Long a feature of the New York summer, yesterday saw crowds estimated at 45,000 turn out for London’s first Salute to Israel, held to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish state / tragedy of the Palestinian people / bungling British withdrawal from tricky bit of Empire (delete as appropriate). A Star-of-David-studded march proceeded down Piccadilly to Trafalgar Square to hear luminaries such as Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosser and er, LBC......

A series celebrating the talent of our friends over in the Londonist Flickr pool who make our site look pretty with their fabulous photographs. Here, they introduce themselves and share their favourite London shots. This picture was taken in July 2006, just over a year before the New Piccadilly café closed. I was hovering outside taking the picture, when the owner Lorenzo Marioni burst out of the door, and surveyed Denman Street as if he......

What happens in a Tube station when all the passengers have gone home? Why do Tube workers carry cards about rat piss? And why isn't standing on the right of an escalator necessarily a good thing? Londonist finds answers on our latest nocturnal investigation. Some of London's busiest Tube stations are in a mess. Missing tiles and chicken-wire cornices are a familiar site, especially at King's Cross and Leicester Square. It's a case of......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd March 1982: The Barbican Centre is opened by the Queen. After 15 years of construction, at a cost of £161 million, the centre would become the largest performing arts centre in Europe (as well as being voted the ugliest building in London). Tuesday – 4th March 1882: Britain’s first electric trams go into operation in Leytonstone, East London. Wednesday – 5th March 1856: The second Covent......

If you like your art noisy, unconventional, mixed up with lots of other stuff, and against a whacky backdrop, and your music electronic and unpredictable, then this is one for you. Noise of Art is an umbrella label for a group of talented musicians under the loose leadership of founder Ben Osbourne. This performance (to celebrate the release of a new album, Picadilly Nite Version #1, this spring) sees them teamed up with the BFI......

Announcing the fourth Londonist guided walk. When: Friday 8 February. What: Piccadilly warriors, sapphic Royalty, bonkers fashion, nazi dogs, naval heroes and lovesick gardeners are amongst the cast on this dysfunctional relationship stroll through St James. Who: Chris Roberts, your genial guide from our previous walks is back. Chris is a veteran tour guide, author of Cross-River Traffic, resurrector of the Penny Dreadful with his One Eye Grey, and all-round top bloke. Where: Meet......

Every day this month the Londonist team will be pointing you in the direction of a Christmas present that (with a bit of luck) you won't already have on your list. Climb up onto our collective lap and we'll see what we can move from our sack to your stockings... A large shop with gorgeous window displays most of us can only look at rather than touch, Fortnum and Mason is a pillar of......

30. Phantom Assailants: Part Two One hundred years before the fog-saturated reign of Jack The Ripper there was the London Monster of 1788 (see previous episode). Fifty years later came the bewildering spectacle of the iron-clawed Spring Heeled Jack (episode 11), another tormentor and slasher of females. Fast-forward almost thirty-years and gasp at the horror of the Phantom Skirt-Slasher Of Piccadilly, who for a terrifying reign of six-months prowled the London underground like some......

Never knowingly underrated - his was the sole photographic contribution to a recent Phaidon book about art history - Canadian photographer Jeff Wall is best known for his imposingly large colour transparencies that evoke scenes from unmade films. For his first UK show since a 2005 Tate retrospective, Wall has filled the lower half of the White Cube in Mason's Yard, SW1 with a selection of his lesser-known black and white photos. Drained of......

It's definitely time to start scrimping on things so you've plenty of dosh for those Christmas outings and present buying blitzes. London on the Cheap returns after a hiatus (we were temporarily flush, we made the most of it...) to help you get the most of the city on the scrag ends in your pocket. Monday: Get in the right frame of mind for Christmas shopping. Fortnum and Mason has just emerged from its......

News of a film installation to be unveiled at Rayners Lane and Sudbury Town stations shortly alerted us to the fact that TfL's jolly and diverse Platform for Art programme had undergone a rebrand and will be relaunching as Art on the Underground at the end of this month. There's not much in a name, of course, but always fans of wordplay and puns we rather liked "Platform for Art". However, TfL has opted......

