• On how the London Olympics could, er, crash the internet.
• Meanwhile, the ‘games makers’ have commenced training
• Boat owners beware: you’ll have to pay to moor near Olympic events in the Summer.
• James Bond is here. Living among us. Looky here.
• The National Geographic’s top three British pubs are in London.
• Have you seen this man? Trident officers (unusually) release a photo of someone they want to talk to….

Wimbledon Common. Because we just can’t get enough of London in the snow, can we? Image by Stephskimo via the Londonist Flickr pool.

• Wanna take baby to the Olympics? He’ll need his own ticket.
• Man U London HQ is up for sale.
• The armed forces are to lose their London living allowance.
• Croydon hearts 99p stores.
• Seems foreign patients owe London hospitals an awful lot of dosh.
• Mind you, the Whittington Hospital has other things to worry about: it’s haunted by the ghost of a 15th century leper.

Tea time, by pollyblue via the Londonist Flickr pool.

View over Cannon Street rail bridge

• A burst water main is causing chaos on the western end of Oxford Street.
• The shortlist of potential tenants for the Olympic Media Centre has been revealed… looks like we won’t be getting that indoor ski centre, then.
• That Olympic ticket resale blip… explained.
• Wanna work at the top of the Shard? There’s a job opening for a Marketing Manager in the viewing galleries.
• Occupy London has staged a mock war trial at its Old Street redoubt, but even the Guardian’s reporter found it hard to keep the faith.
• Team GB’s rhythmic gymnastic team miss out on 2012 berth.
• The Temple of Mithras is on the move back to its original home.
• Snipe has some interesting ideas about how to improve the Tube.

Photo / Chic*ka

• Details of the Queen’s water-borne Diamond Jubilee pageant have been revealed.
• As unemployment figures hit a ‘new high’, seems London’s worse off than most.
• Spurs spying charges: another man has been arrested in connection with the Olympic Stadium kerfuffle.
• The Roundhouse is to team up with other round venues to commission round things around the world.
• BA planes are to get a dove design for 2012.
• Boris announces further regeneration plans for the Greenwich peninsula.

The lengths our Flickr friends go to to get us good photos…. Image by mattomatto via our Flickr pool. If you’ve figured out how to use that new camera you got for Christmas, why don’t you join the Londonist army of photo contributors too?

Clean-up time at the London School of Economics

• London School of Economics to investigate allegations that a Jewish student was assaulted after a Nazi-themed drinking game
• Pictures of the Olympic Park from above
• The Treasury plans to make London one of the leading hubs for trading in the yuan, China’s currency.
• Every property owned by the UK government…. mapped.
• Ian Visits has been out to take photographs of the under-construction cable car.
• A great piece from this weekend’s Financial Times on the state of the Underground.

London produces the best music in the world with home grown talent revitalising itself each year, and 2012 guarantees to silence those troublesome Manc and Brooklynite competitors for good.

No longer is London’s music scene defined by a specific patch or cliquey area. Whereas the past had Carnaby Street, the Kings Road, Camden or the ‘Ditch as its dominant Zone 2 focus, 2012 reflects London as a whole with bands from Bromley, Watford and Kingston making our Ones To Watch list.

London is a city as varied as The Lexington’s whisky list and its music is just as intoxicating. There is no London ‘sound’, just a melting pot of genres, often at the same shows, reflecting our musically invigorating home.

So to reflect this great time for London music we present Londonist’s Ones To Watch 2012.

Graveltones
Graveltones live are a phenomenal experience for a mere duo. Although grounded in classic gritty blues rock they manage to invigorate the basic twelve bars to recreate the guttural sound of rock behemoths Monster Magnet. Watching them bulldozes any presumption of a new White Stripes or Black Keys thanks to their Bonham-esque thunder drumming cocooning vocals lifted from Howling Wolf or Chris Cornell with BB King’s guitar shredding.
Their debut EP is out now. They play Monto Water Rats 13 January.
www.thegraveltones.com  

Clement Marfo and the Frontline
Kingston’s Clement Marfo leads his seven strong grime collective out from the underground brandishing bruising rock leanings which mirrors the Jay Z Linkin Park crossover, but remains deeply rooted in London’s urban scene. Initially starting as a solo MC, Clement has morphed into the polished UK hip-hop perfected by Professor Green and Wretch 32 and is sure to attack the mainstream this year.
New single Mayhem is out 12 March. They play The Garage 11 February and O2 Academy Islington 29 February.
www.clementmarfo.com

The Staves
These three Watford sisters produce the kind of beautiful folk pop only a lifetime spent weaving knotted harmonies can produce. Avoiding the traditional folk tendencies of The Watersons they draw from the melodies of the great 60s groups like Crosby Stills Nash and Young, yet adding mesmerising porcelain fragility. The Staves produce a contemporary folk bypassing the novelty waistcoat and banjo quirks recently prevalent in the genre.
The Staves’ Mexico EP is out now. They play HMV’s Next Big Thing @ The Borderline 8 February and Islington Assembly Hall 16 February.
www.thestaves.com

Nzca/Lines
Nzca/Lines, the solo project from former Your Twenties bassist Michael Lovett, deploy genre hopping electronica which is part polished RnB, part rumbling breakbeats. His exact production nods towards Hot Chip’s take on sexy minimalism, which disregards nostalgia for a thoroughly 2012 sound. Precise beats cushion falsetto vocals which flirt with Kraftwerk and Rihanna alike.
Nzca/Lines’ self-titled debut is released 27 February, they play Old Blue Last 14 January and The Royal Albert Hall 22 February.
www.nzca-lines.com

