We know the various London freesheets aren't exactly worthy of much attention on the commute home. But if you're going to peruse your work on the journey, it's wise to do as the announcer says and "take all personal belongings with you" when alighting - particularly if your work relates to, say, confidential and highly sensitive material. That's exactly what a clutzy civil servant from the Cabinet Office didn't do, when he left a......

The government today accepted recommendations from a report about improving public-military relations which included the appointment of a "cadet ambassador" for London to do "everything possible" to urge schools to start Combined Cadet Forces and get their pupils to join them and enjoy "a taste of the military". Currently, there are 253 CCFs in England and Wales but only about 60 are in state schools. They provide extra-curricular "military-orientated and adventurous training" with the......

Government departments are being asked to switch from bottled to humble tap water for lubricating the endless meetings involved in running the Civil Service. Hot on the heels of Ken's campaign to get London's diners to insist on tap water in restaurants, this switch could save Whitehall more than £100,000 a year according to a Panorama investigation into council spend on bottled water. DEFRA, which has already made the switch, was draining a jolly......

Of the anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 people who apply for asylum in the UK each year, Amnesty International estimates that approximately two-thirds are turned away. Once rejected, applicants are given 21 days to leave the country, at which point those without children are cut off from financial support and accommodation provided by the National Asylum Support Service. Many, for reasons as complex as those that brought them to the UK in the first......

Despite Londoners being inveigled mere days ago to report any suspicious activity to the police, people in Marylebone are now being advised to, er, do the opposite. The reason? A Home Office-run project is to simulate a dirty bomb attack on the capital. The trials, part of a study called Dispersion of Air Pollution and Penetration into the Local Environment, or DAPPLE, will involve scientists releasing colourless, odourless gas from canisters on the street.......

The next time you're stuck in a black cab ensnarled in traffic on the North Circular, the rain sluicing through the cracked window onto your chinos, and the cabbie turns to you with a wry grin and cracks a line about how great the weather is in San Diego this time of year, be wary: this effusive endorsement of all things Americana may not be as innocent as it seems. US outfit Taxi Promotions......

173 patient medical documents this time. The cache of personal information was discovered in a bag near Kingston Hospital. The files contain data on cancer and HIV patients plus ‘information on those attending conception and addiction clinics, as well as sexual disease and hepatitis test results’. Fortunately, the records are anonymised. But the hospital, ironically an NHS Trust, has no idea how the files escaped. Patients, or customers as they’re probably known these days,......

The Rainbow is long gone, the Hammersmith Palais now lingers only in the memory and even that good old grubby beer stained shit-hole that is the loveable Astoria is under threat. Gigs are selling out in minutes, replacing restaurants and cinemas as the preferred venue for gormless gobblers to converse after work, and yet the property developers keep their beady eyes focused on every venue lease going. How are we going to find the......

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......

Paddington Bear is to face depawtation in an all-new book from octogenarian Michael Bond. London’s favourite bear has been hibearnating for 30 years, but has been prodded awake to celebrate his 50th birthday. Harper Collins have even persuaded the original illustrator, 85 year old Peggy Fortnum, to do the front cover For Paddington Here and Now, Mr. Bond decided he wanted his ursine pal to engage in some upbeat adventures…and Londonist supposes that it......

Or is it? Samina Malik, self-described “lyrical terrorist”, yesterday became the first women sentenced under the Terrorism Act. Found guilty last month of collecting materials “useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”, including original poetry with titles such as How to Behead and The Living Martyrs, the 23-year-old West Londoner was given a suspended jail sentence, during which time she will be required to undertake supervised community service for 18......

It's tempting to bask in the success of the re-branded O2 and write off the building's seven year existence as useless white elephant de nos jours as a bad dream. Unfortunately, that was no nightmare, and it seems that financially the Millennium Dome never stood a chance. The assembled politicians and VIPs had barely clunked their awkward way through Auld Lang Syne on December 31st, 1999, before the whole project was skint. Newly released......

Euston is chosen as the site for a shiny new medical research centre. Heads involved in the Menezes case have started to roll. The results of the mayor’s latest jolly - freebies for Indian businessmen. Hospitals in South London not as clean as they should be. This time it’s dirty instruments. Where there’s a will, there’s not always a way. The government likes the Tate. The mayor’s equality dude is under investigation. Londonist is......

Londonist is a massive fan of two-wheeled transportation, especially when it comes with a gift voucher attached. Yes, the lucky residents of Islington can now give up the motor, get on the manual and be £100 richer. Or even £300 richer, for those who would otherwise fork out £200 annually on a parking permit. We were practically packing the bags and moving to the Borough upon reading this, but alas, the following recent government statistics......

...that the government’s gone a bit loopy, actually. They are still banging on about developing the optimistically titled Thames Gateway region into some eco-wonderland filled with gainfully employed and happy eco-bunnies. Yvette Cooper was due to, er, ‘clarify’ exactly how this can be achieved and for how many spondulicks at a brainstorming forum today. Now Londonist knows that London needs a bit more housing, and is all for the creation of well budgeted, environmentally-friendly utopias......

