If you don't already welcome Diamond Geezer into your RSS reader, stick him there now. One of the foremost chroniclers of our fair city, the Geezer should be permanently on the required-reading list of anyone who loves London. This month, he's surpassing even his own high standards with a series of posts about the road from Aldgate to Stratford. At the London Olympics, the marathon's last stage will pass along this ancient thoroughfare, to......

A slice of sponge cake and a hearty round of "Happy Birthday" to the Rotherhithe Tunnel! Not the nearby Brunel-designed Thames Tunnel, (the world's first underwater tunnel, lest we forget) but its quieter, lesser-celebrated neighbour that ferries road traffic underneath the Thames from Southwark to Tower Hamlets. It turns 100 years old today. Opened in 1908 by the future King George V, Rotherhithe was the first road tunnel linking north London with south, and......

Hammersmith and City (Whitechapel to Barking) and District line (Whitechapel to Plaistow) trains are again suspended this morning while the Royal Engineers' bomb experts detonate and defuse the ticking World War II UXB. This is all happening on Diamond Geezer's doorstep and he points out that if only the Big Brother house was still filmed in Bromley-by-Bow the whole telly monstrosity would be shut down by now. Check Transport for London for travel updates.......

Finally! A good news story about the 2012 Olympics. IOC Coordination Commission Chairman Denis Oswald was not only "truly impressed" with London's progress since the IOC's last visit but singled out progress on the Olympic parks as "truly astounding". Construction work on the sunken cupcake has commenced 3 months ahead of schedule. Asked to rate London's performance so far Mr Oswald generously marked us 9.75 out of 10 with only some concerns about transport......

Did you walk to work today? Members of the Londonist team managed it as did notable others: Londonista Hazel went in an efficient, no messing about straight line from East End to Farringdon, while, Londonista Dean took in a pastoral pre-work stroll along a north to south route. Did walking to work change their lives? What's it like on the streets at 8am? Will they want to do it again? Let's see... Londonista Hazel......

It's finally been announced that Clerkenwell club Turnmills will be closing down in March after the landlord confirmed plans to redevlop the site. The club's lease on the venue is nearly up and a mutual agreement has led to the venue wanting to end on a high. This deals a bit of a blow to London's danceland who also recently suffered the closure of The Key, The Cross and Canvas as part of the......

We had a feeling this was going to be an exciting year for us for all sorts of reasons but we're bowled over this morning to find out we've been shortlisted for the 2008 Bloggies in the Best European Weblog category! We're in illustrious company, rubbing shoulders with our neighbours, Diamond Geezer and Arseblog as well as Parisian gastro girl Chocolate & Zucchini and the far flung Iceland Weather Report. We're all feeling a......

Langdon Park DLR station opened yesterday, to initially no fanfare, until Ken turned up with some free Oyster cards. Diamond Geezer has blogged in heartfelt detail about the "shiny alien mothership" lighting up a neglected, marginalised area. Langdon Park now easily links up with Canary Wharf and Stratford, where a second platform was also officially opened yesterday, possibly anticipating the immediate influx of people escaping Tower Hamlets for a day. TFL are consulting about......

That's right. As from today, King's Cross Thameslink is no more. The outmoded station on Pentonville Road closed for business yesterday. Services now stop beneath St Pancras International on new platforms (pictured). It seems to be the law these days that anything recently opened must be trumpeted as 'shiny new'. Not so with these platforms. IanVisits describes a 'clinical grey feel', but with much widened access. Diamond Geezer, meanwhile, gives a fitting eulogy to......

This Sunday TfL take over the North London Line. Yes, the service also known as the loony line and infamous for fare dodging and criminal activity on unmanned stations is getting a rebrand. Goodbye (good riddance) Silverlink! Hello London Overground. The long neglected, feared and cursed service that links Stratford with North London and pootles all the way around the West to Richmond is being brought into the TfL fold. It's even getting coloured......

IBM will run the congestion charge. Will Haw's Law be revoked? London Grand Prix not ruled out. Got an opinion about Tube accessibility? Help TfL decide priority stations for step-free access. Read the background on Diamond Geezer. Did we mention that it's our birthday? Image courtesy of Homemade via the Londonist flickr group.......

Mayor 'wobbles' over West London tram. Man burns down his wife's house...twice. No rats smelled in connection with the other double fire in the news. A two-tier parking scheme is introduced. The peerless Diamond Geezer, as usual, spots what the rest of us missed. The Olympic Park is now closed off for five years of development. He describes several walks around the derelict land that are now impossible. Image courtesy of [windscreen fly] via......

Woman pimp lured girls with crack. Yes, you read that correctly. We're appropriately late in mentioning this: frustrated commuters walk along tracks after severe delays. Trevor Baylis, the bloke behind the wind-up radio, think there aren't enough toilets. The UK is 300 today. Did anyone notice? Diamond Geezer did, of course. Underwhelming 1 May rally takes place. Image courtesy of chutney bannister via the Londonist flickr group.......

We thought we’d take a break from linking up Onionbagblog, and instead sample a scallion of a different persuasion. Olly’s Onions serves up small helpings of news in a satirical sauce. A bit like The Onion, then. (What is this connection between bulbous edibles and current affairs piss-takes?) This week, Olly drops by a trendy boozer: The White Swan just off Ladbroke Grove has been serving a loyal clientele for decades, but since it......

WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING, PLEASE LONDONERS, CAN YOU STOP BUYING THAT BLOODY 500 MILES SINGLE. As if "500 Miles" isn't a bad enough song to start with, it now has the son of the devil Matt Lucas whinging all over it. ARGH. If you actually want to buy something that will donate to Comic Relief, then instead we hope you point your buying finger at Shaggy Blog Stories. Long-term excellent blogger Troubled Diva decided......

Billie Piper is all set to slip into Belle de Jour's gusset! Here's the scoop direct from the diary of a London call girl: Finally - it's official - Billie's on board, and you can expect to see Belle the series on ITV2 this autumn. I couldn't be more excited, and I know the writers and actors and everyone else will do a great job. Hurrah! Hurrah! indeed. Now all the people who have......

With this column, we try to bring you a new blog every week. We scour the cybervestry for new species of weblog, like a Victorian naturalist in the forests of Borneo. This week, we've stumbled upon a cracking little site hiding in the undergrowth. London Skyline eschews any nod towards a clever name in favour of doing what it says on the tin - writing about the London skyline. And the author asks a......

Our weekly roundup of London blogs Our find of the week is The Greenwich Phantom, who writes daily about the goings-on in that borough of contrasts. And as phantoms go, he is vociferous. On the demolision of a Victorian building to make way for a new Terrance Conran pier. It couldn't possibly have been approved because it was designed by Conran could it? Honestly - what was Conran going to say? "No - you......

This week, we've noticed that London's media seems to be diversifying into sundry formats. And not only that - the different organs are all bitching about one another. Time for us to wade in... The Times launched a snazzy local web presence last week called 'Cool in your Code'. The site presents polished video snippets about culture and property in your part of London. Assuming, that is, you live in Hoxton or Marylebone, as......

The snow may have brought London to a halt, but the blogorash just keeps spreading. Here are a few of the things that caught our eye out there this week... Thankfully Onionbagblogger's new darts (yes, darts) didn't literally catch our eye, but we did it think it was nice in an age of game consoles that at least one Londoner was enjoying himself the old fashioned way: Ah yes - the darts... 23g of......

Our weekend roundup of all that's good in London blogs While most bloggers, us included, cocked a sarcastic snook at the Starbucks store locator, Diamond Geezer has, typically, been more inventive. He's put together a crude map of London showing the number of outlets per postal district. W1, naturally, has the most with 32, whereas poor/lucky RM1, BR1 and SM1 only have one each. Our old friend Brian, the blogging pigeon, did some investigative journalism......

We were going to write a long detailed explanation of why we're once again doing a weekly blog roundup and then realised that only a few days (and a few centuries) ago Samuel Pepys had done the job for us: (Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, and then up, and being desirous to perform my vowes that I lately made, among others, to be performed this month, I did go to my office, and......

And now over to our weather correspondent, Mr Charles Dickens: Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the......

Everyone's favourite means of getting from Cockfosters to Heathrow reached its centenary today. The Piccadilly Line celebrated 100 years of operation in an all-expenses spared orgy of hedonism: LU managing director Tim O'Toole was at Leicester Square station and presented staff with a birthday card and a specially-designed cake. Apparently, drivers were on hand to help light the candles - putting their talents for striking and blowing out to good practice. As usual, Diamond......

Hard to believe it in our era of global warming, but the Thames used to freeze in winter and the early Victorian folks used to gather on South Bank for a jolly day out, skating, socialising and generally enjoying the chilly air. Frost Fairs along the river were the big winter event up until the widening of the Thames in 1815 which ended the annual big freeze. We're glad to announce that the Frost......

Moving on from filming a movie in the cinema, it now seem fake artefacts are to blame for funding terrorism in London. Miami Vice star Don Johnson will take over from Trevor from Eastenders in the West End production of Guys and Dolls in January. Nick Clarke, the presenter of Radio 4's World At One show died of cancer this morning. We forgot to mention it but from this week if you don't touch......

Pounding the streets of London in search of obscure buildings and forgotten sculptures is far too much like hard work with the current sticky weather. So we thought we’d put together a Stalk from the comfort of the couch. Purely as a bit of fun. So, here’s our stalk of Dr Who. Who Lives Where? When he’s not living in the Tardis, the Doctor might be found at a number of addresses in and around......

The new western ticket hall at Kings Cross opened to little fanfare on Sunday. Why should you care? Well, it brings to an end months of hellish interchange at the station, during which the ever-shifting layout of temporary corridors left us feeling trapped in a Stalinist Hogwarts. And it’s also goodbye to the matching Soviet-style ticket queues at the prefab hut outside. The new hall is a utilitarian white & blue oblong of limited......

Chris Martin may have declared to the world that it's sick of him and his band, and hey, who should know better than the gazillion or so people who put his last album to number one in 28 countries simultaneously than Chris himself, but it hasn't stopped him from getting behind the microphone again. At least that's according to andPOP, who claim that whilst Pa Apple was at Abbey Road preparing for a secret......

The finalists for the 2006 Bloggies are now up and we're very happy to report that Londonist has been shortlisted for the "Best British or Irish Weblog" category. We're up against some formidable competition from the likes of Little Red Boat, Gaping Void, Girl with a One-Track Mind and the London-based blogging machine that is Diamond Geezer. We should also congratulate Torontoist who are featured in the Best Canadian Weblog section; and Gothamist who......