Now unfortunately, stories about the Royal Mail and any, er, lack of competence therein, are like red flags (bearing yellow insignia) to this Londonist bull. Today’s special postal story is a wondrous tale involving a Christmas journey…but not quite the pilgrimage you might imagine. No, this is about a seasonal greetings card sent from within England to Braemar Avenue, Bounds Green, London. It did indeed arrive in London. Braemar Crescent, London, Ontario. Great, isn’t it?......

Or is it? Samina Malik, self-described “lyrical terrorist”, yesterday became the first women sentenced under the Terrorism Act. Found guilty last month of collecting materials “useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism”, including original poetry with titles such as How to Behead and The Living Martyrs, the 23-year-old West Londoner was given a suspended jail sentence, during which time she will be required to undertake supervised community service for 18......

Bitterness aside (yes, we too were not on the pulse fast enough to bag tickets before their price sky-rocketed), we are rather enjoying the bitch fight that is ‘should Ewan McGregor have been cast as Iago in the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Othello?’ Bloomberg, while slightly disappointed by McGregor’s under-emphasis of evil intent, are definitely the most complimentary of his performance: Fortunately, Ewan McGregor gives a very creditable performance -- codpiece and all ... The......

Maybe it’s because we are Londoners, but Londonist is mightily proud of London in nearly every sense. Even when things get muxed up, or bad stuff happens, the capital shoulders the problem and just gets on with its largely tickety-boo urban grind. Take bugs and rodents for example. They are pretty much part of life in any old-ish city, and it is a well known urban-not-so-mythical-myth that we are never more than a few feet......

It’s funny what it takes to get the townsfolk riled. A few murders here and there, rampant drug abuse, the cost of living, the state of the world…. these are met with little rumbles of protest at best. No, if you really want to get those petitions signed and that drum banged, bring on the dancing girls. Seriously. (Actually, citizens have also been known to unite over shoddy refuse collection, but that too comes down......

Londonist is not normally anal or prohibitive about stuff. Hey, we can do nipple tassles with the best of them. And we are utterly dismissive of most of Nanny Government’s patronising dictums. But today we are all up tight….about fireworks of all things. We must confess to a decidedly school-marmly attitude to the things. Sorry ‘n’ all if you’re having a party tonight – we don’t want to dampen your fun or anything. It’s just......

Londonist does not support prostitution, let’s get this straight right away. But we were pleased to spot this news flash about a Guildford hairdressing Madam having her prison sentence reduced from 18 months to 12 months. Chunxia Bao was very naughty – she made an estimated £200,000 out of her ‘special upstairs salon’, where she employed two prostitutes to administer the old personal touch. Until prostitution is regulated or legalised, running a brothel is a......

From BBC News: London must become car-free if it is to substantially cut carbon dioxide emissions, according to a new report. Crikey. In response to the findings London Green Party member Jenny Jones said: "I have asked the London mayor to do a feasibility study into creating a car free pedestrian zone in central London linking all the main squares and parks. "We need to show that the car no longer rules in London......

The statisticians are at it again. Trying to connect A-B but, just for fun, popping into every shop along the way. Sketching trends with a pencil as there is insufficient data to ink them in. Reading significance into very little. Missing the point. A new survey by the University of East London has produced a map portraying religious segregation in the capital, which concludes that religion is a bigger dividing factor in the city than......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 14. The Right To Protest It seems to me that the government is particularly exposed whenever it is seen to block the right of its citizens to protest. Freedom of speech and the right to protest are two of the founding pillars of democracy, and that is what the government is fighting so many wars......

You've seen those adverts for a well known building society, right? – the ones with the annoying chap explaining that it ‘doesn’t work like that’. Change the building society for the Ordnance Survey (our national mapping agency) and make Google the customer for a farce that has made London the laughing stock of the mapping world. Fly around Google Earth and you will see 3D models of cities around the world, but fly into......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 10. Integrity So about Jacqui Smith and the… erm… ‘crazy drug fuelled youth of half the cabinet’. Don’t you just cringe when politicians are backed in to a corner and have to squirm? Then they go back, have a meeting with the rest of the cabinet to orchestrate their best response. So it would seem......

Two years ago today, four bombs were detonated on London’s public transport system in the morning rush hour, resulting in the deaths of 52 commuters (and four suicide bombers) and injuries to more than 700 others. We all remember that day. We can all tell each other where we were at the time, how close we were to being on one of those trains or that bus, who we knew that actually was caught......

The big day has arrived! I couldn't be happier that never again in this country will I have to play a gig in a smoky room, but it is going to be interesting to see what side effects the new smoking ban has. Scaremongers are predicting that less people will go to gigs if they can't smoke and that the people who do go will keep going running during the performances to smoke. Now......

I've discussed my disinclination to leave my house to see live music in this column before, along with the irony that I expect others to do the exact same thing to see me play. What can I say, I'm a fickle artist! It's not that I don't love and appreciate human beings making music right in front of me, but that there are so many factors that can get in the way of my......