Recently we've been doing some research on Scotland, and while we haven’t come to any firm conclusions on the West Lothian question, it has prompted us to wonder – would London be better off as an independent country? We’d keep more of our tax money to begin with. It’s been estimated that London subsidises the rest of the UK to the tune of £13 billion a year – so that’s Crossrail paid for by......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 26. Lazy or Incapable? It’s never been easy being a supporter of the England football team. The experience can best be summed up as a periodic frenzy of heightened expectation followed by unexpected and yet inevitable disappointment. And this week, so it was again. Should we have learnt our lesson by now? Expectations have been......

Heathrow Airport: to expand or not to expand, that is the question. The debate can begin in earnest, as today Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly laid out options for consultation, including a potential third runway and sixth terminal. With Terminal 5 not even finished yet, it may seem premature to be discussing more construction work, but the Government stressed that it would take until 2020 for a new runway and terminal to be operational. Kelly......

This dance theatre performance based on Australian David Hicks' experiences as a detainee at Guantanamo Bay packs a lot of visual punches but doesn't speak up enough. Director Nigel Jamieson and choreographer Garry Stewart have created a powerful and breath-taking production that depicts the treatment of those kept by the US government without charge or trial through an astonishing series of aerial work and dance performed inside a huge metal cage. Projections of text......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 24. Llamas As Team Nice and the Niceties Campaign is a year old, last week we spoke of niceties tokens, which is the mechanism that started Team Nice. So this week I thought I would speak a little bit more about Team Nice. Team Nice is an ever-growing group of people (currently just under 1,000)......

When they're not being re-imagined as metaphorical objects in overrated films, plastic bags are unsightly things. A familiar bane of London's landscape, the "urban tumbleweed" is an ecological nightmare. We all know that we're supposed to ditch them in favour of reusables; yet 13 billion bags are issued each year in the UK alone. That's 220 per person. Only one in 200 bags is recycled, while the rest are doomed to landfill sites where......

Londonist is not normally anal or prohibitive about stuff. Hey, we can do nipple tassles with the best of them. And we are utterly dismissive of most of Nanny Government’s patronising dictums. But today we are all up tight….about fireworks of all things. We must confess to a decidedly school-marmly attitude to the things. Sorry ‘n’ all if you’re having a party tonight – we don’t want to dampen your fun or anything. It’s just......

Ear of the Year? It's not a typo, nor is it an attempt to fetishise one of the body's less aesthetically appealing organs through association with their derriere-concerned namesake (though we'd applaud any such effort). The capital's already got plenty of sex if that's your thing. Ear of the Year is in fact part of a campaign by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf. They're trying to find the country's best ear, or......

It's possible that some of you, dear readers, may occasionally travel upon our world famous London Underground. And possible that you may have experienced some discomfort while doing so, maybe a little over-crowding, maybe a little lateness, perhaps even the odd denial of service. Some might argue that these occasional 'blips' in your commute might have arisen through the failings of the tube maintenance firm, Metronet (now in administration after a predicted £2bn overspend).......

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......

Those bloody Victorians could never build anything properly. The House of Commons chamber is leaking, and may have to be closed down for three years while the roof is repaired. This means one of four things: 1) The Lower House moves to a temporary venue suitable for debating matters of international importance. 2) Rather than closing the chamber, repair-work could be extended over a longer period, taking place during summer recess - this could......

Next week our beleaguered government will be announcing innovative new policies aimed at tackling the public health time bomb of increasingly fat and lazy Londoners. GPs will be prescribing - wait for it - exercise, of all things, and dishing out maps of local parks to encourage us urban, sedentary types to get out there and get fit. Genius, frankly. As long as they don't charge £6.65 per map. Foresight, a government research unit......

Londonist was tickled by an article about a Kingston University chappie who reckons he has found the perfect way to motivate the slothful into taking more exercise. This on a day when this particular Londonista chose to stay in blogging instead of pounding the treadmill. Lecturer Oliver Webb plastered brightly coloured (we’d like to think they were post-it) notes bearing the words:“Seven minutes of stair climbing daily protects your heart" all over the stairwell of......

A glimpse of the future for London rail travel was unveiled today at Hitachi’s depot in Ashford. (And this dumb-broad Londonista thought they just made tellies and stuff). We are to get a bullet train (which some droll spark has named the ‘javelin’ in honour of the Olympics – geddit?) as of 2009. The aim is not only to whisk sports spectators from downtown St. Pancras over to the main-goings-on at the Olympic stadium in......

Apparently many CCTV cameras may as well be doing just that for all the good they are. The Lib Dems have drawn attention to the apparently arbitrary relationship between the number of cameras in each London borough and their respective crime solution rates. There are some councils who have loads and loads of the things (Wandsworth leads the pack here with 993), and yet they are no more successful at the old apprehension of felons......