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......

The National Gallery have announced their rediscovery of a portrait of Elizabeth Carter in a private collection. The painting, done by John Fayram circa 1735-1741, shows Carter as the Roman Goddess Minerva (or the Greek Goddess Athena, if you prefer), goddess of wisdom and war. The portrait will be part of of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery called Brilliant Women: 18th Century Bluestockings, which is running from 13 March to 15 June.......

Pink parenting – a gay parent support group has been founded in East London. Olymponomics are starting to do our heads in – you decipher this for yourselves. Ken is backed by the left. Um, that’s meant to be news? Newly discovered DNA evidence may yet convict the Stephen Lawrence Five. Haringey council is in trouble after a bunch of confidential files were found dumped in a squat. The favourite tipples of the street......

Selfridges go that little bit further to draw in the crowds. There won’t be a criminal enquiry over Lee Jasper’s conduct. But we don’t think that this will be the last of it. Chelsea manager Avram Grant has received anti-semitic death threats. That’s just not football, now is it? Yikes! The £4.00 pint is on its way. You can check out the Brit award winners and losers here. Actually, the losers were all those......

Sickening news this morning that the aspirational Stephen Lawrence Centre, which only opened last week, had bricks thrown through its beautifully designed front windows this morning. It's shocking enough that there are are people out there who are so against a community centre designed and purpose-built to encourage young people, help them out of deprivation and foster better community relations that they feel the need to damage it. Shocking too that this act of......

The Stephen Lawrence Centre will be offically opened by the Mayor in Deptford today. In what is bound to an emotive event, the living memorial has been designed to reflect Stephen Lawrence's own aspirations to become an architect. Not only is it a handsome building but its in-house curriculum will provide education and outreach activities focused around design, architecture, science and engineering for 14-25 year olds living in poverty. It will encourage them to......

We love to be dazzled by youth. Be it Zadie Smith's precocious debut novel, the Arctic Monkeys storming straight to No.1 or Lewis Hamilton tearing up the track in his first F1 season, we are consistently enraptured and delighted by the ability of the young upstart to reach heights to which they have no right and to let rip with flair and skill that is unencumbered by the fear of failure that haunts the......

Tonight marks the climax of nine months' eager anticipation since we broke the news to you that the NFL was coming to town. Two days ago we secured a ticket via the final sale we mentioned last Tuesday and we can't wait for the action to begin at 5pm. If you're catching the game on TV (Sky Sports live, or BBC2 highlights at 10:50pm), you're in plenty of company. The game is being carried......

….you’re just pootling along the high street, minding your (or everybody else’s, if you’re a Londonist) business, when what do you espy? A piano. Just perched there on the pavement. You rub your eyes, and make a vow to cut back a bit on the old Lambrusco/JD/what you will. It cannot be. Ah, you think, it’s a practical joke: there’s a hidden camera somewhere…. Well, this slightly Python-esque scene is likely to be played......

This is Londonist's favourite time of year for comedy in London, because from now until the end of July, the capital is awash with big name comedians playing small and intimate venues for super-cheap prices, while they test out ideas for their forthcoming Edinburgh shows. Here's our recommendations for the best shows in the next week. THURSDAY 28th: Head to The 99 Club in Covent Garden to watch the skilled, offbeat Andrew Lawrence in......

Kind of. The Tricycle theatre is set to follow its stagings of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the Bloody Sunday hearings and the Hutton inquiry with a staged indictment of Tony Blair for a crime of aggression against Iraq. The real PM won't be present of course, but the lawyers, testimony and expert witnesses will be" The theatre will create the event itself and then use actors to stage a condensed version entitled The Indictment......

Ding Dong! The Ashes are back. Excited? Well, you should be. Because the test match series between Australia and England that starts tomorrow, promises to deliver more of the same gut-wrenching levels of joy and despair that illuminated the summer of 2005. This time round, the action takes place at the Gabba and the Wacca, rather than our own Lords and Oval, so we'll be relying even more on our friends in the media......

For four nights only, starting from tonight, the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn is presenting a series of short plays exploring the current situation in Darfur. How Long Is Never? Darfur - a Response features new work by Michael Bhim, Amy Evans, Jennifer Farmer, Carlo Gebler, Juliet Gilkes, Lynn Nottage, Winsome Pinnock. All seven are writers from the Tricycle Bloomberg Writers Group and each have a short play in this special event; each piece is......

It looks like it’s a season of extremes ahead for the capital’s Football League clubs if the predictions at www.statto.com are to be believed. The site showcases an index based on 25 years of league results and claims a 92% correlation between its forecasts and the results of actual matches. On the eve of the big kick-off the index is predicting that Crystal Palace, Millwall and Brentford will be pushing for promotion while Queens......

Some crimes are more than just crimes - the Dreyfus affair is one example that comes readily to mind. In modern Britain, no murder has had more of an impact than that of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 (was it really 13 years ago already?), the black teenager killed by racists, whose murder triggered an inquiry that found institutionalised racism Stephen's murder will never really go away, but it is brought back into the spotlight......

Ahh, now we get it. Sven has become so Anglicised, so steeped in English sporting tradition that he's modelled his world cup challenge on the nation's highly successful rugby team. The idea is to dominate the opposition physically, then get the ball into kicking range where football's answer to Jonny Wilkinson pumps it long and high for the vital score. Accumulate enough of these and no amount of fancy artistry will defeat you! And......