Tribes
Camden’s Tribes are the kind of band we’ve needed for years: cocksure lads with boisterous guitars who will flick you the Vs then steal your beer – and your girl. They are the embodiment of their home borough’s grunge t-shirts, skinny jeans and grubby effects but manage to create the kind of heartfelt rock n roll not felt since before the Towers Of London parodied the genre for comedy gain.
Their debut album, Baby, is out 16 January. They play the NME Awards Tour @ Brixton Academy 25 February.
www.tribesband.com

Psychologist
Iain Woods’ choral vocal majesty is something to behold, his vulnerable warmth fluttering tenderly amongst late night tales. As Psychologist he employs James Blake-lite post-step beats and mute piano chords to create delicately caressing bedsit poetry, yet willingly dives into juddering epic electronica bass patterns with swooping strings. Similar to a dark Hurts or The XX in a jolly mood.
The Propeller EP is out now.
www.psychologistmusic.com

Van Susans
Musicianship will always work its way to the top, perfect for Bromley’s Van Susans who ooze skilled talent. Their Frank Turner-esque folk rock honours classic song writing with monstrous choruses holding up verses steeped in Chaucerian tradition with a pounding Celtic edge. They’re destined for stadiums, rather than low key fashion pandering, with their epic story telling akin to Bruce Springsteen, The Levellers and Counting Crows.
Van Susans’ debut album is due this year.
www.vansusans.tumblr.com

Toy
Being name dropped by The Horrors and S.C.U.M has secured their place as key figures in the shoegaze revival and they don’t try to deny it. Drowned in psychedelic distorto drones this five piece’s sound is more attune to Curve, Slowdive and Ultra Vivid Scene than the Simple Minds stadia of recent Horrors. Very image conscious and aloof with it, Toy are the band for people into black and vintage synths.
Debut single Left Myself Behind is available as free download  with limited edition vinyl out 23 January. They play HMV’s Next Big Thing @ Barfly, 7 February.
www.facebook.com/toy.band

Lianne La Havas
South London’s response to Lana Del Rey and Ren Harveu, Lianne La Havas delivers a sweeping soulful folk which has already backed Paloma Faith and supported Bon Iver. She started song writing aged 11 having been taught the piano and guitar by her father paving the way for her easy commercial sound which is destined for great things.
She plays HMV’s Next Big Thing @ The Borderline 8 February. The Forget EP is out now.
www.liannelahavas.com

Fever Dream
This east London trio create a lo-fi post-punk which Husserlianly transcends Sonic Youth’s visceral energy into raw teetering repetitiveness which is hypnotic and empowering. They have the jangly pop sensibilities of Ride with the gnarly urbanism of The Fall yet reinvigorate a nu-gaze sound which often seems to border on psy-trance played live. There’s an noir art-house edge which trumps more fashion conscious contemporaries.
Fever Dream release This Waste on 6 February and play a single launch @ Ryans Bar 3 February. UPDATE- Change of venue now at The Others, Stoke Newington
www.facebook.com/FeverDreamBand

In this video released by London 2012, Jonathan Edwards, Olympic gold medallist and holder of the world record for men’s triple jump (18.29m if you were wondering) has a wander around the Olympic Park to mark 200 days until the opening ceremony; the moment passed yesterday, in case you missed all the celebrations.

The “uplifting” music and corporate-video overtones are a bit difficult to stomach, but there’s some excellent footage of the park from the air and on the ground. The swooping shots around the curvaceous interior of the Aquatic Centre are particularly impressive, as are the glimpses of the parklands that will surround the various arenas. It’s also a useful primer if you’re yet to get your head around the park’s geography.

Read all our posts on the Olympics.

• That we are to get killer egg-copters to patrol our skies;
• That the Olympic Park has apparently lost 75% of its value;
• But it is to boost our economy by £1 billion, so that’s OK then;
• The Cabinet has relocated to the Olympic Park for the day;
• Post-Olympic operators have been appointed for three of the venues.

In other news:

• Yesterday was ‘no trousers on the Tube day’.
• Fatality on the tracks at Hither Green Station this morning.
• Budding horticulturalists wanted to help at Clayhall Orchard this weekend.

2012 image by tezzer57.

• Our Kate chooses the National Portrait Gallery as one of her pet charities.
• Hackney’s Pembury Estate gets solar panelling.
• The Bush has been named London’s finest theatre.
• Nestle is to leave Croydon, where it is the biggest private sector employer.
• And so it starts: how much rent would you pay during the Olympics?

Standy-still painty man. Because we all knock them, but still they make us smile. Image by Peter Denton via the Londonist Flickr pool.

Plans for a floating river park on the north bank of the Thames have been scuppered for the time being. In a letter seen by Property Week, and cited in Building Design, the company behind the project confirmed to stakeholders that construction of the park will not go ahead before the Olympics.

The London River Park, a 1km walkway stretching between Blackfriars Bridge and Tower Bridge, was strongly backed by Boris Johnson and had been pencilled in for deployment ahead of the Olympics. However, objections from local residents and a less-than stellar reception from key bodies including the Port of London Authority has led to the proposal being withdrawn and placed under review.