Celebrating the capital's carbuncles, misfits and ne'er-do-wells. 1. The Millennium Dome It might be lambasted as any number of journalistic clichés that are applied to failure, from ‘white elephant’ to ‘waste of taxpayers’ money’, but I think this building is anything but. Misunderstood from its birth, the architectural quality of the scheme has soared over the heads of most, who instead concentrate on the budget. The Richard Rogers Partnership attempted to do exactly what......

1. The Highgate Vampire Note: This article has been amended after complaints from the 'Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester'. We apologise for any misrepresentation. Dusty vaults, ivy-strewn pathways, desecrated coffins and shadowy goings-on. Sounds like something from a Hammer film doesn’t it? However, the hi-jinx of Highgate Cemetery reached just such a gothic climax during the 1960s and early ‘70s when it was alleged that a tall, dark, red-eyed spectre prowled the foggy catacombs of......

At the turn of the millennium, the ‘beast’ of Bexley was born, a headline created by the London press. It was an inaccuracy, a contradiction and a conundrum. A large, seemingly exotic cat fuelled the imagination of the public, evaded the pursuing police, and stirred the sceptics. Something from legend prowling the open spaces, the back gardens of this bustling city? Surely not! However, the sceptics, the press and the police were completely wrong......

There's no question in my mind that My Space is a wonderful thing but I find it alternately inspiring and overwhelming when you get a glimpse of the sheer number of bands and promoters are out there trying to do their thing. It doesn't help that at the majority of gigs I've played on the so-called "toilet circuit" I haven't been that keen on the other bands, I'm not someone who will randomly pop......

Playing a gig as a solo musician can be quite a strange experience. Rocking up to a dingy pub on your own with just a guitar for company can be at once isolating and liberating - you may miss out on the friendly banter of bandmates and friends but it certainly seems to make dealing with calamity easier, as I experienced last Tuesday night. The pub in question - Leonard's on Northampton Road, EC2.......

What were we saying? What were we saying? The Guinness Book of Records, or whatever it calls itself these days, seems to be degenerating into a compendium of stunts and antics. Dedication's what you need? No. What you need is a product to sell and a proactive marketing department. (The virtual lawyers tell us to add the phrase 'in our flippant opinion' here.) To strengthen our case, uktv GOLD are staging a world-record attempt on......

As the fair weather of Spring tentatively approaches, any attempt by the pretty blue sky and sunshine to wean us all off our incessant computer based social networking by dragging us outside is made more difficult by the advent of Trig.com. Based in Sweden, it's designed to be a "new social networking site for an urban and sophisticated web community of dynamic, inspired and creative individuals, who are primarily fuelled by their own dreams,......

This week: my thoughts on the Glastonbury hoo-hah plus a quick round up of forthcoming London music festivals for every budget I was supposed to be meeting up with a friend this morning to have breakfast and catch up but got blown out because she wanted to stay home on the internet trying to get Glastonbury tickets. I'm fine with that, after all I understand how important it is to get tickets to see......

I very randomly won tickets to see Scott Matthews play an intimate gig at Islington Bar Academy on Tuesday night, as part of the Xfm sessions series. After being blown away by his album "Passing Stranger" I was disappointed to leave the venue feeling slightly underwhelmed by the evening's proceedings. It mostly wasn't Scott's fault. What became clear throughout the course of the evening was that, while a lot of people who enter competitions......

I had my first gig of the year a couple of weeks ago - a birthday party in a Masonic Lodge in Kent. Not my usual venue of choice for playing rock music, it has to be said, and my globophobia (fear of balloons, yes, I know, weird) reared its ugly head when I discovered the room we were playing in was filled with about 50 of the little bastards. Faced with the choice......

We've always been slightly amused by the word 'oyster'. Following the pattern of trickster and punster, it should refer to one who delights in shouting 'Oy!'. Which is exactly what we say to Transport for London. Today, the BBC revealed that 18,000 people per day are not using their oyster cards correctly, and are thus charged full fare. Shashi Verma, director of Oyster cards, has this to say: If people use the system as......

Lately I’ve been going to watch more gigs than play them, it’s been quite nice to have a rest! The most unusual was at The Horse Hospital a couple of weeks ago. The McCarricks (recent interview here) were performing pieces from their “Music From The Third Floor” show and had also composed new tracks to play to some Norman McLaren films. According to the programme McLaren’s “innovative animated film techniques often eliminated the camera......

Please don't tell us that people like this are now encouraging others : Dickon, 19, performed a poem called Setting My Hair on fire last week outside the Bentall Centre, which involved him setting fire to some strands of his hair. This was the first in a series of performance poems which Dickon says explores the theme of celebrity disappointment. "Disappointment is a big issue in my current work. I am constantly disappointed by......

I reviewed Kristin Hersh's spellbinding album preview show at the Arts Theatre last time and on Tuesday night I got the opportunity not only to watch her perform a powerful acoustic set with The McCarricks but to meet her in person. We had quite a chat... First of all how are you, how are the shows going, are you enjoying yourself? I haven't had any shows really because it's a promo tour. I'm about......

Mark McGowan is the 'artist' who does his best to get into the press by creating 'art' that gets him into the papers. You'll remember him from such installations as 'Hey media! Look at me push a peanut with my nose, as well as 'Look at me, I left a tap running (until I was told to turn it off)' and 'Don't beat me up for keying your car, I'm an ARTIST'. His last......