While you ponder how much you would miss the Robin Hood Gardens estate in Poplar, consider also the well-beloved BBC Television Centre, currently in the middle of its own listing row. While the BBC itself wants to be rid of the iconic but crumbling building, English Heritage has waded in to ask the Government to slap on a Grade II listing to save it from the pervasive and insistent hands of developers. Once listed,......

Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... Yes, Boris Johnson's 44 today. Bet his desk's all decorated with balloons and there's a smashing big cake for elevenses. However, there's no day off for the birthday boy who had to get up jolly early to appear on this morning's Today programme to answer questions about what happens when the Olympics goes over the £9.3bn budget. Boris' was affable and only slightly bumbling and maintained......

Dust down your auntie's teapots, South Londoners, you could be sitting on a fortune! And you can find out for sure tomorrow when the Antiques Roadshow sets up store for the day at Dulwich Picture Gallery. The Picture Gallery are clearly expecting a horde of hopefuls to descend on the big day, as they have hired marquees, portaloos, food stalls and a host of entertainments (including a stint from the Dulwich Ukulele Club) to......

It's the question on everyone's lips. Has Auntie's capacious bosom, formerly so welcoming of the frosty extremities, been overly nurturing to our fiery nucleus? Or alternatively: why do they blather on about London so much on the BBC and never mention Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Yes, cast your mind back to last November, when the Big British Castle was accused of being London-centric. Never one to forego a drawn-out and expensive investigation, the......

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon will today unveil a memorial to casualties of war often ignored by the general public: reporters, journalists, photographers and their attendant translators killed whilst working. The memorial, a glass and steel cone atop the new wing of Broadcasting House in Portland Place, will shine a beacon of light into the sky at 10pm every evening. The International News Safety Institute estimates that two reporters are killed each week. Despite the......

The Dark Lord of Musical Theatre, funny faced "genius", Andrew Lloyd Webber, last night scooped a Classical Brit for Outstanding Achievement in Music. Andrew (as he likes to be called on his website), who was 60 this March, has been ubiquitous in the West End for 30 odd years. He was recently reinvented himself at Graham Norton's hands as 'The Lord' in his 3 BBC reality TV shows casting lead roles in revivals of......

Hope springs eternal! Yes, spring has sprung at last, and it couldn’t have possibly come sooner. Sure, it’s supposed to rain all week, but at least it’s warm(ish) rain. Get out there and take advantage of the coming season of rebirth, and don’t forget to indulge in some illicit hugging (see what's on for Sunday). Monday: London writer/filmmaker Daniel Frampton, author of Filmosophy and host of the club of the same name dedicates evenings......

Yawn. Londonist is fed up of dour news pieces and negatively-biased research polls foisting bleak forecasts on to the public of an overly expensive and poorly designed 2012 Olympics. Are we heading for the crappest Olympics ever? Is the event going to bankrupt our economy? Who really knows? It’s 4 years away! In this latest survey, carried out by current affairs programme Inside Out, 6 out of 10 Londoners said there was nothing really......

Kevin Spacey today hijacked his own promo for new gambling film 21 to slam the BBC for giving certain West End musicals 13 weeks of free publicity disguised as reality TV shows. Whilst recognising that they helped promote West End theatre in general he's clearly got the hump that it's the camp musicals hogging the limelight and cashing in on ticket sales rather than the more serious plays running at theatres like his own......

The police have been called in, and a full investigation has been launched this morning, to discover how the personal details of the entire BBC Olympic staff have gone missing from a private office within Television Centre. Details of hotel bookings, addresses, photographs and the passport information of the 437-strong workforce attending the Beijing games, including those of Surrey tennis Queen and Cliff Richard stooge, Sue Barker, were first reported missing from their West......

Uh, media exposure, that is. Prostitutes are, like, all over the place this week. First, a prostitution ring takes down the Sheriff of Wall Street. Then the BBC kicks off its newest musical talent competition, I’d Do Anything, in which contestants compete for the chance to play Nancy, hooker with a heart of gold, in a West End revival of the musical Oliver! Londonist cites the two examples and declares it a cultural phenomenon.......

It sounds like an April Fool, but Radiohead have announced that they're playing yet another small gig before they hit Victoria Park this summer. This time it's for the BBC, will be held at the intimate BBC Radio Theatre and takes place on Tuesday 1 April. Tickets are not going to be easy to come by. While Radio 2 will be offering ticket competitions on air, there are also 75 pairs of tickets to......

The BBC programme Whistleblower will tonight reveal some fairly extensive and shocking inadequacies in Ofsted inspected nursery and childcare provision. Following a tip off from an Ofsted insider, 21 year old undercover reporter, Imogen Wilkes, decided to test out the claims herself by infiltrating a Hanwell nursery and getting a job as a nursery assistant, armed with secret filming equipment. 21 year old Ms Wilkes blagged a job with a fake CV and references,......

You can tell the vintage of an Ethiopian male by the team he favors... Granddads like Liverpool, dads ManU, and young men Arsenal. The emerging generation seems to be leaning toward Chelsea. Why all British? The BBC, of course. Next to Coke and Pepsi, Arsenal was the most visible Western brand in the country. So says Angry Monk, taker of the above shot of a taxi driver in Awasa. His observations will come as......

In the realm of fuzzy math and statistical manipulation, nothing sounds so wonderful as things that'll add years to your life and nothing so scary as things that'll take those years away. And though we're not scientists or number-crunching pros, we don't want to feel like suckers when it comes to fear mongering figures. So let's take a look at London's newest set of mortality figures, which supposedly triumph the roughly quarter decrease in......