The letter states that the plans have not been totally abandoned, and that further details will be released in early 2012, but the London River Park website and Twitter account don’t appear to have been updated since November, and we have been unable to contact any representative to confirm what might happen next. For now it doesn’t look promising.

• Gary Dobson and David Norris get around 15 and 14 years respectively.
• The animals are entering two by two by two… It’s census time at London Zoo.
• Controversy surrounds the Iron Lady as much at the cinema as in real life.
• Olympic organisers have oversold around 3000 synchronised swimming tickets. Best synchronise computers then.
• Happy 250th birthday to the Cock Lane ghost.
• Camden Town Brewery is to recreate a special Olympic ale.
• SW residents are London’s most sociable, says a spurious New Year survey.

Walking to Work, by O.F.E. via the Londonist pool.

Alongside the traditionally uplifting New Year’s Day storyline, EastEnders viewers got to enjoy a new addition to the title sequence: the Olympic Park is now included in the title sequence. It can be seen above the ‘a’ and ‘s’ in the image above.

The sudden appearance of the park and its amenities could present something of a continuity challenge to the soap’s famously fastidious scriptwriters: it shares the same E20 postcode as the fictional Albert Square, despite being a mile or so from where the show is set. Perhaps next year’s storylines will revolve around the challenges presented when the Beale family moves into a flat in the Athlete’s Village, and the local market’s economic viability is sorely tested by Westfield. Or perhaps not.

• NYE passed off ‘peacefully’, notwithstanding the 77 arrests made by police in Central London.
• Shard gossip: seems the tall pointy one has yet to attract any office tenants. Oh, and it may cost you £20 to view stuff at the top.
• Fatal shooting in Clerkenwell: one arrested.
• Seems the Reading to Paddington train service is Britain’s worst.
• Guess what? You still need to avoid the Hammersmith Flyover.
• The Olympics are to get a specialist unit to target ‘event fixing’.
• Missing 13 year old girl: please keep your eyes peeled, London.

Big Bang, by RobertCoxwell via the Londonist flickr pool. Have a very Happy 2012.

February: A Tube driver is forced to work 10 minutes unpaid overtime due to a signal failure. Union leaders call for immediate strike action.

March: Occupy London, Charles Dickens and Banksy riot in a secret underground tunnel before climbing the Shard and making an alternative Tube map. Londonist is accused of manipulating events to match its most popular keywords.

April: TfL scores an own goal by announcing a Private Boat Hire scheme on the 100th anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking.

May: His Omniscience Boris Johnson secures a second term in office following a landslide win in the Mayoral Elections. Ken Livingstone declares the official victory photo ‘a bit pompous, really’.

June: The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations are undermined when some wag points out that she actually became Queen in February 1952, not June.

July: Danny Boyle’s much anticipated Opening Ceremony for the 2012 Olympics turns ugly, when the 28 Days Later director invokes a legion of zombies commanded by a terrifying ‘Satanic Blood Seer’, a thinly disguised anagram of Lord Sebastian Coe, rather than some nice dancing girls with ribbons.

August: Thousands of normal people are deployed across the Olympic site to ward off threats from extremist security groups.

September: The world’s first pop-up shop selling vintage photos of pop-up vintage shops from 2010 pops up in Shoreditch. Meanwhile, the slightly hipper kids in Dalston decide that the phrasing ‘second-hand clothes shop in temporary premises’ has more retro-cool. It’s still on-trend to say you hate Boxpark, while secretly visiting three times a week.

October: With capacity improvements to the Thameslink route stricken by further delays, First Capital Connect adopts the creative expedient of increasing the number of hours in the day rather than putting on more trains.

November: Thousands of Londoners sport hair styles like His Omniscience Boris Johnson. ‘Bovember’ involves the growing of blond, bouffant hair for charity, and supersedes Movember as the ironic outlet for hair-based silliness.

December: The End of the World occurs on 21 December, as prophesied by the Mayans, His Omniscience Boris Johnson, The Satanic Blood Seer Lord Sebastian Coe, and Woody Harrelson. Thousands crowd onto the Thames Embankment, but the best views are obtained from Primrose Hill.

Got your own predictions for the year ahead? Please unload them below. And check out how many of our predictions for 2011 came true (hint: nearly one).

What with today being 20th December, or 20/12 and a convenient marketing date for the Games, there’s quite a bit of Olympic-related news about.

First up is the announcement of an arboreal art installation in the Olympic park. Ten of the tallest trees will each have a 20ft wide metal band wrapped around it; over time the tree will envelop the band and act as a “permanent reminder” of the Games. We’re promised that the inside of the rings, designed by British artists Ackroyd and Harvey, will also be inscribed with “hidden histories”, including data gleaned from archaeological surveys. We suspect they’ll also be tempting targets for graffiti writers.

In other Olympic news, the Legacy Committee is being bullish about the future of the Stadium, ahead of the bidding process for a long term tenant, which begins today. The OPLC’s chief executive Andrew Altman said that they were “keen” to do a deal with West Ham United and Newham, the joint bid which had previously won the aborted competition to take over the stadium, but stated that its future viability was “not solely dependent” on a football club’s involvement. With London having secured the 2017 World Athletics Championship, Mr. Altman is perhaps right in his belief that the stadium won’t immediately be labelled a white elephant once the Olympic bunting has been torn down, but maintaining a successful legacy might be harder if it were restricted to infrequent gigs and sporting events.

