Tamil people in London have hit the news twice this week for very different reasons. Firstly, seems Croydon is in the grip of gang fear following a spate of violent clashes in recent years. Local police claim these Tamil gangs are "tooled up" and looking for trouble. On Monday 4 young Tamil men were found guilty at the Old Bailey for committing the so-called "Chicken Cottage murder" last year. The men denied all charges. At......

He’s back! Since we first heard the news that Paddington Bear would, after a 30-year sabbatical, shake off the dust of our bookshelves and embark on some fresh adventures, it’s been all we could do to contain our excitement – though stuffing ourselves with marmalade sandwiches certainly has helped. The wait is over. Paddington – or P.Bear, as we like to call him – is back in bookstores this week for his twelfth outing,......

Slightly-odd Liza Minnelli was detained last night at Heathrow. No, not because of Class A's in her luggage. Nor was it because of some Diana Ross-style diva fit. This was simply due to sheer incompetence by her team. Apparently they had failed to arrange her a Work Permit. While the definition of 'Work' might normally mean 'Plumbing' or 'Banking', it also seems to cover 'Being Freakish But Kind-of Fascinating on Stage', as Liza has......

The Times thought so back in February and now today the BBC piles in with how Mrs Uminska got fed up with London life and declares the the tide of Polish immigration to the UK, specifically to London, is now turning. Mrs Uminska came to work in London to earn better money than she would at home in Warsaw and to improve her English. She doesn't moan about her nursing home job or about......

Fancy getting sporty next summer? Two day athletics beano planned. Thames Gateway staff turnaround. Don't suppose it will be the last. Peckham's Universal Church of the Kingdom of God is praying for a financial revelation. Daffy immigration rules hit football. 2012 budget in the news again: this time it's security issues. Image taken in St James' Park yesterday courtesy of daveograve@ via the Londonist flickr group.......

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......

The Brixton Academy rocks, but Brixton doesn’t. The buzz of yet another film premiere. Bad weather forecast for tomorrow’s climate march. TPT BMW AWOL Now immigration is an issue in footie too. Aren't tourists fun? Piccie courtesy of Adam Tinworth’s flickr photo stream.......

The nation’s favourite supermarket (not) plays Scrooge with its staff. Police everywhere would like us to party carefully this season. Quite right too. The food police go to work on a hedgehog. The regular police get to play with tasers, even tho’ it is against their own better judgment. The immigration and detention centre at Colnbrook isn’t a very nice place. So why is it there? Finally, in slightly happier news, we are back......

Here’s what we’ve learned this weekend: Today is Remembrance Sunday which actually falls on 11th November - Armistice Day. The Queen and other Royals attended the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall last night. The Ceremony of Remembrance and Cenotaph Parade take place on Whitehall from 10.30am with Two Minute Silence at 11:00am. There was some pomp, circumstance and kids with strawberries on their heads at the Lord Mayor's Show yesterday. The......

Anyone looking at this case for the first time would be dumbfounded. Were the Metropolitan Police Force in breach of health and safety laws when they shot an innocent man seven times in the head? Health and safety laws? Isn't that like prosecuting Genghis Khan for illegal immigration? Terminology aside, the Met were yesterday found guilty of endangering the public when, on 22 July 2005, they misidentified Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes as a......

On weekend nights it’s a long wait for a drink in our local. That and all the news lately about how this tiny island might soon be home to millions more people has got us thinking about Thomas Malthus. Malthus was the chief curmudgeon of the early 19th century, the person responsible for establishing the reputation of economics as the ‘dismal science'. Improvements in agriculture, he predicted, would never keep up with expanding population,......

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......

New figures released yesterday show, well, they show that London is pretty much doing what it always does: changing. Quite how is not entirely apparent. The newspapers managed to get some headline footage out of the statistics – the Daily Mail even ran a story about the UK population across the whole of the front page. And of course, there is some stuff to report. Most significantly, shedsful of Londoners are upping camp and shipping......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

Lily Allen’s bouncy song "Smile" has obviously had no effect on the meanest people on the planet: US Immigration Officials. The pop star, aged 22, was detained at Los Angeles International Airport for five hours while questioned about the caution she received in June for an alleged assault she committed in London. The bad news is that her work visa was revoked. The good news is that she was not strip searched, nor did......

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, MP for Henley, journalist, historian, author and everyone’s favourite upper-class twit is being considered as the Conservative candidate for London’s mayor. After being questioned on whether he would like to run in 2008 against Mayor Ken, Boris enthusiastically harumphed, "Being Mayor of London would be a fantastic job and anyone who loves London would want to consider the possibility very carefully." He went on to state that he does......

