If you’re an estate agent reading this, then: a) quite frankly you should be looking on job websites instead b) if you think you’ve got it bad with the credit crunch, spare a thought for Waqas Malik, the East-London estate agent who was kidnapped and tortured after sacking an employee. Ambreen Gul, 23, was found guilty of false imprisonment at Southwark Crown Court yesterday. Her three accomplices, all of a similarly tender age, were......

Pity the poor residents of Southgate Road, N1. With half the street in Islington, the other bound to Hackney how are they meant to know if they're coming or going, let alone which day what rubbish collection is? For it seems that living here is very complicated if you're keen to separate your waste and use council recycling services. Friends of the Earth have condemned Southgate Road as "the most confusing in the country......

Vyner Street is like a scruffy version of Cork Street set in the tubeless expanse of Hackney. Well, replace the expensive established artists, with the up and coming avant guard and replace the suited rich art lovers at the private views, with eccentrics, artists, and critics (not that there isn't considerable crossover between those categories, obviously). One Thursday a month the place is abuzz with art openings, and people spilling out onto the street......

You can't blame the Queen for not visiting East London very often. You can't get the tube there from Buck House for starters, and since the Number 38 went 'bendy' the Corgis won't get on it. But this week she went to the remarkable length of flying to Istanbul to meet a group of teenagers from Hackney. To be fair, she was on a visit to Turkey anyway. But she spent the day meeting......

Rejoice or recoil: It looks as though the long-rumoured film adaptation of Martin Amis’ London Fields is viable again. Originally announced in 2001 with David Cronenberg directing, the project had been shelved as of 2006. But now, with Hallam Foe’s David Mackenzie slated as the new director, the possibility of the film seeing the light of day is once again alive. The script for the film has long since been completed by Amis and......

49. The Horror Of Hackney Marshes Way back in Episode Four, I very briefly touched upon a bear-like critter roaming London. I would now like to elaborate on the weirdness after seeing so many vague descriptions of events around the web. It began on 27th December 1981, when four young boys came across a beast they described as "a giant great growling hairy thing" as they were playing in the thick snow on the......

Whistleblowing teacher gets £70k for unfair dismissal from smeared Saudi school Islington's courting doggy favour Time for eccentric Hackney "moleman" to cough up for repairs T5 scapegoats selected Frisky Epping Forest woodpeckers get aroused and peckish on fragile church roof Image of Chinatown in layers courtesy of Martin...H via the Londonist flickr group.......

Still a newcomer to the city festival circuit, Field Day returns for a second year to Hackney's Victoria Park on 9 August 2008. The recently announced line-up looks like it should provide a diverse sampling of some of our favourite acts. How could we miss a party that Richie Hawtin, Dan Deacon, The Field and Jeffrey Lewis are rockin'? Unfortunately that question seems to have loads of answers that all involve the word "queue".......

We don't want to get burned again by a false rumour, like the sadly inaccurate story that Madonna was buying a London pub so take the following with a shtickl of salt: Kate Moss has apparently solved her transport woes by snapping up a black cab. The shy, retiring supermodel and occasional moral crusadee has parted company with £45,000 to get her hands on one of LTI's taxi cabs - a LTI-TX4, for those......

Every month, the folks at Fancyapint? get together to vote for their top ten favourite pubs. These are recently visited pubs that for one reason or another (the ambience, the booze, the company) stuck in their collective memory. Kindly, these booze-savvy Fancyapinters have decided to share their latest picks with Londonist and all our readers. Cheers! Here’s the current list from Fancyapint? in no particular order of merit. They assure us that all ten......

In the fall, Hackney had a measles problem. Now, the spots have spread to Lewisham, with 19 cases in January -- a third of the 67 cases reported in south-east London. The Health Protection Agency are warning that we'll be seeing even more sick spotty kiddies in the coming months if more tots aren't vaccinated, so they're making a new push to inform parents. In Lewisham, MMR vaccine uptake is currently 64.3%, while the experts......

Janet Devers, who runs a fruit and veg stall in Dalston's Ridley Road market, is one tough courgette. She is carrying the fight to sell her wares in imperial units all the way to crown court. The pensioner appeared at Thames Magistrates Court last week, charged with some fifteen counts under the (deep breath) Price Marking and Weights and Measurements Act, 1963. Her fearsome rap sheet includes vending imperial measures of fresh fruit to......

The year was 1959, and in an often overlooked corner of Hackney, one of the world's most recognisable Hollywood beauties was bringing just a touch of Californian colour to a peculiarly English affair: a budgie show. Jayne Mansfield, living in London while making the film Too Hot To Handle, was invited to the All Saints church in Haggerston in September 1959 to help judge the East London Budgerigar and Foreign Birds Society show. Michael......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. Wick Café 28 Felstead Street E9 5LT 0208 533 7575 6am-5pm for (Monday-Saturday), 8am-4pm (Sunday) Expect to Pay: around £5 for amply piled dishes of vintage caff favourites Rating: 9 out of 10 This tea peddling East London greasy spoon, where the only thing more high viz than the vests of the chowing workers is the specials signage adorning......

There’s nothing like an outing to Hackney to start the mind whirring about gentrification. And we can think of no surer way to start an argument than to wander into an unreformed East End boozer enthusing about all the new construction and upscale shops popping up in the neighbourhood. The term gentrification was actually born in Islington. It was coined in the 60s by sociologist Ruth Glass, who noticed the phenomenon of middle-class people......

