Love London is a "green-up" festival packed with 3 weeks of "eco-events'. We mentioned the Green Tours last week but there's much much more going on, starting with the Recycled Sculpture Show at ZSL which hosted the launch of the festival last Thursday. Previously lumbered with the title "London Sustainability Weeks", Love London's snappier current form covers events as diverse as naked bike riding, fair trade tea dancing, a locally sourced, midsummer feast in......

Two aviation stories in one day? Reports reach us that a major protest is taking place this afternoon near Heathrow. Now then - the row over a third runway is well-developed. In one corner, pro-expansionists cite the economic benefits to the local area, to London and to the nation of improving an airport that is 98% full. The argument seems pretty water-tight to us (ignore the tourism deficit argument, it's fatuous). In the other......

Police accused of massaging figures. Crime figures, that is. Notice a dodgy smell? Blame our continental cousins LSE to build climate change research centre thanks to generous donation That Lords revamp we mentioned in February now has a shortlist of architects. The oft-mooted tube strike? It's on again, folks. Blackjack the cat missing on the Olympic site. He's got less than a week to reappear. Image courtesy of Simon Crubellier via the Londonist flickr......

Harrygate escalates: Prince pulled out of Afghanistan, whilst the media whip selves into frenzy over involvement in the news blackout/leak. Winegate averted (for now): Winehouse will not face charges in connection with husband’s alleged attempts to pervert justice. Guess which city is the world’s museum capital? We’ll give you three guesses; first two don’t count. A day after M&S announces it will charge for plastic bags, Gordon Brown indicates that the government is ready......

Four Greenpeace protestors mounted a freshly landed Boeing 777 on the tarmac at Heathrow this morning to protest against a 3rd runway and it's implications for the "climate emergency". BAA are calling the protest "unlawful and irresponsible" which it probably is but, more pressingly, how the hell did 4 volunteers with a flourescent banner manage to walk from Terminal One, across the tarmac to the plane and clamber on top of it without hundreds......

Tonight the area between London Bridge and Tower Bridge is going to look a little different. HMS Belfast will be camouflaged and the old London Bridge post office building on Borough High St will look like a post box. You won't be tripping out but you will be witnessing the illuminations for Switched On London 2008 lighting up the bridges, the Tower of London, Potters Fields, Southwark Cathedral and more in a fantastically sustainable......

Having barely emerged from January’s wreckage of failed New Year’s resolutions, it was with a groan that we greeted the news that Lent arrives early this year. Questions of belief aside, Lent always seems likes such a promising self-improvement programme: give up chocolate, drink less, quit smoking. But didn’t we just make – and break – those same resolutions last month? We’re not such optimists to think we should try again so soon. Perhaps......

Move over Queenie. The Mayor has his own seasonal message. As you might imagine, it’s all good news. London is now the business capital of the world. Two million extra passengers a day are carried on the buses than in the 1990s. Crossrail funding is secured. Cycling has doubled. We’re chairing the C40 group of cities fighting climate change. And so on and so on. Although he begins by saying that 2008 will be......

He’s climbed the world’s most iconic structures from the Eiffel Tower to the Petronas Towers. But French ‘Spiderman’ Alain Robert chose a curious challenge during his trip to London yesterday: Portland House on Victoria Street. Here’s the brute. As in, here’s Portland House, not Monsieur Robert. He’s much more gorgeous, see ---> The Gallic climber scaled the 320 ft building as a protest against climate change. On reaching the top, he was arrested for wasting......

You may have noticed the streets were very crowded in central London on Saturday but this wasn't a pre-emptive swipe at the shops for early Christmas shopping - it was London's participation in a global rally on climate change. Coinciding with the climate change summit in Bali, there were demonstrations, marches and general activity around the world to put pressure on governments to prioritise climate change measures. Targets for lowering greenhouse emissions as set......

Heathrow Airport: to expand or not to expand, that is the question. The debate can begin in earnest, as today Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly laid out options for consultation, including a potential third runway and sixth terminal. With Terminal 5 not even finished yet, it may seem premature to be discussing more construction work, but the Government stressed that it would take until 2020 for a new runway and terminal to be operational. Kelly......

Modbury in Devon was the little trailblazer and now all 33 Boroughs have got together to ask us the big question: should the plastic shopping bag be banned in London? The stats are pretty shocking. We really do take placcy bags for granted. Over 13 billion bags are issued to shoppers each year which works out at at least 220 per person in the UK although, it actually feels a lot more to us. Unfortunately,......

Gorillas have been getting a rather good press of late in London. The Gorilla Kingdom at London Zoo, which opened in March, has seen huge numbers of visitors trudging up Regent's Park way to gawp at resident lowland gorillas Bobby, Zaire and Effie swing about their new home. Meanwhile, a television ad featuring a sullen simian being sparked into life by the crashing drum break of Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight' has become......

From BBC News: London must become car-free if it is to substantially cut carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Crikey. In response to the findings London Green Party member Jenny Jones said: "I have asked the London mayor to do a feasibility study into creating a car free pedestrian zone in central London linking all the main squares and parks. "We need to show that the car no longer rules in London......