The stadium’s post-2012 name is also uncertain. The expected £20m cost of transforming it after the Games is likely to be at least partly met by a corporate sponsor, which will also get the opportunity to brand it as they see fit. Naming rights for the other permanent structures, including the Aquatics Centre and Velodrome, are also set to be negotiated.

One company unlikely to be involved in the bidding is Dow Chemical: the firm, which is sponsoring the wrap around the Olympic stadium, has agreed that its name and logo will not be displayed, after India reportedly threatened to boycott the Games due to the involvement of Union Carbide, now owned by Dow, in the Bhopal disaster of 1984.

Field Day 2011 photo by shuma.rani

Franz Ferdinand have been announced as headliners for next year’s Field Dayfestival which takes place in Tower Hamlets’ Victoria Park on 2 June 2012.

London is represented by dub stepper SBTRKT and guitar heroes Zulu Winter and The Vaccines, alongside Metronomy, Gold Panda and Tortoise in the initial line up with many more still to be announced for London’s nicest and most wonderful festival.

Now in its sixth year Field Day has moved to early June from its regular August date due to some sporting event taking place nearby. Early bird tickets are £39.50 through See Tickets.

Other London Festivals to have made line up announcements include:

Radio 1’s Hackney Weekender @ Hackney Marshes 23-24 June 2012
The BBC are bringing their One Big Weekend to Hackney to celebrate the Olympics with a free party for residents of Hackney and the surrounding areas. The line-up is set to be huge with Florence and the Machine, Tinie Tempah and local gal Leona Lewis confirmed so far. Details.

I’ll Be Your Mirror @ Alexander Palace 25-27 May 2012
Slayer, Mogwai and Guided By Voices headline this fantastic festival, which is now takes-over three days for its second year, along with Yuck Mudhoney and The Melvins. Tickets

UPDATE: 7 December- Guided By Voices will no longer be headlining due to the band cancelling all live shows. They are replaced by the super ace Afghan Whigs.

Hard Rock Calling @ Hyde Park 13-15 July 2012
Bruce Springsteen and the E street Band headline London’s proper rock festival on the Saturday, following from their 2009 appearance.  Tickets

Wireless @ Hyde Park 6-8 July 2012
Rihanna is the sole confirmation so far for the rather clinical festival, but her Sunday night performance will be sure to transfix the gazes of young men throughout the crowd.  Tickets.

• Seems anger at the police was behind the Summer riots. Hmm.
• Competition for City jobs has never been keener. Best polish your shoes and clean under your finger nails.
• A second woman has been arrested for a racist rant, this time aboard a train at London Bridge.
• LOCOG needs you…to volunteer to take part in the 2012 opening and closing ceremonies. They still don’t have enough recruits.
• That new super-casino in Stratford Westfield seems to be rather popular.
• Finally we’ve another mayoral candidate for you to ponder: meet Wolfgang Moneypenny.

Irrelevant but totally awesome image by NoirChick73 via the Londonist Flickr pool.

• Next week’s strike could ground Heathrow…but would anyone notice?
• India threatens to boycott London 2012 over the Dow Chemical stadium wrap.
• The BBC announces its cultural programming schedule for 2012.
• Those flats built on the old Highbury Stadium? They’ve all been sold.
• Yay for yippee-kay-ay shopkeepers! Boo for robbers!
• Commute home in a North Easterly direction? Congrats: your trains are about to get bigger.

Leaves. Image by Peter Simmons plucked from the deeply and importantly talented Londonist pool.

Image by Herschell Herschey from the Londonist Flickr Pool

Last week, The Royal Mint unveiled 1 kilo silver and gold coins, worth £500 and £1,000 respectively, produced for the 2012 Olympics in London. Who said that this was going to be an austerity games?

In an interview in today’s Guardian, however, the artists behind the designs have revealed that they ‘winced’ at using the 2012 logo.

The coins were designed by eminent artists Sir Anthony Caro and Tom Phillips and were approved by the Queen before they could be declared as legal tender.

Sir Anthony told the Guardian: “I made mine as small as possible and then saw Tom’s and realised I could get away with making it even smaller.” Tom Phillips used a tiny version of the logo as a full stop at the end of a poem which skirts the circumference of the silver £500 coin.

The artists are not the first to disparage the logo. In February this year, the head of the National Olympic Committee of the Islamic Republic of Iran said the logo was racist as it appears to spell out the word Zion (another word for Jerusalem). The much-maligned piece of design work has also been accused of looking like a lady giving London a blow job and footage of the logo flashing on the 2012 website was removed shortly after the launch because of fears it could prompt epileptic seizures.

Whatever you think of the logo (and the artists’ use of it), the new coins are unlikely to be finding their way into your pocket. The silver coin (face value, £500) will sell for £3,000 and the gold coin (face value, £1,000) will cost collectors an eye-watering £100,000.

• Islington slows the pace…to 20mph.
• Oh this is cool. A mini Marble Arch made out of West End rubbish.
• Still plenty of time to get involved with the Olympics. Howabout volunteering to meet and greet at Heathrow?
• Have you seen this woman? ‘Cos she’s suspected of stealing stuff from hospital patients. Which is really mean.
• Coloma Catholic girls school in Croydon pulled up over its admissions policy.
• Animal confusion: the London Wetlands Centre has a raft of ducklings. And it’s, like, November.
• Oh this will rock a few boats: the Wombles look set to claim a Christmas Number One. It’s been a while.

