Good news for those of you who wish to get within touching distance of the infamous Winehouse beehive, but don't fancy eating a knuckle sandwich for your troubles as that Glasto reveller did on Saturday: the chanteuse is to have her ever-frail physique immortalised in wax at Madam Tussauds. Amy will tread where our erstwhile PM remains persona non grata, and will likely be a popular draw, not to mention a disturbingly realistic one: we......

Turns out Gordon Brown had bigger things to worry about than that silly waxwork distraction of a few weeks ago, where an online poll of Tussauds fans gave the PM a big clunking thumbs down. Yet it must be galling to see other world leaders slip through the entranceway, like a better-tailored rival granted admittance to a trendy nightclub while you're standing outside fuming and fussing. Brown's Gallic counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy, is the latest......

London to Scotland in under three hours? Well you could go Ryanair and enjoy the bum-rush for seats at Stansted, the teeth-gritting discomfort, and the faint but palpable sense of guilt at your carbon footprint. Or you could jump in Jeremy Clarkson's motor and see if he can repeat his 186mph Limehouse Link dash up the M6. However, the future may herald another way. According to "secret" talks between the UK and Scottish governments,......

The Gordon Brown statue saga has intrigued psephologists and, er, wax-ologists for months now: would our embattled PM be given his own waxwork at Madame Tussauds, or have the curators bargained that, with the odds of his removal ever-shortening, the task of crafting those craggy features into a lifelike visage isn't worth the effort? As we reported earlier this month, Tussauds turned the decision over to a public vote. The results are in: nearly......

Gordon Ramsay hates it when you cook with food that’s out of season. He hates it so much he wants a ban on it. He wants a ban on it and he wants restaurants to be fined for doing it. That’s right; if you’ve got asparagus on your menu in December, you’d better be prepared to pay the price. His big rallying point is that produce should be locally grown and not shipped in......

Our lonely PM's glowering grimace doesn't lend itself easily to sympathy, but it would take a heart as hard as granite (or Granita, even) not to feel for Gordon Brown's plight. Having spent ten years waiting for the top job, in just ten months of Brownism Labour finds itself rudderless, mauled in the local elections and turfed out of City Hall. Yesterday was Brown's first appearance in Parliament since last week's calamities, and he......

The arrival of two Hollywood heavyweights in our fair city has given the local media the perfect opportunity to do what they do best: namely, sneer at the lady while swooning over the gent. Renee Zellweger and George Clooney have been in town this week for the UK premier of the Clooney-directed film, Leatherheads. And the differing reactions to the pair from the ranks of Fleet Street's finest couldn't be more illustrative. Gushing journalists......

Brown on Livingstone: Ken is an “inspirational figure” and a “crusading mayor”. Thank you, we’ll have none of your moral turpitude here: US immigration officials deny entry to London dandy Sebastian Horsley. Gap-owned Banana Republic opens its first UK store on Regent Street today amid allegations that the chain exploits workers in India. City homeless projects to receive £19 million in government funding. Doggy arson: Clueless canine burns down Luddesdown kennel. Fortunately, the hapless......

Madam Tussauds may have given him the brush-off, but Gordon Brown can still count on his fellow statesmen to offer him the clammy hand of comradeship. Today he welcomed the US Republican presidential candidate to London, while he also announced plans to chew the fat with the Dalai Lama and the new Russian president later in the year. John McCain, the GOP nominee and oven chip czar, winged into town today on the latest......

The blink-or-you'll-miss-it honeymoon that Gordon Brown enjoyed last summer seems a lifetime ago. Amidst the Northern Rock fiasco, poll drubbings by the Tories and an economy on the turn, along comes another, devastating blow to the PM's authority: Madam Tussauds has declared that he is "too obscure" to merit a waxwork. The Marylebone tourist magnet has announced that they will not be making a waxwork of Brown for their World Leaders department, citing his......

Harrygate escalates: Prince pulled out of Afghanistan, whilst the media whip selves into frenzy over involvement in the news blackout/leak. Winegate averted (for now): Winehouse will not face charges in connection with husband’s alleged attempts to pervert justice. Guess which city is the world’s museum capital? We’ll give you three guesses; first two don’t count. A day after M&S announces it will charge for plastic bags, Gordon Brown indicates that the government is ready......

It's not quite the same as having the local bobby back on the beat, but a scheme trialled in south London that addresses public unease with the remote, impersonal nature of modern policing is set to be rolled out across London. The £325 million Home Office plan will see each council ward assigned a team of police and community support officers, with residents given a mobile phone number and email address to contact their......

Met police reception staff are mighty miffed Shooters get shirty about Olympic venue choice Ken bribes the student vote with 100 days till election While Gordon attempts to inspire the world about 2012 with his unique charm and zest Image of the doomed Flying Duck Enterprises in Greenwich courtesy of Mondoagogo via the Londonist flickr group.......

Poor Alison Jackson. It was no problem finding an Elton or a QEII or a pair of Beckhams. There were lookylikeys a plenty lining up to pose in Jackson's compromising and hugely amusing photos and videos. Our new Prime Minister, however, is proving frustratingly difficult to imitate convincingly. The desperate artist took to London's streets yesterday in a spirited to attempt to pluck a dour Brownalike from the crowds, since hardly anyone had turned......