The fourth in our series of interviews with potential candidates for next year's Mayoral election. Previously: Victoria Borwick (Tory), Andrew Boff (Tory) and Warwick Lightfoot (Tory). Sian Berry is the Green's candidate for next year's elections. Unlike the Tory rivals we've previously interviewed, she is a strong supporter of the congestion charge. She's the only person we've ever known to use the words 'The North London Line is good'. And she's also got a......

In a week of transport woe, we've all felt a bit shortchanged. The exact scale of shortchanging due to the Tube strike has been explored already and yet more controversial financial consequences of protesting have been unveiled. It apparently cost £7million to police the Heathrow climate change protest in August and it was the Metropolitan police who paid up. The protest required 11 days of security in about 16,000 shifts which is quite a......

Another random killing by knife-wielding teens. National Express win GNER route. Free wifi for all passengers. Woo-hoo! Growing tension at the Heathrow climate change demo. Is the London Eye going to be renamed the McCartney Eye? We prefer the Ringo Wheel. Image courtesy of DICKSDAILY via the Londonist flickr group.......

Stand Aside, oh diminuitive purpley chap formerly known as Prince. Make Way for the taller and altogether more substantial man formerly known as the 42nd President of the USA. As previewed here last month, Bill Clinton came to the O2 this lunchtime. To afford the VIP tickets we re-mortgaged our home, sold our grandma to science before she'd even popped her clogs and employed George Galloway to do a bit of fund-raising for us.......

Once you've conquered the Thames by swimming its entire length in 21 days, what's next? A nice luxurious holiday? Perhaps some time to just relax with a takeaway and something good on the telly? Not if you're Londonist's favourite swimmer Lewis Pugh. Then it's time for a nice brisk swim in the Arctic Ocean. On Sunday 15th July, Pugh is going to attempt the first long distance swim at the North Pole. And why......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 8. Cocomad It was the day of the Live Earth concerts, eight events in eight cities with a goal of raising awareness of the threat to planet Earth from climate change. The most significant cause of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels such as oil. So I guess it was a little ironic......

There are a million things to do in London this week, but if you fancy a night in, here are a few things to keep you occupied. On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 2 July - Friday, 6 July Wimbledon Today (BBC2, 20:00-21:00) Chances are, your workplace won’t let you watch Wimbledon during the day, so here’s your chance to catch up all week. Watch and see how many ways they can come up with......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 7. Girl Power All in all, this has been a pretty major week. We’ve had the highs, lows and inevitable mud bath of the Glastonbury Festival. For an event that focused on the issue of climate change it is ironic that whilst its performers sang, the country was subjected to record downfalls amid unseasonable storms.......

Governor of California and Austrian über-man Arnold Schwarzenegger will be travelling to London on Sunday to meet Blair, reciprocating a visit Blair made to America's most populous state last year where the pair announced a trans-Atlantic alliance to tackle greenhouse gas emissions. Obviously, Arnie has experience of dealing with such global problems before, namely the T-1000, a super terminator that could morph into anything that it had had physical contact with. The T-1000 wanted......

Capital 95.8 have launched its Lights Out London campaign. Blatantly plagiarising Sydney's 'Earth Hour', the radio station is busily garnering support from celebrities like Kim Wilde for the campaign, which encourages the whole of London to turn off all lights and non-essential appliances between 9 and 10pm on 21 June – the longest day of the year – as a way of promoting awareness of green issues. Al Gore apparently called for a similar......

New York and London have always had a bit of rivalry going on, about who's best. In recent times, London seems to have got the edge - New York's Mayor, for example, expressed worries that London was moving ahead as the world's financial centre. And frankly, we know that our chocolate's a hell of a lot better. But now Mayor Bloomberg has gone further. Announcing his new plans to combat climate change, he commended......

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) has to be one of our favourite arts venues in London. We have turned up on its rather grandiose steps several times now and had all our expectations blown away - in good and bad ways. Continuing its legacy of eternally forward-facing theatre, a new festival of experimental theatre and music is launching today. It's called Burst. And it didn't come about over night... First, there was The British Festival......

The US Embassy is up for sale. At somewhere between 130,000 and 280,000 square feet depending on which reports you read, the place would make a lovely Mayfair residence for a large family (space for about 750 people, at the last count). And all this only for £90m or so, according to the BBC. In April the Embassy proudly announced it had finally succeeded in securing "100% certifiable green energy". This work had taken......

A phantom menace plaguing the London cloudosphere has been discovered: The airline BMI is to scrap a phantom service after it emerged that the company is flying an empty passenger jet between Cardiff and Heathrow in order to retain valuable slots at the London airport. The 124-seat plane shuttles between the airports six times a week but carries no passengers and no tickets are sold. BMI operates the empty services because if it did......

Just when we thought MySpace was good for nothing. As part of comedian Mark Watson's 'Mark Watson is Crap at the Environment' project, comes Pimp My Plant Pot. The Crap At The Environment project is, an attempt to start a movement of people who are concerned about climate change and environmental damage, yet, until now, have been completely or fairly shit at doing anything about it. This shitness may have been caused by uncertainty......

As the squads for next month's cricket world cup in the Caribbean are announced news reaches us of an intriguing public gathering of some of the game's cognoscenti in London on the eve of the tournament. From Thursday 1st to Saturday 3rd March the Institute of Commonwealth Studies plays host to the international conference "Cricket: Dawn of a new world – growth, development and commerce" on the premises of Goodenough College at Mecklenburgh Square......