The great grape suit against Marks & Spencer is now over. Alexander Martin-Sklan, who slipped in the parking lot of his local store in Golders Green in June 2004, ostensibly on a grape that was stuck in his sandal, which may or may not have been acquired in the store or in its parking lot, has lost his case against the chain. Though the judge was sympathetic to the 55-year-old man's plight -- he had......

Unlocked safe, stack of explosives...not a scene from a Guy Ritchie heist movie, but Golders Green Tube station. It was revealed yesterday that rail union staff discovered maintenance detonators (along with what was thought to be petrol) in an open, unattended safe at the station. The explosives are normally used to alert track workers to oncoming trains during night work. After this security embarrassment, they're being used to illustrate "a worrying slip in safety standards......

The statisticians are at it again. Trying to connect A-B but, just for fun, popping into every shop along the way. Sketching trends with a pencil as there is insufficient data to ink them in. Reading significance into very little. Missing the point. A new survey by the University of East London has produced a map portraying religious segregation in the capital, which concludes that religion is a bigger dividing factor in the city than......

Londonist’s second-favourite weekend of the year is almost upon us. Open Garden Squares, this Saturday and Sunday, sees 160 of London’s private and not-so-private gardens opening to the public. The event is once again sponsored by Loire Valley Wines, who will be offering their wares at a selection of the locations. Here’s our pick: SOAS roof garden. Sparse, stony, and probably the least verdant garden you’ve ever seen. Still, its attractive oriental style, and......

El-Shaddai are very excited. Particularly Dr Ramson and his wife, Pastor Linda, founders of and pastors for this “non-denominational, Christ-centred” church. They've just spent £5m on a shiny new London home. This weekend, they'll be meeting their flock in the splendid surroundings of Golders Green Hippodrome, former home of the BBC Concert Orchestra. This is a considerable step up from borrowing bits of UEL or faceless Fairfield Halls. Yep, the Beeb wanted out of......

BBC: Police are investigating the death of a baby boy who suffered a cardiac arrest shortly after he was circumcised. The boy began having breathing problems at Golders Green United Synagogue, in north London, on 1 February. He was taken to a hospital nearby but was transferred to University College Hospital where he died on 9 February. Scotland Yard are treating the death as unexplained while the the circumstances that led to the child......

So, as most of us know by now, there was transport 'chaos' this morning. Not least on the tube – according to the TFL Realtime Travel News page 10 out of the 12 lines on the underground network were knackered at 9am today. Credit to London Underground though. They could have used this morning’s light dusting of snow as a predictably lazy excuse for all of the problems, but they’ve risen above that. Instead......

Ah, the lowly bagel. Never has bread been so misinterpreted. Bagels should not smack of baguettes or donuts, nor should they be the size of an infant’s cranium. True bagels are boiled first and then baked, generating a crispy shell and a dense and chewy centre. They should fit neatly in the palm of your hand. Can the real thing be found in the Big Smoke? Here are our top recs: For the purist… Brick......

Remember Ken's advice that we should avoid flushing our piss away whenever possible, to conserve water? Well this chap wins a mayoral gold star for not yanking once in 18 months. He can't. He has no toilet. Nor bath, sink or shower. The spectacularly alliterative Gamal Gheedan of Golders Green has to discharge into bottles, and employ buckets to capture his fecal creations, all thanks to a tardy contractor who repeatedly delayed a bathroom......

We're all so busy running about preparing for Xmas that it's easy to forgot today is the start of Jewish festival Chanukah. Chanukah isn't really that big a deal holywise in Jewish festival-land, it's just kind of got the most famous reputuation from being near the Christian present-giving festival and lots of Jewish children over the years looking sad without presents. As such it's probably the best known festival, recognisable by the lighting of......

Gavin Grant, a 22-year-old Milwall striker has appeared before the Old Bailey accused of conspiracy to murder 24-year-old Jahmall Moore who died last year after being hit by four bullets as he sat in his car in Harlesden. In the early hours of Monday morning a motorcyclist and a pedestrian both died when the bike ploughed into the man as he was crossing a main road in Golders Green. Apparently the "London-inspired property mini-boom"......

Ok, enough of the teaser posts, The London Collection is a new book from Think Books which was written by four members of the Londonist staff. Basically the book is an alternative guide to the capital, with kind of a Schott's Miscellany feel to it (or 'a bit of a toilet read' if you want to be crude about it). Over the next few weeks we'll be bringing you a few sneak previews of......

Is this the coolest thing Ken has ever said? Daily Mail is ‘broadly racist’ and the Standard is only less so because racism would hurt their sales. Nigeria has warned its citizens to be wary of fraudsters when travelling in Britain. Apparently one of the favourite ticks on the Tube is "to “pick up an object which had fallen under their victim’s seat” in order to distract attention" The Government wants to turn London's......

Officials have admitted that the intelligence behind the Forest Gate raid was 'wrong'. Security vetting of the thousands of 2012 Olympics volunteers is going to be a 'major concern' apparently. A teenage girl who stabbed an 84-year-old 14 times in Golders Green, has tried to pass off her detailed plan for the killing as the draft of a crime thriller. Ken has launched an anti-racism mobile phone photo competition. Our future king watches girl-on-girl......

Londonist gets invitations to all sorts of things, in all sorts of places. Last night's outing was to hear a series of oral histories from those who experienced the 1956 Revolution in Hungary at the Hungarian Cultural Centre, Covent Garden. It got us thinking... what other cultural centres can be found in London? For such a big place filled with so many international people, languages, cuisine and arts, there must be loads of places......

Hats off to London MPs Kate Hoey (Vauxhall), Rudi Vis (Finchley & Golders Green) and Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North), who were among the Labour rebels whose votes aided the defeat of the Religious Hatred bill. This New Labour fatwa was note-perfect Brazil, combining as it did an Orwellian assault on language and freedom with bureaucratic incompetence. File under "I" for "ID Cards". (On the subject of ID cards and bureaucracy, this story wins "headline......

One of the London bombers, who worked part-time in a fish and chip shop, has left an estate worth £121,000. The IPCC decision on whether any legal action should be taken against the officers who shot Jean Charles de Menezes, should be delivered within the next few days. The four people arrested under the law banning 'unauthorised protests' near parliament were up in court yesterday. The fifth Get into London Theatre campaign has begun this......

Another festive story to warm your cockles... A postman who stole chequebooks used in a £20m nationwide fraud ring is facing a lengthy jail sentence. Dido Mayue-Belezika, 34, from Camden, was said to be behind the scam, over which 24 people were charged. This is what happens when you don't give the posty a well deserved Christmas tip. Londonist used to live near a sorting depot once and each morning we'd take the same......

What the Bellamy is going on with our fauna? Over the past few weeks, we’ve brought you tale after tail concerning the increasingly exotic nature of the capital’s wild animals. To recap, we’ve had the Beast of Bexley, the crocodile-turtle type thing in the River Lea and a plague of red-eared terrapins in Mill Hill. And most recently of all, we highlighted the Amazonian giant centipede (Scolopendra gigantean), which ‘shocked’ Islington resident Aaron Balick......