Flying’s not been getting good press lately what with us all worrying about our carbon footprints and the end of the world being nigh. With summer holiday season approaching, then, and with us having quashed our environmental guilt and said, ‘Dammit, I deserve my cheap, Mediterranean jaunt in the sun’ it is rather disheartening to learn that the big boss of Heathrow has openly admitted his airport makes him cringe and we’re all in......

This week – rage causes a lot of trouble in 28 Weeks Later and the memoirs of Nelson Mandela’s prison guard are opened in Goodbye Bafana. In 28 Days Later the Rage virus spread throughout Britain leaving it full of dead people and those that had killed them. Now, in 28 Weeks Later, the US Army has come to restore order, repopulate the city of London and, during the same process, also reunite families. Among......

Ken has accused immigration staff at airports of treating foreign arrivals in a racist manner. A couple went sunbathing on a horse training track and were almost trampled. Dartford FC's new eco-friendly stadium has been described as "better than Wembley". A man has published a chronicle of all his visits to the toilet in one year. Don't buy it. Please. Not even if it's someone's birthday and you can't think of what else to......

Edgware Road shisha cafe's and the ban on smoking. Something's gotta give. Boxing postman and the campaign against binge drinking. We love local news. London Marathon and a solution to its litter problem. Lorry drivers and the campaign to kill fewer cyclists. And UK immigration crack down on dangerous Doggs. Image courtesy of buckaroo kid via the Londonist flickr group.......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor spending a......

Crazy story in The Independent today: A former British National Party election candidate who stockpiled explosive chemicals for use in an anticipated civil war in Britain boasted that he would shoot Tony Blair... Police raided the home of Robert Cottage, who held "strong views on immigration", and found 21 types of chemicals which could create explosives when mixed together, along with a 300-page computer document called the "Anarchy Cookbook", which detailed how to make......

So first we say we can put on a better Olympics than Paris and much to our surprise we were taken seriously. Much backtracking later and a LOT of scaling down of the very same plans that won us the bid, we realise that we can't afford it. And now the new security director of the 2012 London Olympics reckons that al-Qaida will want in on the games too: The al-Qaida terrorist group is......

BBC: Large-scale disturbances are taking place in the UK's largest immigration detention centre. Police, prison officers and fire crews were called to the Harmondsworth centre, west London, in the early hours after a number of fires were started. About 50 detainees have been seen in a courtyard spelling out the words help and SOS with bed sheets. A prisons' watchdog report criticised the centre's regime this week after repeated disturbances there. In their July......

This week - Sofia Coppola tells the story of the French queen, (Marie Antoinette), a tale from British ASBO land (The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael) and a family is torn apart by bigotted attitudes to immigration, (Gypo). When writing this column, reading all of the reviews side by side, it becomes clear to us that some homework copying goes on. Either that or great minds (and let's be straight about this this -......

100 known troublemakers have already been arrested ahead of this weekend's Notting Hill Carnival. Not only that but metal detectors will be in full force at tube stations on the day. Just remember not to call it shit. An influx of immigrants into Britain has pushed the UK population above 60 million for the first time ever. Pluto is finally stripped of it's planetary status after fierce arguments at the International Astronomical Union yesterday.......

Those who hate both Big Brother (daily, all the time, C4/E4) and the World Cup might well have entertained thoughts of entering a house of peace, and taking holy orders. Potential bonuses include: no more trying to find things to delete because Systems Administrator tells you that you're over your mailbox limit; no more deadlines; no more £3.50 pints of beer; no more floating in a sea of sweat on the Tube; no more......

Crossrail. Will they, won’t they? This project has been hanging around longer than a sloth in a gibbet. And seems to be causing a comparable stink. At least with the residents of Spitalfields and Whitechapel, where ‘No to Crossrail’ signs are as common as Brick Lane tikka touts. Today, a new concern about the much-delayed rail link surfaced. The Museum of Immigration and Diversity, at 19 Princelet Street, claim that construction work could undermine......

Those spoilsports in the Immigration Service must have jumped when they saw the BBC's "Wrong Guy" Guy Goma being interviewed in place of Guy Kewney. Just as they did with former Big brother housemate Makosi - they heard the accent and jumped onto the database, checking the legality of his UK residence. It turns out, that (again, like Makosi), his status in the UK is questionable. It is being reported now that Goma is......

The London Assembly Conservatives are blaming the level of bureaucracy and paperwork in the Met for the fact that, on average, they solve fewer than one crime per officer each month. The Shoreditch 'reality CCTV' scheme goes live this week. The media are asking whether it's too much. Today sees the beginning of a nine-week public inquiry over the 'Olympic land grab' in the Lower Lea Valley. Radical preacher Abu Qatada will face the......