Protesters have this morning scaled atop the roof of the Houses of Parliament in protest at the planned expansion of Heathrow Airport. Just days after a similar protest at the airport itself, the five activists, from airline campaign group Plane Stupid, gained access via a fire escape, having got into the building on visitor passes, and unfurled a series of banners, one of which read "No 3rd runway at Heathrow", another "BAA Headquarters". For......

Though this story would have been more appropriate for Valentine's Day, this love letter from long ago was returned a week late for that lovey-dovey deadline. Still, this sentimental stuff tugs at our little heartstrings, so we're happy to report that a stolen love letter, dumped in a garden at an empty house in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, and picked up by police has been returned to its author, who is still alive at 98.......

It's rocking around to Eurovision time and in case you didn't notice last year, we get pretty excited about it. Admittedly the UK normally seems to send embarrassing rubbish, but every year we have a little hope that the song we select will be actually good. Today the BBC announced the singers hoping to represent the UK and to be honest it's not a great list. Nearly everyone is from a loser from a......

Doesn't sunshine make everything seem better? Alright, it's been brass monkeys but nothing lifts the winter blues like bright skies, crisp air and early daffodils. It's half term for most kids this week so your commute might even be more pleasant. In which case, perhaps you'll be more inclined to get out after work and try something different that's light on your wallet and heavy on aceness. After all, we really can't afford good......

Thursday 7th February, 2008 will forever be the day that English club football did not so much cross the line as surge over it like the tape had just gone up at the start of the Grand National. The smaller Premiership clubs raced down the opening gallop, seemingly even more enthusiastic than the elite few to extend jet-set football beyond the confines of exhibition kickabouts. And yet, eight days later, it looks as if......

Whatever happened to knocking? Early Wednesday morning at a home in west London, police used a digger—yes, one of those big construction trucks—to smash through a perimeter wall, then proceeded to use sledgehammers and angle grinders to get into the house to search for drugs. They probably would’ve used a battering ram if they had one handy. This was all part of a larger bust involving 500 officers who raided 30 homes and businesses......

A former magistrate with a personality disorder and apparently plenty of time on his hands, scammed the London Underground out of £5,000. Between 2003 and 2006, 33-year-old Terrance Jolley made over 2,000 claims for refunds by saying his trains had been delayed. Not happy about receiving his fraudulent checks in a timely fashion, though, the small-time thief complained to London Underground's managing director about the slow process, and was found out after LU looked......

After the previous evening’s blaze, which took 100 firefighters to bring under control, Camden Town was open again on Sunday, with obvious exceptions. An area either side of Regent’s Canal was closed to the public as cleanup continued in preparation for an investigation into the cause of the fire, which severely damaged the Canal Market and the Hawley Arms pub. Nonetheless, the markets were still busy as people came to gawp and shop (maybe......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 34. Benefit of the Doubt As the popular saying goes, if you don't want to start a fight there are two subjects to avoid in conversation, politics and religion. That being the case, the Archbishop of Canterbury is probably going to get in trouble every time he opens his mouth. It’s his job to talk......

A major fire has broken out in Camden Town. Part of the Canal Market, Chalk Farm Road, caught fire around 7pm. As dense black smoke billowed out from beneath shutters at least four fire engines and a surveillance helicopter rushed to the scene. Nearby shopkeepers rallied together bringing buckets and extinguishers. The market appeared to be closed and there is no indication of any injuries. 7.50 This is a major, major fire. At least......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th February 1915: Norman Wisdom is born in Marylebone. He would become a very successful entertainer, as well as (bizarrely) a cult film icon in Albania. Tuesday – 5th February 1924: The Greenwich Time Signal pips are broadcast on BBC Radio for the first time. (Lots more geeky detail on this is available in our post from this time last year.) Wednesday – 6th February 1875: The......

We haven't got outside today but from this Londonist perch it's looking and sounding like the harbingers of Armageddon are wreaking their dirty havoc on us. Yet, whilst one old lady just walked past with an inside-out umbrella held defiantly above her rain-bonnetted, anoraked, stumbling personage, the postie just sailed past in short shirtsleeves. Tell us, what's it like where you are? Satellite picture of London from BBC Weather at 10am today.......

Be there first: After all the brouhaha over the From Russia paintings, this is surely the show to see in its opening week. Stunning, inspirational works by the likes of Renoir, Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich come to the Royal Academy from Saturday. This is jaw-dropping art you'd normally only get to see with a deep, heavy, carbon-footprint inducing flight to Russia, we're lucky enough to have it on our doorsteps until......

An airliner crash landed at Heathrow this lunchtime. Eye-witnesses on BBC Five Live and forum posters watching on TV suggest that BA38 from Beijing landing on runway 27L at Heathrow, wobbled on an usually low approach angle making a heck of a lot of noise. The rudder nearly clipped the perimeter fence, missing by only a few feet. Its undercarriage seemed to be up and then the plane belly-flopped into the grass short of......

A quick poll amongst the people milling beneath the Londonist penthouse reveals that, while mayoral candidate Boris Johnson may have the jet-pack of publicity strapped to his back, folk are less sure about his policies. The Henley MP is trying to rectify that. In addition to his Back Boris website, and promise to resurrect the Routemaster, Boris is now bringing out the big guns, with a vow to scrap the western congestion charge zone.......