While the turkeys are getting nervous and the butchers are doing a roaring trade in this crucial last week before Christmas, a very unwelcome slaughter has taken place in Letchmore Heath, Herts. Gangotri was a sacred cow at the Bhaktivedanta Manor Hindu temple; she had been injured in what the report calls 'a mating injury' last September and had been unable to stand since then. She was given a fatal dose of barbiturate by......

We've not lately delved into what's been bubbling away in the run-up to London's elections next year. So Wilkommen, Bienvenu, Welcome to this new and possibly occasional feature to catch up with what's going on out there. Let's have a rummage and see who's up and who's down: Mayor Ken fights back in a hefty spat with Evening Standard over a hatchet-job on his race advisor. Standard's tactics are questionable, but the story went......

Having seen and enjoyed Room 110 in the Camden Fringe Festival yesterday, we continue with our non-Scottish fringe theatre foray with some more new writing. Consisting of three consecutive monologues, Hostage/ Bleach / Burn has only half as many scripts as Room 110 but is equal in power and fringe theatre spirit. Canadian writer Heather Taylor, director Gareth Corke and the three cracking actors Peter Henderson (Hostage), Samantha Wright (Bleach) and Matthew Bulgo (Burn)......

We think everybody who attended Saturday's sun-soaked Tour de France Prologue would agree that, on the whole, it was a well-organised, popular success. However, with the shadow of the Olympics hanging over every large scale sporting happening in London between now and 2012 our experiences at the race lead us to believe that there are still a few important tweaks that could be made for events like this in the lead up to the......

London's live comedy scene is the best in the world. That's a fact! Admittedly, it's not a fact that I can back up with evidence, because I've only ever been to one other country. And to be honest, it's not so much a fact, as something I often hear other people saying, and that I have copied. But doesn't it feel like it should be true? After all, last Monday alone there was over......

If you could release a spoken word album of cabbie stories you would have to advertise it in a K-Tel Hit Parade LP style. It would sound something like this: New from K-Tel, it’s the 100 best Cabbie stories coming to all good record stores! Who could forget such classics as; “You’ll never guess who I had in the back of my cab the other day…” Or the mercurial: “The trouble with Blair is......

Helsinki has gone Eurovision bonkers over the past week, in advance of tonight's semi-final. Helsinki's Esplanadi park has become a European Market for the duration of Eurovision. Participating countries are displaying their culture, tourism and food. Helsinki's best karaoke club has been holding a massive Eurovision karaoke championship! The main square, Senate Square, hosts special shows tonight and Saturday, where fans can watch both shows on big screens. The Finnish votes will be broadcast......

Assuming the crews are able to make it past the semi-final, Cambridge and Oxford University's mens' eights will take to the Thames on Saturday at 4:30pm for just under 20 minutes' worth of water borne endeavour that will be watched by between 15 and 100 million television viewers around the world (depending on whose figures you believe) as well as some 250,000 spectators thronging the riverside vantage points. Oxford are the defending champions and......

Thanks to the keen eye of readers like jollyness an awful lot of interesting London commentary, that would otherwise be lost, is digitally preserved for future generations. The above THEY WANT YOUR POD! displays the trusted form of the yellow post-it note to leave fleeting messages on our cultural landscape. Be sure to check out the companion piece to find out just WHY they want those pods.......

The Olympics. Tired of all the naysaying and doom-mongery? Here's a site that's sure to include more positive spin than a world-class discus throw: the official 2012 Olympics blog. No half-baked observations about office life or photos of cute kittens here. Oh no. This is quite a differnt calibre of freshman blogger: I met HRH the Duchess of Cornwall who was visiting to site to find out more about the venue. She arrived at......

What with drug scandal undermining athletics and horse racing being, well, a bit posh, could maggot racing be the next big thing? Visitors to the Three Horseshoes Pub in Flackwell Heath have been gathering around a big screen to watch maggots wriggle their way around a six-lane racetrack. The maggots athletes take about fourty five seconds to complete the foot long course that has sticks the competitors must clear on the way to the......

So welcome to the second instalment of our new column on the techy aspects of London life. This time, we’re plugging in our ipods and enjoying a new way of exploring the capital: online audioguides. The idea of being guided round an area of interest – usually a museum – by an audio track is, of course, nothing new. We’ve all used those bulky museum players with big red buttons, which the Kids from......

We were delighted last week to discover that Cherno Samba, the former Millwall youth striker once courted by Liverpool, has pitched up again in this country after a spell on the continent, trying (but sadly failing) to earn a place in Bristol City's squad for the upcoming season. We remember him with affection as the spearhead of more than one of our Championship Manager 3 sides from the top-selling computer game's heydey around the......

Some crimes are more than just crimes - the Dreyfus affair is one example that comes readily to mind. In modern Britain, no murder has had more of an impact than that of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 (was it really 13 years ago already?), the black teenager killed by racists, whose murder triggered an inquiry that found institutionalised racism Stephen's murder will never really go away, but it is brought back into the spotlight......