When you're picking up your freesheet on the way home tonight don't just leave it on the train for some other, poor, reading material starved sucker. Turn it into public art! No, we don't mean have an art attack on the platform and start making saucy hats or paper planes (although both are better uses for these "newspapers" than reading them). We mean, go to Gillett Square in Dalston and help build the Newspaper......

Now Londonist gets to see some pretty cool gigs in the name of keeping you apprised of stuff. But NME staff writers we ain’t, and quite often we can only blog and dream. Someone out there has gotta go see The King Blues supporting at this gig ‘cos we can’t and we’re real sore about it. Londonist was racking our rather small brain trying to think of how best to describe The King Blues’......

The arthritic pygmy goats of Clissold Park will be hobbling for joy. Hackney's favourite place, as voted for by borough residents in a 2007 poll, and venue for the yearly Stokefest fun, is set for a £8.9 million revamp. We brought you the news of Cedric the rabbit last year, whose ears were flapping with excitement about the park winning a significant lottery grant. Well, Hackney Council have ponied up another £4.1 million, and......

Whatever happened to BLACK cabs? courtesy of wimbledonian's Flickrstream London cabs are the best in the world according to a poll of worldwide travellers. The ubiquitous Hackney cab is not only an instantly recognisable symbol of our city but the source of much stereotyping, tipping bemusement, drunken rambling and Knowledge bashing but we're all pretty fascinated by this legion of London savvy, chat ready, roving chauffeurs with their orange lights and comfy back seats. Black......

Swanning About Not one, but two Swan Lakes swim into town this week. Take your pick from The Russian State Ballet of Siberia's version at the New Wimbledon Theatre, or the Moscow City Ballet at The Hackney Empire. Expect world-class dance interpretations this classic love story to Tchaikovsky's sublime score at both. Topsy-turvy Theatreland Liverpool comes to Hampstead (in 3 Sisters on Hope Street), Hollywood hits Stratford (Marylin and Ella), and an Asian Tempest......

Hackney wasn't very happy that Jacqui Smith singled it out as an unsafe place to walk alone, late at night. We sympathise with Ms Smith as it's not our favourite place to hoik it home from in the small hours but it was bad press nonetheless. Spotting an opportunity to be a local hero, MP, Diane Abbott, bounced back for the borough and organised a late night stroll round the mean streets of Hackney,......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th February 1915: Norman Wisdom is born in Marylebone. He would become a very successful entertainer, as well as (bizarrely) a cult film icon in Albania. Tuesday – 5th February 1924: The Greenwich Time Signal pips are broadcast on BBC Radio for the first time. (Lots more geeky detail on this is available in our post from this time last year.) Wednesday – 6th February 1875: The......

You might remember the plight of the wonderful Manor Garden Allotments from last year. The green fingered East Enders were eventually evicted and transplanted to a plot of land in Marsh Lane, Leyton after a spirited but unsuccessul fight. Now, however, the ghost of Manor Gardens has been transmuted into art with a reconstruction of the original "community shed" at its heart. Student artist, Thomas Pausz, has constructed the shed as part of his......

You wouldn’t think Jacqui Smith scares easily. In her time as Home Secretary she’s dealt with car bombs and blazing jeeps, and she’s lately been facing down a bunch of mightily annoyed cops. But in an interview appearing today in the Sunday Times, Jacqui revealed that she wouldn’t dare walk down a London street alone at night. Would she feel safe walking alone at night in, say, Hackney, east London? She looks alarmed: “No.......

From the government department for investigating blatantly obvious things - a public consultation into whether learning English helps immigrants feel more at home. Spend the money on the courses, you twonks. BBC names rising music stars for 2008. Don't get too excited. Watch out for our Listen Up! posts instead. Market "intelligence" firms gathering data on public health predict that residents of deprived boroughs, Tower Hamlets, Southwark and City & Hackney are likely to......

Above-inflation fare rises and teeming queues at the ticket machine as people flock to renew their passes; January 2nd is traditionally not the best day for the rail industry. TfL may be harking about a single fare freeze (whilst downplaying the Travelcard fare increase), but for Londoners today the news in general is less good: two of the capitals busiest transport hubs are closed. Liverpool Street station, shut since December 23rd while engineers were......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. Here's our look back at the good, the bad and the hungry of 2007. Since starting What’s for Lunch? in May, we have reviewed forty lunch venues throughout London. We tried the arty, the hearty and the terribly farty. We stirred up a bit of controversy with a mildly approving review of an evil hot dog vendor. And, we......

31. Phantom Assailants: Part Three The last two episodes of the Strangeness have concentrated on bizarre and elusive individuals who have slashed their way into folklore. This third instalment in the mini-series continues the thread except that the victims have been domestic cats! 1998 was a very grisly year throughout the city with regards to frequent mysterious moggie murders, by way of decapitation and tail removal. Forty cats had turned up in eight months......

Four years, countless consultancy fees, umpteen broken promises and many millions of pounds later, Clissold Leisure Centre in Stoke Newington is finally re-opening this weekend. For those who've not followed the saga, here's the story in brief. In 2000 the Centre opened amidst a brass band's worth of pomp and publicity, the very model of a modern, major, New Labour endorsed Lottery-funded Millennium project. Come early 2004, the facility was closed, having accumulated a......

Hackney bringing up the rear in schools table Independent athletics anti doping body to be set up for 2012 Dubai considering selling up in London The story of the Sats results Image of the Regent Street Christmas lights courtesy of ADevlin-Photographer via the Londonist flickr group.......