Smoke. Fog. Lights. London. Image by Sabine Thoele via the Londonist flickr pool.

Opening in May (so a few months before the Olympics), Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950 will go on show in the newly renovated Fashion Galleries at the museum.

Displayed over two floors, the exhibition will trace the evolution of eveningwear from 1950s debutante balls, through private parties and state occasions to the red carpet events and opening nights of today. Look out for the V&A’s most recent acquisition, the satin Ralph & Russo gown worn by Beyonce when she sang at Barack Obama’s inauguration ball in 2009.

In addition, you can see a Norman Hartnell dress designed for the Queen Mother; Princess Diana’s “Elvis Dress” by Catherine Walker; gowns made by Zandra Rhodes, Jonathan Saunders and Hussein Chalayan; and dresses worn by Elizabeth Hurley, Bianca Jagger and Sandra Bullock. There’s even a dress made especially for the show: a metallic leather creation by Gareth Pugh.

We’re big fans of the V&A, and can’t wait for the Lates programme associated with this particular show. Dust off those elbow-length gloves, girls…

Ballgowns: British Glamour Since 1950 is on show in the Fashion Galleries at the V&A from 19 May until 6 January 2013. Admission charges apply. Visit www.vam.ac.uk/ballgowns to find out more.

Around half of London’s small businesses (or SMEs, as they are known to statisticians) are either unwilling to play or unready for the Olympics. This is according to a new report by Deloitte, the posh audit people. When you read that sentence, it seems kind of shocking. Mean, we are just about to host the biggest sports gig that there is. The whole world will be looking at us, at London. How can anyone fail to be excited? Thousands of extra people are going to pour into the city, business will boom, the economy will bounce back (a bit, according to Visa – but then they would say that anyway) the arts will flourish, and the state of the nation will register an optimism high. Right?

Well, er, not entirely. The government has made all the right moves, and has a rather impressive booklet of handy hints for businesses to follow. Unfortunately said literature concentrates on minimising the negative effects of the games rather than accentuating the positive (there’s a song in there somewhere). Thus there are sections on re-routing deliveries, coping with staff shortages, facilitating home-working, adjusting your insurance, checking your utilities, upgrading your mobile and deploying extra security. Add to this the stories that we’ve all read in the papers about the penalties for incorrect use of the logo, or not using certain wording sequentially…it leaves one struggling to work out how exactly one can captitalise on the event.

Now this shopkeeper is an incorrigible optimist, even in the middle of a frankly godawful recession, and his penny drawer is always half full. But for the majority of small London businesses that are outside the Olympic corridor, and are not actually javelin or bunting manufacturers, the Olympics mean bugger all at this stage, and are unlikely to impact on sales even when the games are in full swing. Quite the opposite, as travel and parking will be affected right across London no matter how well the planners have done their job. It has to be said that few small businesses are likely to experience staff issues, as most employ staff who live within a modest radius.

Most fellow shopkeepers to whom we spoke (in South East London) were at best hoping that the Olympics would have no detrimental effect on their trade, and many have a gut feeling that they are somehow being stealth-taxed through the nose for it one way or another. None of them anticipated a sales boom. Many suggested that the streets will actually be quieter during the games, as people stay in glued to their tellies. Pizza shops will do well. Beer sales will soar. But, unfortunately, busy people with TV to watch usually vroom into supermarkets to get what they want rather than frequenting their local small shops. Wethinks that unless Team GB bucks the odds and snatches a few extra golds, the wave of national Olympic-related cheeriness is unlikley to materialise. We were told to expect a sports boom as we jogged towards 2012, but are there any stats to show a greater uptake? This predicted upsurge in retail confidence may also be ODA pie in the sky.

We will be watching the games (although small business owners rarely get enough time off to go watch these things live), and we want to be their friend. Please tell us we are mistaken, and that it will all be alright. Please tell us that a splendid, glorious sporting jamboree in East London CAN have a positive effect on a small launderette in Kingston. Or that a year of awesome pageantry will help sales in a cosmetic shop in Brixton… We would so love to be proved wrong.

Closing for business. Image by Buckaroo Kid via the Londonist pool.

Manchester rioters were copying those in London. Who says we don’t give anything back to the rest of the country?

Photo / mmbrook8

It’s official — London has been announced as the winner of the race to host the 2017 World Athletics Championships, beating off competition from Doha. It is the first time the Championships will be held in the UK, and is the first event to be confirmed for the Olympic stadium post-2012. That ever-promised athletics legacy just took a major step forwards.

London has previously bid for the championships in 2001 and 2005, with derisory results; indeed, the capital actually won the 2005 bid, but was forced to abandon it after a proposed new athletics stadium in Edmonton was scrapped.

The result, announced just now in Monaco, could be seen as vindication for last month’s decision to hit the reset button on the Olympic Stadium bid, after fears that the legal wranglings could jeopardise the bid.

This good news calls for a drink. Fortunately, those thirsty souls at the Visit London blog have put together a list of suitably-named pubs where you can celebrate London’s WAC success.