While we're on the subject of unusual pairings (see The Hoff and Bobby Davro below) we should mention the fact that Elton John and Freddie Flintoff are rumoured to be planning a duet in Battersea Park this summer. We realise this sounds as unlikely as, say, the star of Baywatch popping up in Wimbledon dressed as a pirate but we assure you it's true (probably, the story is from the Daily Mail): England's man-of-the-series......

Ken likes his conferences: just this week, he's hosting the Disability Capital Conference in Hammersmith and then on Saturday he's hosting the State of Race Relations in London Conference at his own pad in City Hall. Registration for the DisabilityCapital Conference has now closed but for those who still want to take part or cannot get to the Hammersmith venue, the conference will be broadcast on the Mayor of London website here - the......

So, at the end of the ultimately unsatisfying 2006 RBS 6 Nations tournament, France have emerged as the slightly unconvincing champions, edging ahead of Triple Crown winners Ireland with a superior points difference. And was the final weekend a good one for the tournament’s London-based players? On the up: What a great few weeks it’s been for Thomas Castaignede (France, Saracens). Following his recall a few weeks ago, the experienced full-back has never passed......

Well, with one weekend of the 2006 RBS 6 Nations tournament remaining, the field is beginning to narrow, with France or Ireland looking favourites to lift the trophy following defeats for Scotland and England this weekend. So how did last weekend shape up for the tournament’s London-based players? On the up: It was a great weekend for Raphael Ibanez (France, Wasps), who clearly enjoyed playing a part in France’s demolition of England on Sunday.......

This day in London’s History 1985: Conservative MP Ivan Lawrence made the longest parliamentary speech of the 20th Century. The filibusting backbencher had the house hanging on his every word for 4 hours and 23 minutes, as he argued the case against fluoridating tap water. 1835: 150 years before this supreme act of word creation came the opposite: the complete destruction of a large number of words. On March 6, philosopher John Stuart Mill paid......

It is a sensitive group of souls that inhabit the Londonist sports desk and we felt that it was a little too parky last night to be venturing out last night to have a look at the latest game of international football to grace West London. Fortunately, our man in Shepherds Bush is made of sterner stuff. Here's what went down..... A Caribbean carnival came to frozen West London last night as Trinidad &......

Now that we’re past the mid-point of the 2006 RBS 6 Nations tournament, it’s fascinating to see that the competition is still wide open, with England, Ireland, Scotland and France all in the running to lift the trophy in 3 weeks’ time. There were no less than 11 London-based players involved in the tournament during its third weekend… On the up: At last, Johnny O’Connor (Ireland, Wasps) made it onto the field for the......

So yes it's been rather a while since Londonist went clubbing. January is all about the money saving, and February is all about the gym. This weekend though? It's all about the Guilty Pleasures. Occupying the final Saturday of each month at London's swankiest venue, Koko, the night has come a long way since it's tiny beginning at Hammersmith Working Mens club. It's manifesto is to play those songs which you'd shy away from......

Any Londonist readers get really carried away by yesterday's romance-fest and actually pop the question? Did you buy the ring beforehand? If not, and you're maybe planning a trip down New Bond Street to look for something sparkly this weekend maybe you should pop into Graff. We hear they've got something pretty special in stock. In fact Lawrence Graff managed to break the record for the most money spent per-carrot on a ruby yesterday......

Well, the second weekend of the 6 Nations tournament was less exciting than the opener, but there have still been plenty of ups and downs for the tournament’s increasing number of London-based players… On the up: Proving the theory that experienced players can dig a team out of a tight spot, the recall of veteran back-row forward Olivier Magne (France, London Irish) did France’s fortunes no harm at all in their (mostly) emphatic victory......

Following the explosive opening weekend of the 6 Nations tournament, how have London-based players fared so far? On the up: Coming out of international retirement, veteran ex-captain Lawrence Dallaglio (England, Wasps) proved himself a supremely useful impact player coming off England’s bench in the last quarter of their match against Wales. Five minutes later, he scored a trademark try, powering over the line from the base of the scrum (with some obstructive assistance from......

Hacks across the nation were gearing up today to shout a group "Ha Ha!" in a Nelson from the Simpsons stylee, as they anticpated the announcement from Multiplex, Australian constructors of the new Wembley, that the stadium was NOT going to be ready for the FA Cup Final in May. Our sporting scribes have had to put the schadenfreude on hold however, as the Aussies have instead proclaimed that they will be able to......

That’s right. This week we decided to track down the Leader of the Free World. He might sit in the oval office but, when in London, it seems that he prefers to hang out in squares… FDR, Grosvenor Square You can’t sit comfortably in Grosvenor Square. Armed guards doggedly patrol the Western end, protecting the US embassy. The giant gilt eagle nesting atop this concrete cliff adds another layer of menace. And then there’s its......

The subject of our most recent ENO review, Anthony Minghella's Madame Butterfly is officially a smash hit -- it is completely sold out (although, as ever, standing room and day tickets go on sale at 10 am, and there are always released tickets to be had if you're lucky). In addition, rumour has it that the production is heading for New York, presumably with better singers. All this despite the best efforts of certain......