This Week In London’s History Monday – 21st April 1509: Henry VII dies in Richmond Palace, supposedly as the result of a ‘broken heart’ following the deaths of his son and wife several years before. Tuesday – 22nd April 1925: George Cole is born in Tooting, and given up for adoption. He would become a successful film and television actor, arguably best known for his role as used car dealer Arthur Daley in the......

One of the enthusiastic Olympic buses by Orhan. The Olympic Torch Relay is all over the news this morning for the wrong reasons as far as the organisers and host country are concerned. Was the police presence over egged or was security not tight enough? Were the pro-Tibetan demonstrators treated unfairly and corralled into tight corners when pro-Chinese people were allowed to freely line the streets and wave their flags? Can you separate Olympic values......

Update 17.20: The torch is now nearing the end of its journey, a bizarre spectacle that has seen minor celebrities rub shoulders with jogging police officers and cartoonish torch guardians in blue tracksuits. Dame Ellen McSailor is now shepherding the flame towards the O2, where a celebratory concert is planned (minus the laryngitic Sugababes). Update 14.45: The torch, approaching St Pauls, has been carried onto a London red bus by a man resembling Mr......

The relay that carries the famous Olympic Torch from Greece to its destination every four years is the sort of thing that, if it attracts any notice at all, is seen by many as a quaint and slightly embarassing display of athletic self-importance. Everything passed off quietly when the procession came through four springs ago, but this time we are Hosts In Waiting and the journey finishes in Beijing. Suddenly it's one of the......

Yawn. Londonist is fed up of dour news pieces and negatively-biased research polls foisting bleak forecasts on to the public of an overly expensive and poorly designed 2012 Olympics. Are we heading for the crappest Olympics ever? Is the event going to bankrupt our economy? Who really knows? It’s 4 years away! In this latest survey, carried out by current affairs programme Inside Out, 6 out of 10 Londoners said there was nothing really......

The original sort of Iron Men found on Olympic Park Hitler liked naked lady paintings Cut price bespoke tailoring shakes up Savile Row Seems there's another tube strike on its way zzzzzzz Image of Sarkozy & Bruni in Greenwich this week courtesy of Orhan via the Londonist flickr group.......

The police have been called in, and a full investigation has been launched this morning, to discover how the personal details of the entire BBC Olympic staff have gone missing from a private office within Television Centre. Details of hotel bookings, addresses, photographs and the passport information of the 437-strong workforce attending the Beijing games, including those of Surrey tennis Queen and Cliff Richard stooge, Sue Barker, were first reported missing from their West......

Brown on Livingstone: Ken is an “inspirational figure” and a “crusading mayor”. Thank you, we’ll have none of your moral turpitude here: US immigration officials deny entry to London dandy Sebastian Horsley. Gap-owned Banana Republic opens its first UK store on Regent Street today amid allegations that the chain exploits workers in India. City homeless projects to receive £19 million in government funding. Doggy arson: Clueless canine burns down Luddesdown kennel. Fortunately, the hapless......

No, it's not in anyway related to Gorillaz (except for that bit where Jamie Hewlett does the design). Damon Albarn's operatic adaptation of Journey To The West, which had its premier at the Manchester International Festival last summer, will make its London debut at the Royal Opera House. Monkey: Journey to the West will open in Covent Garden in July as part of a celebration of the Beijing Olympics. Chen Shi-Zheng directed and adapted......

We've spent enough time wading through the flytipped rubbish on our street or struggling to blast the grime off our bodies following a grubby commute home to realise that London's not exactly the cleanest of places. But is it really the dirtiest city in Europe? In a shameless promotion, travel experts Trip Advisor commissioned a survey asking tourists to rank their likes and dislikes across a number of continental destinations, and London cleaned up......

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......

Our environmentally sustainable Mayor is taking on the IOC bigwigs who are demanding VIP fast lanes for a fleet of up to 3000 cars "to take officials, politicians and corporate sponsors to venues" at the 2012 Games. No fool he, cunningly waiting until they'd finished their progress inspection and given a favourable verdict earlier this week. He's not diving headlong into a fight though, preferring to wait until the Beijing Olympics are over this......

Olympic news items are like buses, or decent Boris Johnson policies: you wait for ages then two come along at once. This week we've heard about the package of security measures announced for the Games, while the International Olympic Committee popped by to check up on how we're doing. The announcement in July 2005 of London's Olympic triumph came just hours before the worst terrorist atrocity the city has ever seen, so from the......

Ken's race advisor Lee Jasper steps down Al fresco boozers in Harrow - you're no longer welcome Tessa Jowell unveils Olympic legacy action plan London is Eighties pop star territory: Whitney Houston to follow Prince and Jacko with comeback gig Al Sugar meets Ann Summers: sex shop boss to enter charity Apprentice Cinematic Spitalfields courtesy of Homemade via the Londonist flickr group.......

