Help is on the way for those affected by the fire in Camden Market. Thus far, £750,000 has been allocated to help rebuild the charred Canal Market. This is great news for the 90 market stalls, six shops, and the Hawley Arms, which were all damaged in the canal-side inferno. The London Development Agency has set aside £250,000 in a recovery fund for business grants and promtion to get tourist traffic back to Camden......

It's officially Spring and by Pisces it's lovely out there in the sunshine. Crocuses have been spotted in Highbury Fields so our biggest recommendation for expenditure light trips this week is get to the parks and into the gardens and witness the miracles of the changing seasons. If you're in need of more artificial stimulation, however, and are squirrelling all your spare cash into your ISA before the end of the tax year then......

The stats continue to astound: 1 in 6 women has been raped 2 women are murdered each week by a partner or ex-partner 98 percent of domestic violence goes unreported 50 percent of women seeking asylum in Britain are fleeing rape U.S. researchers estimate that only one third of women report rape by a stranger; that number declines to 13 percent when the rape is by an acquaintance. Perverse though the logic may be,......

Tube travellers from Balham to Barnet are unhappy at claims the Northern Lane will be separated. According to leaflets being pressed into commuter flesh at Hendon station, TfL, like some latter-day Moses, has "recently announced plans" to part the oft-delayed line, creating two distinct services - one running south from High Barnet via Bank, the other from Edgeware via Charing Cross, with nary a switchover between the two. Trouble is, the story's cobblers. While......

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......

While everyone was busy watching last night's fire, an act of destruction was taking place at the other end of Chalk Farm Road. The famous maid stencil by Banksy is in a parlous state. Someone has painted over most of the image, and stenciled the words 'all the best' over the top. Small groups keep pausing in front of the defaced mural, possibly on their way back from looking at the fire damage. Throw......

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......

Greetings, FOBGs (that’s Friends of the Book Grocer to the uninitiated), and a belated happy new year to you all! After an extended holiday slumber (bad, lazy Book Grocer), we return to bring you our weekly picks for the best of London’s literary(ish) events. And so, without further ado, let’s jump right in, shall we? Today: One too many spoonfuls of sugar this holiday season? Counteract it with a Spoonful of Poisoning at Rhythm......

Revamp planned for Camden Town. And, by jiminy, does it need it. Zero Royals at the Royal Film Gala, as Charles and Camilla pull out. They're too busy modelling for waxworks. Please, please, please can we have several hundred million pounds, pleads mayor. It's for Crossrail, so we'd happily get down on our knees and join him. Police get more tasers. Image courtesy of dartar via the Londonist flickr group.......

Autumn is tussling with the tail end of summer. It's nearly time to start closing the curtains early, sticking the central heating on timer and making soups and stews. Bed socks on! Here’s your London related home based media entertainment for the week. On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 24 September Withnail and I (C4, 01.30-03.25) Drink, drugs, debauchery and dirt in Camden Town. Need we say more. (Actually, just to confirm, that's 01.30 on......

Camden Town may be changing with the relentless advance of corporate chain stores (no, not those kind of chains) and glass and steel canalside developments but the Council is upholding the area's reputation for cyberpunk techno-progressiveness. It's launching webcasts and podcasts to be more accessible to the teched-up community and encourage local residents to get involved in local democracy. So, has it recorded a punchy, motivational and trendy radio show with a slurry call......

Part 1: Introduction Mods. Rockers. Teds. Punks. Ravers. Swingers. Skinheads. Suedeheads. Hippies. Yuppies. Rudeboys. Indie kids. Emo kids. Beats. Glam kids. Tribes. Subcultures. Neo-tribes. Groups. Bands. Movements. All of the above, and more, have - despite their points of origin - been magnetically attracted to the capital. To attempt to cover all of the ages of London’s youth might seem an exhausting task worthy of Peter Ackroyd who wrote of his biography of London......

BBC 6music news reported this evening that KOKO, Camden Town’s premiere indie-club-gig place and home of Club NME, is planning to introduce smoking rations for those undisciplined weaklings who’ve been unwilling or unable to kick the filthy habit by 1 July. Under a new scheme, on club nights only (we assume gigs present too many security issues) those wishing to smoke will be generously granted 7 minute fag breaks outside - but none of......

Thanks to reader Stefan for sending us this one. In his words: This attached photo is one old fav i took last year, but it's still good. I call it "Clashes of Civilizations in Camden Town". But you can call it whatever you like! So, what would you call it? Captions please... If you've got an unusual image of the capital that you'd like us to consider for this slot, either upload to Flickr......

See comments for major corrections to this post. Another Banksy bites the dust. Some nobber at TfL decided to paint over the famous Pulp Fiction image in which Jackson and Travolta clutch bananas in place of guns. The work near Old Street tube had been around for years. Local barber George Thompson told the BBC, "People used to come from all over to see it and photograph it. There is no way it could......