• Ealing Abbey monks lose control of St. Benedicts’s School amid allegations of sexual abuse.
• Fifa bans Wembley poppies; our Dave doesn’t approve.
• Fire crews tackle mock chemical emergency in Woolwich in readiness for the Olympics.
• Suicide by tube increases by 74% in 10 years; recession blamed, natch.
• London is apparently home to five of the world’s top ten bars.
• Heathrow is to get an electronic green grass gateway for 2012.

Yesterday’s Men, by buckaroo kid via the Londonist pool.

The borough, which by then will be called The Royal Borough of Greenwich, welcomes the torch on 21 July. No doubt there’ll be some big photo opps by the Prime Meridian Line. The torch will then travel around the capital for a week, visiting all 33 boroughs, before completing its journey at the Olympic Stadium on 27 July. There, the cauldron will be lit at the Opening Ceremony, signifying the official start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Here’s more details about the daily route:

• 21 July: After spending the night guarded by Beefeaters in the Tower of London, the torch will travel to Greenwich, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Waltham Forest
• 22 July: The torch starts at Redbridge Cycling Centre, before making its way through Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Bexley
• 23 July: Today’s starting point is the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in Lewisham, before being welcomed in Bromley, Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth
• 24 July: The route is from the Hook Centre in Kingston-upon-Thames, to Richmond-upon-Thames, Hounslow, Hillingdon and Ealing
• 25 July: Headstone Manor and Harrow Museum in Harrow, is the starting point on 25 July. The flame then travels through Brent, Barnet, Enfield and Haringey
• 26 July: Look out Roundhouse! The Camden venue is today’s starting point, followed by Islington, the City, Southwark, Lambeth, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith and Fulham and Westminster. (Quite a busy penultimate day…)
• 27 July: The final day is all about the Thames. The torch will travel by boat from Hampton Court Palace to the Olympic Stadium

Look out for various publicity stunts along the way too: the torch will be rowed along the river at Henley, and take on the rapids at the Lee Valley White Water Centre. We predict it’ll ride at least one Boris Bike, too.

The complete 70-day relay starts at Land’s End in Cornwall on 19 May.

The Olympic Torch then travels about 8,000 miles around the UK carried by 8,000 torchbearers, selected because of a “personal achievement” or contribution to their local community.

Photo: author’s own

Tickets for the next round of London Prepares, the series of test events in the Olympic venues, will go on sale 17th November.

This time round, the Aquatics Centre and Velodrome will host competitive events for the the first time, while gymnastics qualifiers will be held at the North Greenwich Arena, which is how the O2 will be known for the Games.

The full line-up of events:

Track Cycling – 16–19 February 2012, Velodrome, Olympic Park
The final round of the 2011-12 UCI Track Cycling World Cup Classics features the best track riders from around the world. Tickets: £10 to £40

Diving – 20–26 February 2012, Aquatics Centre, Olympic Park
The 18th FINA Diving World Cup is the last opportunity for divers to qualify for the Diving competition at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Tickets: £5 to £30

Gymnastics – 10–18 January 2012, at North Greenwich Arena
International Gymnastics, a qualification event for the London 2012 Games, will see some of the world’s best gymnasts compete in Artistic, Trampoline and Rhythmic Gymnastics competitions. Tickets £5 – £20

Previously in London Prepares: BMX racing, basketball, road cycling.

Pictures from inside the Aquatics Centre

• Luton is building an add-on stretch of motorway for visiting 2012 VIPs.
• The Met has ‘secret spy planes’ to listen in on our mobile calls.
• Sailing centre for the disabled threatened by 2012 ‘superyacht’ invasion.
• Tons of fish die after raw sewage hits the River Crane.
• London is rubbish at adoption.
• Non news of the day: judge laments closure of Strand courts, fondly recalls Kylie’s bottom.

Dungeon, by Kenchie via the Londonist pool.

On Friday,the ArcelorMilttal Orbit tower, the swooping red observation tower nestled between the main stadium and the Aquatics Centre, reached its full 114.5-metre height. Click through the gallery above to see how it looks.

The BBC has an interview with one of the architects who worked on the tower.

The structure won’t be finished until next year, but for now we can get a pretty good idea of how it looks on the east London skyline. It’s been one of the more controversial elements of the Olympic park, but now that it’s approaching completion, what do you think of it? Let us know.

Photographs by, in order: Dean, Dean, Andy Wilkes, Dean, Andy Wilkes, Andy Wilkes, O.F.E, Andy Wilkes, Andy Wilkes, Dean, , Surreydweller, Dean   

Andy Barrows captains Team GB in Beijing 2008

C4 Paralympics call it “A terrifying fusion of wheelchair basketball, ice hockey, handball and rugby”. Played on a basketball court with a volleyball, it’s a four-a-side game but because it’s mad full on, the team is refreshed by rolling substitutes from a squad of twelve. As in rugby, you score by getting across your opponent’s line with the ball in your hands, smashing all opposition out of your way en-route.

These guys and their chairs are hardcore.

The USA are World Champions as well as current Paralympic gold medallists and Australia and Canada are also tasty big teams. Team GB is big on the European scene, but Sweden pipped them to gold at the European Championships last week. However, the Brits also won silver at the GB Cup in Cardiff recently, leaving Sweden in 5th and beating Japan, who are currently ranked third in the world.

Looking ahead to 2012, veteran team member, Steve Palmer says, “the team is in better shape than we’ve ever been and there’s a great team spirit in the squad”. They’re clearly hungry for a podium position so it’ll be no holds barred in the battle to smash their way to the goal line.

