Oh now here’s an emotive issue. Londonist charged at this story, all spluttering indignation…and then promptly changed our minds. It’s about Thames lock-keepers and their chi-chi little cottages. The Environment Agency is to sell off 10 of them, and let out 12 others: all in all a third of their 57 Thames-side properties are to be turned into revenue. There is much hand-wringing, especially from Unison. They rightly point out that the lock-keeper’s wage is......

19. Freakish Falls! During the August of 1920 in Woodford, stones poured from the sky for three consecutive days without explanation. Four years later at Eltham, Plumstead, Woolwich and Shooters Hill a great ice storm battered the area, despite the afternoon being the hottest for two years! The hailstones were the size of eggs, and some jagged in nature, measuring five-inches which fell from the sky, cutting residents who ran for cover. In January......

…the way that apparently a lot of people have as this photo has been doing the rounds. And no, it is not part of this week’s ‘Touch Up London’ competition. It is, rather, one of the publicity shots for the much touted $30 million film, FLOOD, which is due to wash up in a cinema near you from Friday. Based on a book by Richard Doyle, it has a huge wall of water charging......

200 years of keeping the bastards at bay have all come to naught - the salmon are back: Salmon have been introduced to the River Thames after experts declared the water clean enough for the fish to breed - after almost 200 years. The young salmon, were released into the Thames tributary, Lambourne river, at Welford, near Newbury, Berks. Thames salmon died out in the 1830s, with salmon from other sources, which do not......

We have a healthy respect for Jaws, but the likelihood of a Great White swimming down the Thames is about as likely as spotting a whale in that muck. Alligator though... there's a concept we can get in a panic about. We have toilets and sewers in London. With all this radiation knocking about Christ knows what will happen the next time we try to flush an animal down the loo... This kind of......

The Olympic site may be suffering from a £100,000 weed problem. And it's nothing to do with the familiar cannabinoid odours wafting in from Roman Road on the westerly breeze. An invasive plant species known as Japanese knotweed is apparently entrenched in the area, and it's going to take more than a Dimmock to shift it. It's unbelievably strong. It can actually grow through concrete and through brick walls. I've actually seen pictures of......

The Environment Agency has announced that our beloved Thames Water was, last year, fined for pollution more than any other firm in England and Wales. Well done Thames Water! In case you were wondering, the exact amount was £128,000 over four different incidents, that's more than double any of the fines levied at its counterparts in the water industry. Two thirds of the pollution cases related to discharges of sewage to the Thames. Lib......

Britain's contingency plan for an outbreak of bird flu in the country is being tested today and tomorrow with a real-time simulation of an infection. Exercise Hawthorn uses hundreds of volunteers to simulate a bird flu outbreak from three days into the crisis. The DEFRA-run exercise includes organisations such as the Association of Chief Police Officers, the Environment Agency, Downing Street, the Ministry of Defence, and other Government departments. It is based on a......

Raleigh's blood flows through our veins. Summer's on it's way and that means a return to our heritage as thousands of us hurl ourselves into the nearest available sailing vessel for floating frolics ahoy. Most will do little more than get a little drunk, drive too fast and scare a few ducks or frighten the fish. But some will come a serious cropper. The RNLI reported an 8% increase in call outs last year,......

The Met are being questioned over why no arrests were made during protests outside the Danish Embassy on Friday after threatening slogans were chanted and some protestors dressed as suicide bombers. An incredible article from yesterday's Sunday Times, by Richard Hoskins, lecturer in African religions at King’s College, describing how he tracked down a 12-year-old boy who had been taken to the Democratic Republic of Congo to be cured of being a witch. The Thames......

Yes it's everyone's favourite wildly powerful sporting body the International Olympic Committee. The IOC are back in town to have a little look round for the first time since they awarded London the 2012 Olympics...over France...who lost...and we won. While they're here the IOC won't actually be visiting any of the sites designated for development, instead they'll be examining all our organisational....erm, stuff. Basically they're just making sure what happended in Athens doesn't happen......

Celebrities and "leading figures from the worlds of culture, tourism and the media" are flocking to support the plans to install a beach by the London Eye this summer, the Standard gushes. Of course, you heard it here first, but now that the likes of Michael Winner and Peter Stringfellow have thrown their weights behind the project, it's an absolute inevitability. The "outside cinema" aspect of these plans is absolutely brilliant; Londonist has very......

Today's Times is warning that a hosepipe ban looks likely for the South East this summer, thanks to winter temperatures, which"have been 1.5C warmer than usual...combined with the driest winter recorded in the region for 130 years". Yes, apparently this has been a dry winter. All that means that reservoir levels are low and the Environment Agency are saying that unless there's 60 per cent more than average rainfall for March and April a......

This Is Local London reports that the London Assembly is set to ask Londoners for their views on where responsibility for aspects of London life should lie. The report quotes a member of the Assembly, Darren Johnson, thus: We are in a ridiculous situation where we are supposed to have devolution but the budget and power of the Government Office for London is growing and growing and growing. It should be the directly elected London......