You may have noticed that not every element of London's media was truly fair and balanced in their coverage of the Race for City Hall. Chickens, you may commence roosting: one of Boris' bandwagon-jumpers has been given his marching orders for encouraging people to vote for our new Conservative chieftain. Talksport's James Whale has been sacked after breaching Ofcom rules that ban presenters from showing bias towards a political party prior to an election.......

Londoners are all hot and bothered over the exact voting procedure they will be faced with in the mayoral election, according to the Evening Standard. The use of the second preference system appears to be causing some puzzlement, with 30% of those surveyed by the paper admitting they were unaware of its employment in tomorrow’s vote, and just 39% claiming they were fully clear about the process. It seems that amidst all the insults......

All I do each night is pray...hoping that I'll be electable again some day. The highlight of the mayoral election week came at the Evening Standard’s Influentials Debate at the RSA on Monday, when Ken Livingstone told LBC breakfast host Nick Ferrari why he doesn’t drive. He revealed that he’d tried cars when a young man because he’d thought it would help him to get girls, but in the end had decided to “concentrate on......

It’s been another bruising week in the London mayoral election campaign. Eccentric Tory contender Boris Johnson may have had the best of it. On Tuesday Ken Livingstone announced that drivers of gas-guzzlers will be charged £25 to enter the Congestion Zone from October – assuming he’s re-elected. The Greens support the move, but the Lib Dems’ Brian Paddick – he’s the gay, “cannabis cop” from Brixton, you’ll recall – was critical, notably of the same......

Like something straight from the Evening Standard Headline Maker, this story musn't have been happy for those involved, but seeing it like this tickled us.......

Announcing the fourth Londonist guided walk. When: Friday 8 February. What: Piccadilly warriors, sapphic Royalty, bonkers fashion, nazi dogs, naval heroes and lovesick gardeners are amongst the cast on this dysfunctional relationship stroll through St James. Who: Chris Roberts, your genial guide from our previous walks is back. Chris is a veteran tour guide, author of Cross-River Traffic, resurrector of the Penny Dreadful with his One Eye Grey, and all-round top bloke. Where: Meet......

As the many and varied Mayors-to-be sit down for their christmas lunch, each will wonder whether in 12 months time they will be swapping the plate of turkey for a pile of draft mayoral press releases. So, are Boris, Ken or Brian looking more like winners or turkeys? Ken's Evening Standard spat thundered on, with ominous warnings of a horrid end for one of the two main characters. Hostilities climaxed with Ken demanding Andrew......

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......

Bitterness aside (yes, we too were not on the pulse fast enough to bag tickets before their price sky-rocketed), we are rather enjoying the bitch fight that is ‘should Ewan McGregor have been cast as Iago in the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Othello?’ Bloomberg, while slightly disappointed by McGregor’s under-emphasis of evil intent, are definitely the most complimentary of his performance: Fortunately, Ewan McGregor gives a very creditable performance -- codpiece and all ... The......

The dear old Evening Standard is all up in arms that people are being "forced" to shut their dustbin lids or risk not getting their rubbish collected. We're not quite sure why. Surely, putting your rubbish in a standard issue (240L, wheelie, locking) bin and keeping it shut helps keep our streets cleaner and safer? Foxes can't get at bin bags, things can't blow away, unsightly stacks of supermarket carrier bags and globs of spilled......

Media regulators Ofcom have finally come to a conclusion about one of George Galloway's inappropriate outbursts on radio station TalkSport. As a sitting MP and representative of Bethnal Green and Bow, it was not acceptable for him to have hijacked the morning show for promoting himself as a better candidate for Poplar and Limehouse. Called to stand-in for regular hosts on the morning of 10 August, Galloway proceeded to outline his plan to pitch......

All cars must pay the congestion charge if they enter the congestion zone. That's £8 a day unless you are driving a taxi, a police car or one of those little buggies that runs on jam. Of course, Londonist sidesteps having to pay the charge by bounding around the city on the back of a giant mechanical deer. However, a number of enterprising individuals are registering their cars as taxi cabs in order to......

Children, children, Londonist wants to play a little game with you: it’s called “How to make you cry in one single snapshot.” The rules are pretty simple: you come equipped with your best smiles for the next school piccie and we’ll wipe them off your face instantly: black kids over there please ... yes, you ... Oh and you look a little dark of skin – over there as well please. Still smiling? Alright, Jewish......

Smoking is cool – hhhm, potentially debatable, although we know which side of the fence we straddle. Puffing a six-inch, battery powered ‘e-cig,’ which bears an uncanny resemblance to a pregnancy test, so not cool – non-debatable … or so we thought … A meagre few months into the ban, with chilly season fast approaching, club owners are getting savvy with the ciggie, most specifically the owners of Soho hotspot Chinawhite, who have just introduced......

It’s time to announce our third Londonist guided walk. When: October 12. Meet at 7pm outside Atlantis Books, Museum Street. What: This walk around Bloomsbury will mention Mr Crowley, screaming queens – of the Egyptian variety – haunted clocks, incompetent executioners and much else as it meanders from St Giles to Holborn. The walk lasts about ninety minutes and focuses on spooky events and odd folklore. Who: As usual, this offbeat tour is led......