Get the hang of Wheelchair Rugby by playing the C4 Paralympics Murderball game online.

Find out more about Wheelchair Rugby.

Get the Londonist lowdown on all Olympic and Paralympic sports in the run up to the 2012 Games.

• Simulated cyber attacks test Olympic digital infrastructure.
• Seems London has a shortage of cricket pitches.
• AND we are in danger of losing our playing fields to developers.
• Teen stabbed in Camden.
• Boris proves once again that he’s a good sport, if not actually good AT sport.
• Tower Hamlets mayor nixes plans to hold festive booze ups in war memorial garden.

Trafalgar Square, by Pryere via the Londonist Flickr pool.

Olympic Park, July 2011; photo / Anthony Charlton

The joint bid by West Ham United and Newham council to occupy the Olympic stadium after the games has been cancelled by the Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC), reports the BBC in something of a major scoop.

Since winning the race in February, the bid has been beset by problems, principally a legal challenge from Tottenham Hotspur (who fancy the ground themselves) and Leyton Orient (who see the move as an existential threat), and also an anonymous complaint to the European Commission. Due to these ongoing issues, and the very real possibility that the court challenges could stretch on for years, the OPLC has decided that the stadium should remain in public hands, with an anchor tenant leasing it for an annual rent of around £2 million.

A new tender will go out this week, and any interested party will have until January to submit their bid. This could mean that, ultimately, it is still West Ham who move in from 2014; but it also means that Tottenham, with a better financial platform than their Championship-dwelling neighbours, have the opportunity to put in a more robust application, although it’s highly unlikely that the OPLC would accept their existing plan to demolish the stadium and re-build from the ground up, sans athletic track.

In some ways, the OPLC’s decision makes sense: the legal imbroglio was threatening to undermine the bid to host the 2017 World Athletics Championship (the decision for which is made next month), while West Ham’s finances aren’t looking any less shonky than they have in recent months. Yet pressing the reset button on the entire process, particularly just months before the March 2012 deadline for planning permission to ensure that the new tenants can move in from 2014, looks risky. And there’s the question of Newham’s involvement: they were West Ham’s joint bidder, agreed to loan the club £40 million to fund the conversion into a football ground and were fully committed to the potential that ownership of the stadium would bring. Will they remain in the running?

An official announcement is expected by the Government this afternoon. We’ll update this post with any further developments.

• Bexleyheath: woman arrested after apparently killing another woman and stabbing a third.
• Olympic art: we’re to get no less than five blockbuster exhibitions next year.
• Introducing the high speed Heathwick Line…
• Archery test event: venue fine, Team GB not so promising.
• Berwick Street market is to be ‘regenerated’.

London Bridge. 40 today. Image by Manuel.A.69.

• Seems spitting is soon to join galloping as a prohibited activity in Enfield.
• Reversing driver trashes Boris’ railings. Boris in a hoody? Not sure about that….
• In spite of two cyclists travelling 200 miles on the things, we’re apparently not cycling far enough on Boris bikes.
• Boris is pondering legal action over his appearance on a rather dodgy billboard.
• Conservationists are excited after a rare seahorse was found bobbing along in the Thames.
• Greenwich Council threaten us with £1000 parking fines during the Olympics.

Image by Matt from London.

• Crime news 1: three teenage girls injured by gunshot in North Kensington.
• Crime news 2: young butcher fatally stabbed by ‘unhappy customer’ in Wood Green.
• Royal news: Willenkate open a new children’s cancer unit at the Royal Marsden.
• Business news: the Barclay Bros have bought themselves some more hotels.
• 2012 news: BP challenge Olympic visitors to carbon-offset their travel
• Police news: Ali Dizaie has been reinstated on full pay.
• Education news: Royal Holloway threatens to downgrade its Classics department.

Talking about the weather… Image by jaykay72 via the Londonist flickr pool.

• Defending their action: LU, after using a weedkiller banned by the EC.
• Introducing NoGo (north of Goldhawk Road), London’s latest DesRes district.
• Coming soon to a bookshop near you: over 200 books on the Olympics.
• Honouring the original West End entrepreneur: Henry Jermyn gets a green plaque.
• Setting a new record: the biscuit that has just sold for £1,250 (it did belong to Shackleton…).
• Claiming to be ready for snow: London’s councils tempt fate.

Jermyn Street hats, by Jon Smalldon via the Londonist Flickr pool.

The latest to join them is Hugh Robertson, minister for sport and the Olympics, who has urged the club to accept the £17m funding package that the GLA and Haringey council have promised them should they build a new ground at Northumberland Park, near to their existing White Hart Lane home. Plans for the stadium were unveiled last year when Haringey council gave their approval, but the project has been sidetracked by Spurs’ unsuccessful bid for the Olympic stadium and their continued calls for a legal review since the decision was made.

Not everybody see the Mayor’s munificence in the same way: Speaking to TalkSport, Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn, whose club is threatened by what he sees as an existential menace from a souped-up West Ham parking in their manor, described the £17m as a “bung”.