If you thought all the Valentine's related stuff was over for another year think again: The London Rollergirls are very proud to present a 'St Valentine's Love Massacre'. On the 17th February the tough ladies of London are taking over!! Music will be supplied by the fiery female fronted bands; Love And A .45, Voodoo Hussy, Bloody Heels, and our very own Rollergirls will also be dj-ing until the early hours. If that wasn't......

It might be the holiday season but some of us have just returned from dial-up horror and can barely contain ourselves from attempting to read the whole internet. So, although a little later than some other bloggers we could hardly let this one go without mentioning could we: A graffiti gang has caused thousands of pounds of damage to a north London Underground (LU) station. They sneaked into Camden Town station and covered walls,......

Public consultation time, folks. Oh, come on, stop yawning. What do you mean 'It's Monday morning'? It's good to have a say in things, isn't it? Well, if you have an opinion about the proposed Cross-river tram route, now’s your chance to interject. TfL will this week present plans to the general populous and ask us what the deuce we think about them. The scheme would see a mostly over-ground route connecting Camden Town......

This Day In London’s History 1975: The Sex Pistols play their first gig at Saint Martin’s College. After Johnny Rotten joined The Swankers as their new vocalist, the band changed its name to The Sex Pistols under the guidance of its new manager Malcolm McLaren. Shortly afterwards, on this day 31 years ago, they played (or attempted to play) their first gig at Saint Martin’s College. Their debut was not exactly an overwhelming success......

This Day In London's History 1874: An almighty explosion in Regents Park And a chance to quote from 'The London Collection'. Written by Londonistas and out now! ...the animals of London Zoo were rudely awoken by the most powerful explosion ever recorded in the capital up to that point. For reasons never fully explained, a barge laden with gunpowder and petroleum had detonated beneath Macclesfield Bridge – one of the northern entrances to Regents......

We were upset to learn that the tobacconists Bonds of Oxford Street are no longer Of Oxford Street. The premises that they occupied for the entire childhood of one Londonista has been invaded by a shop that sells handbags. Bonds have been relegated to some backwater trading estate in SW16. Sentimental adolescent memories are attached to that purveyor of fine tobaccos, cigars, and pipes of all distinctions, shapes and sizes; we bought our first......

Can you still use a church or place of worship as a sanctuary from the law? Like in the Iron Maiden song or The Hunchback of Notre Dame? We were wondering about it this morning as we read about Father Malcolm Hunter who has taken to the rooftop of St Michael's in Camden Town. Not because he can laugh at the wind, howl at the rain, down in the canyon or out on the......

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez made quite a splash in London over the weekend: Around a thousand people packed into Camden Town Hall to witness a mixture of a Latin American populist rally, an evangelical meeting and a football match... And yesterday in the People's Republic of Camden the villains remained very much President George W Bush, his acolyte Tony Blair, big business and the forces of reaction. Ken was in his element playing host......

There’s frequent evidence of a peculiar moral indignation associated with being forced to listen to one side of someone else’s phone conversation in a public place. Especially on trains, for some reason. OK, it’s not frowned upon as much as the insanely annoying broadcast of tinny garage music from poxy phone-sized speakers to the rest of a carriage’s population. But people do still get quite inexplicably huffy about having to listen to other people......

Londonist gets invitations to all sorts of things, in all sorts of places. Last night's outing was to hear a series of oral histories from those who experienced the 1956 Revolution in Hungary at the Hungarian Cultural Centre, Covent Garden. It got us thinking... what other cultural centres can be found in London? For such a big place filled with so many international people, languages, cuisine and arts, there must be loads of places......

Common sense prevailed today when Londonist's favourite mulletted-twat-punching Deputy Prime Minster John Prescott announced that the plans put forward by London Underground for redevelopment of Camden Town tube station (which would have meant the demolition of Camden Market and the Electric Ballroom) would be refused permission to go ahead. The decision follows an appeal by London Underground against Camden Council's eminently-sensible reaction to the plans in 2003. The report in the Evil Standard said......

As a bus driver in London there are many professional responsibilities one has to take on: customer relations, passenger safety, road etiquette and, erm...knowing the bus route. If a driver fails in just one of these areas then it can quickly lead to chaos, or as Mrs Taylor, from Highgate put it in today's Standard: "He knew he had gone wrong because the passengers were shouting at him." Mrs Taylor was one of the......

The Evening Standard reports that the Tube are compiling a "list of shame" to identify the stations with the greatest number of incidents involving drunk and abusive passengers. Looking at last year's List of Shame throws up an interesting anomaly. While there is no surprise that many on the list are commuter termini, the stations are all in Zone 1...except for Zone 3's Seven Sisters. Londonist can think of plenty of other stations outside......