The Heathrow near-disaster was apparently caused by 'lack of thrust'. Gordo sings the praises of the flight crew. 'Metric martyr' to be tried by jury for using Imperial weights. Busted by police from Scotland Yard 0.19444 metres. Did Ken break the rules at the last Mayoral election, asks C4 programme "I know it's a bit scruffy and worn at the edges and some of its ugliness is inexcusable," says Bob Geldof about Kent. Or......

An airliner crash landed at Heathrow this lunchtime. Eye-witnesses on BBC Five Live and forum posters watching on TV suggest that BA38 from Beijing landing on runway 27L at Heathrow, wobbled on an usually low approach angle making a heck of a lot of noise. The rudder nearly clipped the perimeter fence, missing by only a few feet. Its undercarriage seemed to be up and then the plane belly-flopped into the grass short of......

Meet the fish-eating Surrey dinosaur. Nothing to do with Michael Winner. He lives in Holland Park. As a clampdown on knife carrying is announced, Londonist exposes a possible loophole. 'Potential for some chaos' as a sliding scale of parking fines is mooted. London rugby clubs doing well. Wanted: Gordon Brown lookalike. Another Banksy piece set to fetch thousands. File in the same draw as Pete does drugs and Amy does everything. Meanwhile, what's going......

The Mayoral race has been quiet recently. Londonist suspects that it is the calm before the shitstorm. According to a recent poll, Boris is only one point behind Ken. A sign that campaigning is going to start making a dent on the Winehouse news in the London Lite is that Boris, from the blue corner, has launched a new Back Boris website. The photo gallery shows us that recently the campaign trail has taken......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 19. Spinning Argh! No wonder there is apathy. At the time of writing this, a general election is still undecided, although if Gordon Brown goes ahead with it, it could lead to a really exciting time. They are going to really be schmoozing us lot, as our demographic are least likely to vote. In preparation......

After seven years of speculation and debate, London today finally unveiled its tribute to Nelson Mandela. The 9’ high, 1 tonne statue was unveiled by the man himself in the presence of an impressive cast of London’s ‘great and good’, including Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Ken Livingstone and Lord Richard Attenborough. The proceedings were watched by a vast and cheering crowd, and overseen by Disraeli, Churchill, Lincoln and former South African leader Jan Smuts from......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 12. History Repeating Itself? Gordon Brown is clearly still enjoying a prolonged honeymoon period. It must be so. Under ordinary circumstances it would be no surprise to see him suffer for being a leading member of a government that has overseen the second outbreak in 6 years of the debilitating Foot and Mouth disease. Instead......

If you're sick of reading free papers on the tube and fancy a different take on what's going on in the world, then we've found just the thing for you. Now, it's not often you get theatre in a tent in London, but from Thursday 27th July - Tuesday 31st July, you'll be able to see just that from actors at The Albany in Deptford, Downham Health & Leisure Centre, and The Dolphin Public......

The last woman ever to be hanged by the British government, Ruth Ellis, is back in the news 52 years after her execution. A petition to have the Ellis case reopened is being supported by Gordon Brown after new evidence possibly exonerating Ellis was brought to light. Author Monica Weller, who was doing research for a book with Ellis’s sister, claims that evidence never heard at the trial may have resulted in a much......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 10. Integrity So about Jacqui Smith and the… erm… ‘crazy drug fuelled youth of half the cabinet’. Don’t you just cringe when politicians are backed in to a corner and have to squirm? Then they go back, have a meeting with the rest of the cabinet to orchestrate their best response. So it would seem......

It's by-election day in Ealing Southall. The West London constituency is bereft of a representative following the death of Piara Kabra. The Labour politician was the UK's oldest at 82. Twelve hopefuls are vying for victory. Virenda Kumar Sharma is the Labour candidate, while Nigel Bakhai stands for the Lib Dems. Tony Lit, meanwhile, represents 'David Cameron's Conservatives'. What? Is that to distinguish them from Gordon Brown's Conservatives? Or is it some kind of......

The one-man protest that is Brian Haw, the only demonstrator allowed to air his views inside Parliament Square, may find himself surrounded soon. Instead of police circling him, however, it may well be other placard-waving peaceniks. Newly-minted PM Gordon Brown has called for a change in laws squelching the public’s right to protest within the grounds immediately surrounding Parliament. Currently, demonstrating in this area without prior police permission is prohibited by the Serious Organised......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 7. Girl Power All in all, this has been a pretty major week. We’ve had the highs, lows and inevitable mud bath of the Glastonbury Festival. For an event that focused on the issue of climate change it is ironic that whilst its performers sang, the country was subjected to record downfalls amid unseasonable storms.......

A gang of Albanian assassins murdered a rival in a disagreement over the who was to steal from London's parking meters. Register your bike with the Met and then if it gets stolen and subsequently recovered, it will be returned to you and you can ponder what to do with it now that you've bought a new one. Paddy Ashdown was offered a job in Gordon Brown's cabinet but refused it. A London wide......

Who likes a good Anglo-Saxon helmet more than Londonist is a question we had no answer to... until now. It turns out that the one thing that MPs love more than preventing "foreigners" from "stealing our benefits" is tearing around the House of Commons in priceless ancient battle garb: Andrew Morrison, curator of archaeology at the Yorkshire Museum, is convinced that the three days and two sleepless nights guarding the helmet were worthwhile, reporting......

Westminster Council has unveiled what are thought to be the first two recharging points for cars in the UK. The borough suffers from the UK's highest levels of air pollution caused by the amount of traffic flowing in and out of central London. Electric cars produce no pollutants and are exempt from the congestion charge, which will come as welcome news to US embassy staff. The recharging points may also come in handy for......