If you're getting bored with the local pub and looking for a more interesting world cup watching experience get yourself over to Dalston. The Vortex Jazz Club is holding World Cup Jazz Balls where the match is shown on a big screen, but the commentary is turned off while two teams of three musicians each portray the ebb and flow of the game through live improvisation. The club has held several of these occasions......

The Lawn Tennis Championships at Wimbledon have started today. We know this because the weather has suddenly turned shitty. Tennis does not have the greatest profile in the Londonist dungeon, and Wimbledon is generally treated with indifference (whereas football is loved and loathed in equal measures), but it would be remiss of us not to pass comment on the start of an event which, in contrast to many other English sporting occasions, is always......

It's not often you hear of efforts to get an eleven year old and a nine year old to shag each other senseless by forcing them to sniff old boots. Well not on the corner of the Internet that we hang around on anyway. We are of course talking tigers. Raika and Lumper need a little help getting in the mood (perhaps having something to do with swapping the romantic climes of Indonesia with......

In a previous life, before blogging turned our heads, we actually used to read literature. Studied a few books too. In fact we spent more than one evening working our way line by line through the likes of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett, but one novel we always came back to was Laurence Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman'. We were always bemused by the fact that Sterne managed to out......

The sensible bits are the press release, but the smartarse commentary is 100% Londonist: The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has started the process of designing a logo and identity for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. It has appointed AAR, a leading agency search and selection company, to help select a brand and design agency. The chosen agency will help refine the brand positioning for the London 2012 Games......

Going to the theatre is a potential minefield of inconvenience. Uncomfortable seats, overpriced ice-cream and a mile-long queue for the toilets – how can that compete with the comfort of your living room sofa, home cooking and 666 channels of homogenised fluff on Sky? If you pick a duff show to boot, you’ll probably be sat there (in aforementioned uncomfortable seat) mentally listing these very aggravations, fantasising about your remote control. If you pick......

If you leave for work early enough and stay until after 5 there's a good chance you're not seeing much of the sun at the moment so we'd like to take your mind off all that by suggesting you watch a film set almost entirely within a small dark cramped cell. Malefique is an overlooked little shocker from France that has been saved from obscurity by our friends over at Frightfest. We had no......

The BBC reports today that the fine for fare evading could go up from £20 to £50 next year. And, although they resist the use of the word 'slap', the Beeb also tells us that repeat offendors could be issued with ABSOs. (Incidentally we did find one news source that couldn't resist 'slapping' their ASBO, if you find anymore please do let us know.) According to the article TfL is currently consulting on a......

After a break for World Cup Qualifiers, football in this country now returns to Premiership action, with five fixtures that feature London's top flight clubs taking place over three days. In our last preview, guest contributor David gave us a clear and thoughtful analysis of that weekend's games which provided a welcome relief from the flippant and mocking commentary that has blighted this feature since its inception. Football is a serious business, and from......

Seven days to go until the London Film Festival opens its doors. Here's another two of the films on offer. It turned a few heads when it was announced that Bent Hamer (Kitchen Stories) was going to direct the film adaptation of Charles Bukowski's Factotum, but any misgivings can be more or less laid to rest - perhaps because if anyone knows a thing or two about drinking it's the Norwegians. Not that Buk's......

Bubble opens with fresh ground being broken, but it's only when the camera pulls back that you realise it's a grave that's being dug. It's a loaded opening not only for the plot, but for what the film perhaps represents as an alternative to the mainstream (and indeed independent) movie distribution system. While the rest of Hollywood was running around like headless chickens and constantly coming up with new brain-dead ways to fight piracy......

Londonist is as addicted to buying DVDs as everyone else, so it made sense that we should start a regular column to highlight the little laser-etched treats coming your way over the next week or so. Let us know what you think in the comments. Well folks, it's getting to the time of year when the likes of Chegwin, Biggins and Daniels descend begrudgingly upon [enter the name of your hometown here] to switch......

We tried to watch the live coverage on BBC News 24 of the family of Jean Charles de Menezes visiting the scene of his death, but found the whole thing too depressing. The running commentary didn't help - "His mother is breaking down...", nor the sight of the press pack all huddled round trying to get the 'best' photograph of the bewildered and traumatised family. Not one of the Beeb's best moments. Matozinhos Otone Da......

George Romero's back and he brought some old friends with him. Land of the Dead is finally released in the UK after a ridiculously long wait compared to our American cousins. Londonist already reviewed the thing last month, but now the big boys have turned their attention to it - sort of. What will Peter Bradshaw make of the 'stenches' and Asia Argento's underwear? Well it turns out hekind of likes it in a......

We are told that a new blog is born every second. Great news. The even better news is that not all of them are about the writer’s cat, indeed, some of them are actually about interesting things, such as football. However, the same lot who told us about all those new blogs, Technorati , also informed us that only just over half of all weblogs are active and only 13% of them are updated......

The second Test of the Ashes series starts today at Edgbaston, but you dear reader, are most probably stuck in front of your monitor at work and not willing to risk a P45 by feigning a coughing fit, running out of your place of work to the nearest hostelry and purchasing a refreshing beverage before finding a seat with the perfect view of the big screen action. That's fair enough, but seeing as you're......