And it worked. After months of news items devoted to Heathrow's T5, baggage mishaps, proposed terminal and runway expansions, and Greenpeace protests, the UK’s third busiest airport has finally said to hell with all that and made its own bid for a bit of attention. And what a bid it is. BAA’s plans to double the size of Stansted – second runway, second terminal, open for business by 2015 – would mean, according to......

There are just too many good events around town this week for us to narrow our picks for certain nights. Thus we present you with multiple options and leave that difficult choice to you. In the meantime, we’ll be brushing up on our science fiction in an effort to figure out how to move quickly from event to event. The solution? Teleporting. Clearly. Monday: writLoud returns to RADA tonight. We like this event, as......

Residents vs. architects: Those who live in Robin Hood Gardens want the estate demolished, whilst architects fight to save “seminal” modernist buildings. Your daily crime round-up: “Osama bin London” jailed indefinitely; cleaner who killed 94-year-old widow jailed for life; financial trader denies involvement in murder of wealthy writer. We’re sensing a pattern here: Man scales Japanese embassy in London to protest Japanese whaling. Met to build firearms training centre near Heathrow; increased security concerns......

Well damn. Just as we were preparing to submit our accumulated evidence that Paula Radcliffe deserves admission to the International Super Heroes Hall of Fame (wherever that may be), word comes today of a crack in the steely exterior of the marathon world record holder. The three-time London Marathon winner has been forced to withdraw from this year’s event due to an injury to a tendon in her toe (tendons! in the toe! yet......

Back before there was Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, or Meg Ryan and virtually any other male lead, there was Kate Hepburn and Cary Grant, Kate Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Kate Hepburn and – well, you get the idea. Never seen the inimitable Ms Hepburn on the silver screen before? Now’s your chance: she and a host of other sharp, witty, irrepressible, and, of course, gorgeous comedic heroines will......

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......

Aren’t old people delightful? So feisty! Such spunk! When they’re not threatening your five-year-old with an iron bar, they might be off practising kung fu on would-be teen muggers (and quite rightly – punks) or dispensing advice to lad mag readers. This much is clear: retirement just isn’t what it used to be. Witness Buster Martin, the 101-year-old with an invincibility complex. And no wonder. After first gaining notoriety for refusing to take a......

March already? How did that happen? The perils of having our head buried in a book so much of the time, no doubt. If we must emerge this week from our cosy little book-enclosed chrysalis, it’ll likely be to head to the following events. Monday: The RSL-sponsored TS Eliot Memorial meeting brings together award-winning poets Alice Oswald and Kathleen Jamie for an evening of readings from their work. Both have been lauded for the......

Will we please shut up about these books already? Yes, we will. But not before telling you one last time just how much we enjoyed Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris and how much we look forward to reading Apples by Richard Milward and Submarine by Joe Dunthorne. Our enthusiasm was reaffirmed Thursday evening at Bardens Boudoir, where Milward, Dunthorne, and Ferris each read from their debut novels, as part of......

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......

Time was when getting into the Guinness Book of World Records really meant something. You had to walk 130 kilometres with a milk bottle balanced on your head. Or keep on teasing the ladies with your Hot Stuff routine well into your sixties in order to qualify as the world’s Oldest Male Stripper. Now, it seems, all you have to do is drink a cup of coffee. At least we know that we all......

Blogophobia: an irrational fear, intolerance of, or aversion to the blogosphere. Martin Amis has been accused of far worse, but after hearing him talk at RADA yesterday evening, this was the only accusation we felt it safe to lodge against him. The offending remark came early in the evening when, during his reading from the recently published The Second Plane, Amis effectively dissed Londonist and its ilk as “semi-literate windbags of the blogosphere”. Gauntlet,......

Ah, the transformative powers of education. Last week, we saw the kiddies philosophizing. This week, we learn of prison inmates dramatizing. And this isn’t just any kind of dramatizing, nor is this just any prison: This is Shakespeare as performed by the inmates of the California State Correctional System, in collaboration with the London Shakespeare Workout Prison Project. Forgive us our naiveté if upon spotting this photo we weren’t immediately reminded of a scene......

Fortunately, there are as yet no news reports of the sky tumbling down. No, it wasn’t a case of a bad couple of pints you got at the pub yesterday evening, nor was it the magnitude of the moment you were sharing with that special someone – the earth literally did move last night. Registering in at a 5.3, according to the British Geological Survey, it is the largest earthquake the UK has experienced......

Even on its quietest weeks, London is something of a happy haven for bibliophiles such as ourselves, though we may be doing nothing more than perusing one of the city’s many lovely bookshops. This week, however, we’re in a veritable book geek heaven, as the London literary scene goes all glittery, playing host to some major names and fantastic events, leaving us tongue-tied and weak at the knees. Do we gush? Very well then,......

Hang on to your TLSs. Literary London is a lioness roaring in a few weeks ahead of her regularly scheduled appearance in March. With both the London Word Festival and Jewish Book Week launching this week, we’ve got enough events in our diary to keep us busy until spring. Keep an eye on this space as we highlight our favourites from these festivals over the next couple of weeks. Monday: You want poetry? RADA’s......