Orient supported Tottenham’s call for a judicial review of the decision to award West Ham the stadium, which will begin on 18th October. Should the decision go against Spurs, one would hope this would finally put the matter to rest, particularly as the lingering uncertainty about the stadium’s future is affecting the proposed bid for the World Athletics Championship in 2017 (Tottenham, lest we forget, would demolish the stadium and rebuild anew, sans running track). The club’s best bet would be to seize the generous offers put forward by municipal and city-wide authorities and press ahead with plans for a new ground in Tottenham.

A Greco-Roman wrestling match

Two participants, stripped down, singlets akimbo, aiming to toss the other onto the ground and pin them to the floor… sounds a great day out, right? Unfortunately, it seems that Britain doesn’t care that much for it.

Alongside football, the wrestling was one of the few events that Olympic organisers had left after the first round of ticketing applications. Strange, particularly when you consider the ubiquity of the ever-popular World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) both on television and at sold-out stadia across the country, but more on that later.

Despite apparent British disdain, wrestling has an extremely long pedigree. Thought to be the world’s oldest sport, and one that has featured in every modern Games, wrestling comes in two flavours: Greco-Roman, which first appeared in 1896 and keeps the combat strictly above waist-height, and Freestyle, in which the whole body is in play. Wrestling is subdivided into a number of weight categories, running from 50-55 kg through 96-120kg for the men, and 44-48kg through 67-72kg for women, who have participated in the Freestyle category at the Olympics since 2004. In London all the wrestling events will be held at the Excel Centre.

The format consists of three two-minute rounds in which the grappler attempts to pin his / her opponent’s back and shoulders to the ground for two seconds, which results in an automatic win. If neither has been able to, the decision goes on points, which are awarded for take-downs on the opponent; the more outlandish the move, the more points you get (“Superfly” Jimmy Snuka’s famed dive from the top of the cage would probably win hands down).

Medals wise, historically the big countries have been the United States (108 medals in Freestyle, 14 in Greco-Roman), the Soviet Union on a total of (56 / 60) and Turkey (41 / 20). Britain has won a total of 17 medals in the Freestyle category. In 2008 Russia was the big winner with 11 medals, followed by Japan on six, then Georgia on four. Britain failed to rack up a single medal, but hey, the only way is up! Team GB’s best hopes rest on the brawny shoulders of Leon Rattigan, who took a bronze in the Freestyle 96kg event at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Probably the biggest talking point in Beijing took place during an awards ceremony when Sweden’s Ara Abrahamian, incensed by a penalty call that went away against him in the semi-final bout for the Greco-Roman 84kg event, placed his bronze medal onto the mat and walked away in disgust. He was later disqualified and officially stripped of the medal by the IOC.

With drama like that on the cards, it’s a shame that the sport was so cruelly shunned by spectators. Perhaps it’s the wrestling’s unshakeable association with the cartoonish product put out by WWE. In fact, while Olympic organisers might ignore their more rambunctious “sports entertainment” cousin, if they’d been cannier they could have had quite the inspirational story: competing for a place on the American wrestling team for 2012 is none other than Kurt Angle, the gold medal-winner in Atlanta ’96 who went on to have a high profile WWE career during the 2000s. He’s even got a website chronicling his progress, though at the age of 42, his chances can’t be good.

If you want to try out for yourself, your best bet is to start at the British Wrestling website.

We’re giving you the local lowdown on all Olympic sports leading up to the Games.

The council wants restauranteurs to sign up for a voluntary code of conduct, by which they’ll refrain from deploying touts on the street. The idea is to clean up the area’s image ahead of the Olympics at which, in lieu of actually having any events staged in the borough, Tower Hamlets will be allowed to brand Brick Lane as London’s “curry capital”.

We’ve been here before, of course. Back in 2006, a surfeit of dodgy dopiaza deals and the increasingly thuggish nature of certain touts led to a new law, backed up by a hefty fine and a possible jail sentence, that banned touting in the area. The council also started slapping ASBOs on persistent offenders. Things calmed down for a while, and visitors were able to stroll the Lane unruffled by hawkers and their BOGOF biryanis, but in recent years the situation has grown worse.

Of course, if Tower Hamlets really cared about the culinary experience of tourists, they might send them away from Brick Lane for a decent meal at Tayyabs; or if they were feeling particularly honest, they’d direct them Southall way.

Photo / Sven Loach

A West Ham move reaches its climax

Speaking to a group of fans last week, West Ham chairman David Gold conceded that when his club moves into the Olympic stadium, the arena could be re-named for one of his various companies — and suggested that Ann Summers might be the one chosen.

Clearly Mr. Gold was joking and the erotic emporium is unlikely to be lending its name to the ground (despite The Sun and the Daily Mail getting rather engorged by the idea — kudos to the Sun’s graphics department for their saucy re-invention of the Olympic rings).  Indeed, the club has hastily confirmed that the chairman had merely tossed off a “light-hearted comment”.

Yet if Gold is serious about re-naming it, his business interests aren’t really the kind of family-friendly fare you expect to see emblazoned across your club’s home: he previously owned Gold Star Publications, a pornographic publisher, and his dabblings in the erotic arts once prompted rival chairman Simon Jordan to remark that Gold and partner David Sullivan “sell dildos for a living”.

Keeping the lascivious and the football separate seems a sensible strategy. Or instead the club could perhaps go the whole hog and change their name to Wet Spot United, sign Stern John, Nicky Butt, and other smuttily-named players (suggestions welcome in the comments)  and try to arouse their opponents into defeat.

See also:

London’s rudest street names