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August 28, 2008
Aware as ever of the world's trouble spots, Madonna recently showed solidarity with the blighted residents of Georgia by describing herself as "living in a siege situation". Is her home being bombarded with military ordnance as the Russian army advances? No, things are much worse. The fifty-year old singer has been forced to abandon her gym due to the ruckus brought by nearby workmen. The former Georgian house in Mayfair, which Madge converted into...
Continue Reading "What It Feels Like For A Girl "
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How envious our former Mayor must be when it comes to Venezuelan politics and the power that his erstwhile chum and budding autocrat Hugo Chavez wields. Pesky media criticising your government and daring to oppose you? Close them down. Irritating elections every four years? Heck, just eliminate your term limit. ¿Es facil, no? Ken's love affair with the Bolivarian Revolution reached its zenith when he struck a deal that saw impoverished developing world Venezuela...
Continue Reading "Ken Crackers Over Caracas "
Is officially the most crowded train in London. Well, the most crowded train in London that's been measured by the Department for Transport. Well done, that man, for counting heads at Surbiton when all those poor, rammed together, suburban commuters just wanted to get the hell to work. The 8 carriage train had 318 more people than seats. That's precision statistics, there. But we'd like to challenge the 8.02 South West Trains service with London...
Continue Reading "The 8.02 To Waterloo"August 27, 2008
Three men and two women from the St John's Wood-based Royal Horse Artillery - responsible for representing the Army at the Queen's ceremonial shindigs, lest we forget - have been given the old heave ho after testing positive for Class A drugs during random tests. Though drug use within the Army remains statistically rare, it rose by almost 50 per cent between 2003 and 2007. A spokesperson said: "You cannot be taking drugs and expect...
Continue Reading "Soldiers Given Marching Orders "
Returning from the Beijing Olympics a gold medal bearing hero, boxer James DeGale must now face another kind of battle - that within himself over whether to stick it out with Team GB for London 2012 and defend his title in his hometown or to capitulate to the admittedly attractive and lucrative professional career that could instantly make him a millionaire and an even bigger celebrity. Amir Khan barely lasted a year after his...
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August 27, 2008
Like a schoolboy clutching a scrap of dog-chewed homework after he's already flunked the course, the London Overground, which despite a change of name and snazzy new livery has failed to improve much, will for the remainder of 2008 have a convenient excuse for its habitual awfulness. Parts of the network are being suspended to allow engineering works and track upgrades to be performed. The closures will run as follows: Gospel Oak to Willesden...
Continue Reading "London Overground Closure"August 26, 2008
Despite prior indifference, that gold-laden swag bag from Beijing has got Londoners enthused about 2012. Commuting into London is time-consuming. In other news, Pope is Catholic, and dog bites man Mayor Boris to meet with government in bid to tackle air pollution. There be fines in the offing if we don't clean up East London choir caterwauls to final of TV show Council workers cowed by crime are ferried from office to Tube station...
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There was a bit of an awkward silence at London House in Beijing when the image of Myra Hindley flashed up during a video meant to promote London. A six-minute video by Visit London was playing on a loop at London House for a private audience. Unfortunately, while panning through an art gallery, one of the paintings featured is that of Myra Hindley's mug shot done in children's handprints. Though not a part of...
Continue Reading "Hindley Portrait Horror At Olympic Hand-Over"
If you live or work in the Ladbroke Grove area, this morning will have found you gazing upon a grizzly post-apocalyptic wasteland. If you dropped a Red Stripe brewery from a plane onto a sewage processing unit, this is what the aftermath would look like. In the face of such a sensory assault, it can be helpful to reduce the problem to simple, comforting statistics: 100 tonnes of rubbish needs removing, enough to fill...
Continue Reading "Notting Hill Carnival In Numbers"
Taking to the stage at the Handover Party in Beijing, his successful flag-unfurling and debut on the international stage complete, Mayor Boris Johnson finally returned to a theme he has occasionally expounded since his election in May: expanding the capital's lexicon. Having re-introduced us to the joys of "piffle" and "cripes" in his three months at the City Hall tiller, the Mayor used the opportunity of addressing London's bid team to discourse on the...
Continue Reading "Wiff-Waff For The Riff-Raff "August 24, 2008
Monuments around Britain, including many in London, which commemorate the abolition of slavery are to be given protected status. A man has died in police custody in Brixton. Still in Brixton – police found a man suffering from stab wounds early this morning. And another teenager has died by the knife, this time in Walthamstow. Charlton Athletic are getting involved in the fight against gun and knife crime. An Epping company has been fined...