The stats continue to astound: 1 in 6 women has been raped 2 women are murdered each week by a partner or ex-partner 98 percent of domestic violence goes unreported 50 percent of women seeking asylum in Britain are fleeing rape U.S. researchers estimate that only one third of women report rape by a stranger; that number declines to 13 percent when the rape is by an acquaintance. Perverse though the logic may be,......

Heart it or hate it, you can’t argue with the fact that Valentine’s Day and all its attendant sentiment inspire some pretty fantastic photography. We’ve rounded up some of our favourites from our friends in the Londonist Flickr group. Enjoy... Heart, courtesy of buckaroo kid's flickrstream Courtesy of version-3-point-1's flickrstream......

Pollution pulverised—well, not exactly, but Ken announces hefty £25 C-Charge for heaviest polluting vehicles. Fresh criticism of the “angular mass”—no, not the razor-sharp hip bones on London Fashion Week models. Rather, English Heritage have some sharp words for Doon Street Tower plan. We’re absurdly wealthy. Well, we’re not. But some people in this city apparently are. “Someone else” blamed for the £90,000 worth of Fortnum and Mason merchandise gone missing during a saleswoman’s work......

Attention, gin enthusiasts: Here’s some Valentine’s tomfoolery from which you can actually benefit. “Nostalgic gin purveyors” Hendrick’s are hosting a Victorian Kissing Booth over at Selfridges this week, combining three loves of Londonist that we so rarely get to relish all at once: snogging in public, Victorian dress-up, and gin sampling. Brilliant. The gimmick here is that in order to partake of the gin, you and your sweet cheeks, your sugar booger, your honey......

Thanks to a concerned reader, we were alerted today to a potential tragedy in the making. It seems that the folks over in Monopoly Land are holding an online vote to choose the world’s top twenty cities (in addition to two wild cards) for its Here & Now: World Edition version of the classic game. Winners will be awarded prime real estate slots in the world edition board game – leading us to wonder......

The book grocer’s coffers are chockfull of goodies this week, so let’s jump right in and get shopping... Monday: Crikey. Take a look at author and critic George Steiner’s publishing credits and you have to wonder whether the man has actually slept in the past fifty years. Yet the premise of the prolific writer’s most recent work, My Unwritten Books, is that there are actually some subjects that Steiner has purposely left unexplored. Join......

Congratulations – you can read! (Presumably. Unless you just look at Londonist for the pictures.) Literacy is sexy. Hyper-literacy, even sexier. Or so we at Londonist tell ourselves as we don our Coke-bottle glasses and curl up each night with a bottle of wine and a dictionary. But enough about our steamy Valentine’s Day plans. What have you got planned? Now, you may have inferred that we’re a jaded lot over here at Londonist.......

If so, you’re probably better poised than we are to win a contest kicking off today. So listen up artists, armchair critics, and wannabe designers: HarperCollins, in collaboration with the Saatchi Gallery, are sponsoring a competition to design a book cover for the forthcoming The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal, Sean Dixon’s debut novel. To all our artsy readers: opportunity knocks (though we’re not making any claims about fame and fortune). The collaboration......

Having barely emerged from January’s wreckage of failed New Year’s resolutions, it was with a groan that we greeted the news that Lent arrives early this year. Questions of belief aside, Lent always seems likes such a promising self-improvement programme: give up chocolate, drink less, quit smoking. But didn’t we just make – and break – those same resolutions last month? We’re not such optimists to think we should try again so soon. Perhaps......

Happy February, FOBGs. Another healthy serving of book groceries awaits you this week. Stick to a well-rounded book diet, and you’re sure to stave off a winter cold. We have no actual data to support this contention – we’re book geeks, not science nerds – but it certainly sounds promising. So eat your greens, drink your grains, and check back later this week for a bonus edition of the Book Grocer especially dedicated to......

From time to time we give one of our writers the opportunity to offer a very personal view of a subject that's weighing on their minds. This time it's the turn of Julie, who's been spurred into print by the hoopla surrounding tonight's big NFL showpiece and the return of the league to our city later this year. Happy Superbowl Sunday, London NFL fans! Things have been looking up for you lately, eh? You......

As this Thursday’s the first Thursday, you’re likely thirsting for some First Thursday activity. Fortunately for you First Thursday thirsters, there’s a first-rate event worthy even of your chock-full diaries (you might even note it in ink, but we’ll leave that difficult decision to you): The Museum in Docklands keeps its doors open late this week – we’re going to be coy and let you guess the day – with a lineup that will......

Words: useful little critters, no? Without them we’d be, well, a lot of things, but most certainly out of a job. From puns to poetry, improv to irony, books to blogs, we pretty much revel in all that language has to offer. But no, we will neither confirm nor deny reports that we’ve stayed home on a Friday night for a heated game of Scrabble. What we will confirm, however, is that we greet......

We hope you’re standing up for this: A KCL study finds that sitting on your arse all day contributes to the ageing process. Whereas regular exercise apparently makes you look like Elle MacPherson. In a wholly uncorroborated and unscientific study undertaken in the last 5 minutes, Londonist notes that the rockstar lifestyle isn’t so bad an antidote to ageing either. Our evidence: 56-year-old Sting and 62-year-old Eric Clapton, who will headline Hyde Park’s Hard......