Boris Johnson might just have won himself the election with a pledge to abolish the bendy bus and bring back the Routemaster. Emotions were high today as the Bethnal Green tube station disaster was commemorated, 65 years on. Londonist is feeling left out: we want to climb up something and protest: today saw two up a crane grumbling about the EU Treaty. On the Olympic front, today saw the announcement that the IOC is......

The bus stop killer is banged up for life. Yay! Some of the capital’s best music venues are to get the protection of the law. A Surrey town council backs the Heathrow expansion plans. This is really sad: a depressed mother-of-three commits suicide in an A & E cubicle. Whoops! Somerset House seem to have misplaced two paintings worth £82,000. Psst! Wanna job? If you can build stuff, there are reputedly 182,000 jobs available......

Lunchbox Linford won't carry Olympic flame Yellow box rules for Jubilee Line platforms Affordable homes cheek by jowl with hordes of Sloanes Arsenal's earning loadsamoney New mothers urged to bank umbilical blood Art Deco Dream Home image courtesy of onionbagblogger via the Londonist flickr group.......

2008 is Beijing's Olympic year so we're expecting plenty of 2012 related news, rumblings and international comparisons bouncing round the internet. On the last day of January, our Games have already made the headlines 3 times this week: When overall costs trebled at the end of last year, the Lottery stepped in with a mega loan to the Olympics. This week, Tessa Jowell announced it might take 10 years after the event for any......

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......

Met police reception staff are mighty miffed Shooters get shirty about Olympic venue choice Ken bribes the student vote with 100 days till election While Gordon attempts to inspire the world about 2012 with his unique charm and zest Image of the doomed Flying Duck Enterprises in Greenwich courtesy of Mondoagogo via the Londonist flickr group.......

Now, stories from the IT world ordinarily don’t do much for Londonist besides make our eyes glaze over. (We’re sorry, IT people, we’re sure you’re lovely, that your jobs are fascinating, and that we wouldn’t be able to do what we do without you. It’s just that we can’t understand what you’re saying.) So when we noticed this story about a new website created to help IT companies bid for contracts for the 2012......

Photograph of the Trump Soho by Riccardo Sinti Gothamist went to the scene of the Trump Soho construction collapse, which left one construction worker dead and others injured (an indirect culprit - Manhattan's hot real estate market, causing rushed construction jobs).Shanghaiist is confused by media reports as to whether Playboy will be available in China during the year of the Olympics.LAist got fugged in an interview with the Go Fug Yourself girls.Torontoist set hearts......

Mere days after warning us about 'white flight' and the perils of living in modern London, scribes at the Telegraph have had a volte-face, and declared their love for our flawed yet fantastic city with a special report on the top 10 property hotspots for 2008. First up on the list: well, colour us a shade of surprised blue - the Telegraph's only singled out the borough of Kensington and Chelsea, home to Notting......

Our friends in Westminster have voted that more money from the Eamon Holmes fronted tax on the poor, the National Lottery, can be used to plug the funding gap for the 2012 Olympics. Culture Secretary James Purnell said the £9.3bn budget for the Games (almost four times the estimate that helped win the bid in 2005) is "robust". We doubt it. How has it suddenly become robust? The real lottery here is determining how much......

Cunning 65 year old, Jean Hutchison, has been jailed for masterminding a devilish fraud haul in excess of £2.4 million through a devious and extraordinarily well organised benefits scam. If that weren't enough, she did it in a secret HQ fashioned through the back of a wardrobe. While most of us scrabble around in the mothballs when we're wee, hoping to find a snowscape and Mr Tumnus, Ms Hutchison created her very own criminal......

The weather is just frightful. And likely to stay that way. At least Londonist can wear their new floral wellies. A growing lobby reckon they’d leave London if Boris gets in. Probably a similar lobby to the ones who are saying that they’ll eat their hats if he gets in. This could be fun. Asda get tough on rogue parkers. Rail firms are to pay compensation for all that New Year hassle and delay.......

She does not, to our knowledge, leap tall buildings in a single bound, have telepathic powers, or possess the ability to control the weather. But Paula Radcliffe, who, we learned today, will be competing again this year in the London Marathon en route to trying for the gold at the summer Olympics in Beijing, could make a claim to a few other superhero abilities. Superhuman strength? Check. She runs 26.2 miles in the time......

Earlier this week, the Trinity project got the go-ahead from the City of London. You might not have heard of Trinity. It’s a cosy threesome of office buildings set for construction in that obscure corner of the City known as Minories. Just shy of 100 m tall, its loftiest section will stand taller than the Westminster Clock Tower. Not so exciting in its own right. But when you look at some of the other......

We're game for these 2012 Olympics and, yesterday, tried to get all excited about the Get Set Roadshow that will be shimmying its way through all 33 Boroughs soon. But then we saw Londonist Flickr Pool contributor, MykReeve's first-hand shot of the thing and were somewhat underwhelmed. Many thanks to MykReeve for being our man on the scene.......