Continue Reading "Weekend Round-Up, special 'avoiding the obvious' edition"August 22, 2008
Fie upon the slanderers! Someone’s gone and scribbled SLUT across our Sienna’s wall. A man, named as Ezekiel Adeboyego Ojo, was found shot in Walworth this morning. He later died from his injuries. British Transport Police are spoilsports: it’s official. They broke up and cautioned a couple who were being, um, intimate, at a tram stop in Croydon. Brings a whole new meaning to the idea of getting off at the next stop. Boris...
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Little Venice today welcomes one of its big sister's more notable icons - the gondola. Well, sort of. British Waterways have licensed a number of paddle-powered taxis to plow along the Regent's, Grand Union and Hertford canals, and today the fleet of ten take to the water for the first time. 'Expert' canoeists (of which we've currently got a few doing rather well in Beijing) will pilot anybody willing to fork out £50 per...
Continue Reading ""I Had That Steve Redgrave In The Back Of My Canoe Once...""
Of the industrial variety that is. The District and Bakerloo lines may be a teensy bit affected today by two different disputes involving RMT members and something about sacked colleagues. Yawn. Meanwhile, on the buses, Unite says that its members are to strike on the 29th August and again on 12th September for 24 and 48 hours respectively. They claim that operators have different rates of pay and that bus drivers should be paid equally....
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Philatelists, take note: to commemorate the impending handover of the Olympic flag from Beijing to London, a series of four special edition stamps has been issued. 'Cause there's nothing that says "Olympic handover" quite like, er, stamps. Anyway, the set of four, on sale in both China and Britain, feature the London Eye and the Tower rubbing up nicely against the Queen's profile, while the Bird's Nest stadium and the Corner Tower of the Forbidden...
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August 21, 2008
Londonist is ever-so slightly flabbergasted this evening. We set out to write a perfectly normal, mid-evening posting, crackling with our trademark wit and satire (no don’t choke into your Chardonnay – it’s so unbecoming). On Paris Hilton of all things. But we have come up against two hurdles. One is the fact that there is actually no point in trying to write something funny about someone who is a walking parody, who consciously or unconsciously...
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Gary Glitter, aka Paul Gadd, may finally have finished gadding about: Thailand and Hong Kong don’t want him in their gang, and so he should be on his way to the UK. Forest Hill residents fight to save the well-loved frontage of their Victorian swimming pool. Sadness mixed with pride today as the families of murdered teenagers Jimmy Mizen and Ben Kinsella collected their GCSE results. And there was tragedy for another family as...
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Expect a sigh of frustration to issue from Walthamstow, Brixton and all points inbetween when commuters hear the rumour that the Victoria Line's 10pm weekday curfew - set to end this November - may continue into 2009. BBC London have turned out a fascinating report on the line's £900m refurb - they've been poking around with the engineers installing signals and track ahead of the new rolling stock set to be gradually introduced next year,...
Continue Reading "More Victoria Line Vexations?"
Barging through the throngs of camera-wielding tourists in Leicester square of a Saturday afternoon, it might not seem that London is in dire need of more visitors. But Visit London is aiming to do just that, by launching a £4m advertising campaign this weekend to attract more sightseers to the capital. The worldwide campaign launches as China hands over the Olympic cycle to Britain on Sunday, and will highlight London’s virtues as a holiday...
Continue Reading "Please Come to London"August 20, 2008
So the Thames Gateway really is a a portal to somewhere rather than a hiding to nowhere. Today saw the signing of a really serious contract to build a new deep water container port on the north bank. £400,000 worth of building work has been commissioned, and so it looks like the project’s a goer. The £1.5 billion site belongs to Dubai Ports. It occupies the former Shell Haven (which never was a haven by...
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Those in line to win the South Central Rail franchise have been announced. The party’s in Poplar this weekend as the regeneration of the area is celebrated. As if Battersea power station wasn’t surreal enough, it is to host an international snow-boarding competition this autumn. Going for gold: 2012 needs sponsors. Boris denies saying that Dave talks ‘piffle’. A dude who posed as an anti-smoking guru and got £90,000 out of the NHS has...
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A 140 metre tower for a plot behind the National Theatre has received the stamp of approval from Hazel Blears, the less-than-lofty Secretary of State for Communities and Local Development. Doon Street Tower raised the hackles of English Heritage and others, who prefer their views from Somerset House and St James Park to be unsullied by highrises. Blears’ approval clears the way for the residential tower, which will stand considerably taller than the nearby...
Continue Reading "Doon Street Tower Gets Go-Ahead"
We've told you about Westminster's recent shifts in attitude towards parking enforcement, and now it looks like they're attempting to change how traffic wardens operate. A new plan to have traffic wardens issue fewer tickets and give more drivers a chance to move their motors is being implemented over the next 12 months, with the hope that 10% fewer tickets will be issued. As 800,000 tickets were issued in 2007, that's hopefully a lot...
Continue Reading "Changing How Parking Enforcement Rolls"