 of you who filled out our reader survey back in April. Here are some things we found out about our sample of readers: They were roughly 50/50 male and female. Over 75% were 21-40. About 75% live within London postcodes (you know, the proper ones that start with...
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