In a story that's bound to excite Evening Standard headline writers, a group of four asylum seekers have attempted to smuggle themselves into Britain by hiding in Tony Blair's car. Before you get Jason Bourne-style visuals of dodgy-looking men clinging onto the chassis as our witless ex-PM is driven around town, we should make clear that this is in fact Tony's new motor. The custom BMW 7 Series model, complete with bulletproof glass and......

By which we mean 'tests the patience of those in charge of public safety and wastes everyone's time, money and resources.' Not wanting to be outdone by the Evening Standard's scaremongering, the Daily Mirror sent two journalists to the Stonebridge Park train depot to plant a fake bomb on a freight train, in order to test the security measures in place. A similar exercise was carried out last year when two Daily Mirror journalists......

Over 270,000 people have signed a Christian petition to oppose the proposed building of a supposedly enormous mosque in Newham. The petition, which closed this week, stated: We the Christian population of this great country England would like the proposed plan to build a Mega Mosque in East London Scrapped. This will only cause terrible violence and suffering and more money should go into the NHS. Human rights organisation Blink lobbied the No. 10......

It’s the second Londonist guided walk. When: Saturday 23 June. What: An offbeat tour of the Waterloo area, taking in William Blake, Spring Heeled Jack, dead sailors, weird tombs, the woman who started the French revolution and some stuff about the real spooks at MI5 & MI6. Who: Chris Roberts, your genial guide from our previous walk is back. Chris is a veteran tour guide, author of Cross-River Traffic, resurrector of the Penny Dreadful,......

Maybe it's the heat, but May in London has become a veritable political gay-fest. Last week, a gay man took the helm of Richmond Borough Council for the first time, and announced 'diversity' as a key theme for his year in office. This happens just as rumours intensify that popular gay copper Brian Paddick might run for London Mayor. And now, to complete the hat-trick, the leader of Westminster Council came out in some......

Is this the face of the UK’s most famous graffiti artist? (After sagittal inversion and colour enhancement to make him fit into his own artwork.) A reader tip-off led us to an article on Complex.com, purporting to show elusive artist Banksy. The Bristol-born wall sprayer is very protective of his identity, and spoke to The New Yorker this week about the difficulties of remaining anonymous. So is he finally unmasked? The snaps were allegedly......

We love Google Maps. Hell, we love most Google products - if they launched Google Murder we'd be all up your intestine with a sharpened screwdriver while Yahoo! were still beta testing Killr (only kidding - we love Yahoo! too - especially their tubes). Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, Google Maps. So far the zoomability on London is pretty good, but do you know what we really want? This: Just imagine the guy looking......

We're drowning in paper: Up to 12 tons of newspapers a day are being abandoned by commuters on London Underground stations and trains, new figures show. The statistics were revealed by Ken Livingstone following a question raised by the London Assembly Conservatives at Mayor's question time in January. They have asked Transport for London to install more newspaper recycling points on the network to tackle the problem. Sure recycling is one way forward, but......

No London connection (yet), but this story caught our eye this morning: Scientists in eastern China say they have succeeded in controlling the flight of pigeons with micro electrodes planted in their brains, state media reported on Tuesday. Scientists at the Robot Engineering Technology Research Centre at Shandong University of Science and Technology said ther electrodes could command them to fly right or left or up or down, Xinhua news agency said. "The implants......

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......

Chris Roberts (not pictured) is a man of many talents. He's traced the origins of nursery rhymes, surveyed London's bridges and even written a musical about Margaret Thatcher. And then there's the Evening Standard random headline generator. Most recently of all, he took us on a walk around the Pool of London. His latest project, One Eye Grey (available at not enough good bookshops), is the first penny dreadful for over a hundred years......

Dear Terrorists, Your days are numbered. We've got the intelligence to stop you before you even know you're about to think up an attack. We've got armed police that will take you, the guy next to you, and even people in the next borough, down in a heartbeat if it means saving the people we don't kill. We have a terror alert system that keeps our citizens updated on whatever you may or may......

In other words, it's the first ever Londonist guided walk. We're putting on a tour of the upper Pool of London (London Bridge and the Tower precincts) on Sat 10 February, from 2pm. There are soooo many reasons you should come: 1. It's free! 2. You'll meet the authors of at least three nerdy books about London. 3. The tour is conducted by Chris Roberts, the chap who brought you such delights as the......

Thanks to everyone who voted in our Touch Up London comp. The contest to find the best bit of Photoshop wizardry was given an unexpected boost by the Evening Standard and The Sun, who featured some of the entries. And the winner...? This astounding effort from Rupert Smith. Well done, Sir. You can view all the entries by clicking the tag at the bottom of the post. Touch Up London will continue in 2007,......

What's more boring than talking about the weather? Betting on it: Totesport, which has come up with a series of "global warming wagers", is also offering odds of 50-1 that the Thames Barrier will be breached over the next decade.The company, which thought up the bets with the help of former BBC weatherman John Kettley, is offering odds of 4-1 that 2007 will be the hottest year on record. Totesport spokesman Damian Walker said:......