Had TfL existed in his time, the great Samuel Johnson may well have amended his famous aphorism to read "a man who is bored of London needs to hop on the number 19 bus". In its perambulation from Battersea to Finsbury Park, the 19 cuts a swath across the capital's economic and cultural barriers, revealing the world within one city that modern London manifests. Vogue has certainly been impressed by the number 19. The......

The world’s busiest international airport is also the world’s least favourite. Delays on the tarmac and in the terminals have led a survey of 2,500 travellers to vote Heathrow as their least favourite airport. The airport, currently operating beyond its intended capacity, has been slowed down by increased security checks and had kept passengers waiting for their baggage, and passengers have also complained that their luggage frequently goes missing. The BAA, who own Heathrow,......

Every now and then, a bit of London-centric news drifts around the Londonist newsroom (which doesn't exist but imagine a bunch of emails flying around in lieu of an actual office) and is not paid that much attention. However, there comes a time when something requires a closer look for what it is really saying, such as this report on a poll for the top ten London film locations. Commissioned by cinema advertising company......

Londonist was privileged enough to be able to sneak a quick interview with Gavin Pretor-Pinney in between his cloud-gazing activities and his idling. Actually, that was a very weak attempt at a clever introduction. Let’s try again with a drum roll this time. Meet Gavin Pretor-Pinhey, the iconic founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society, and the co-founder of The Idler. Oh, and proud London resident. Gavin, Londonist can easily understand idling (what is blogging except......

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......

Harrow motorist in jail after 172 mph motorway run. DNA to the rescue in decades-old murder case. London has nine spots that breech EU pollution limits. Once the Big Smoke always the Big Smoke. The Telegraph has a guide to London. They recommend you visit the New Piccadilly Café. We recommend you do not, unless you're a fan of 'Closed' signs. Image courtesy of tezzer57 via the Londonist flickr group.......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 17th September 1961: Police arrest 1,314 demonstrators at a CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) protest in Trafalgar Square. Bertrand Russell is amongst those arrested. Tuesday – 18th September 1970: Guitar legend Jimi Hendrix is found dead in his basement flat in Notting Hill, west London. A subsequent inquest records an open verdict on his death, noting that he drank wine and took nine sleeping pills the previous......

Extremist literature in our libraries. Filed under 9/11 in the Dewey Decimal system? Man makes 15,000 nuisance phone calls. By way of community service, he's been given Bob Crow's number and unlimited calling credits. Alcoholic jockey tells court "Don't tag me, I won't be able to get my riding boots on". Sir Ian Blair receives another grilling over Menezes shooting. Image of the closing New Piccadilly Cafe courtesy of buckaroo kid via the Londonist......

Or, stuff about London you think is true, but is actually rubbish. 1. The Eros statue in Piccadilly Circus. Ah, the Eros statue. A symbol of love in the midst of tourists and shoppers. How romantic. Er, actually, sorry to dissapoint you, but it's all rubbish. Think we're making it up? Allow us to explain. The statue is a memorial to The 7th Earl of Shaftsbury (yep, that's where the avenue got its name) and......

We all knew it was coming. Yet another tube strike. As of 6pm this evening, we're going to see 72 hours of chaos as more than 2,300 RMT members have promised to walk out. (The TFL website says services will not return to normal until Friday morning.) And what can we do about it? Absolutely nothing. We've been told to 'finish our journeys by 5pm or jump on the DLR'. So what's the deal?......

Members of three transport unions are downing tools in September. And it's a packed diary of inaction. September 3: a 72-hour RMT/Unite strike begins at 6pm. September 4: a 48-hour TSSA strike begins (time not disclosed). September 5: TSSA strike concludes. September 6: RMT strike concludes at 6pm. September 10: a second RMT/Unite strike begins at 6pm. September 13: RMT/Unite strike concludes. The strikes are the latest fallout from the collapse of Metronet - the......

London is experiencing a restaurant boom. Over the past year, 158 new outlets compared to 89 closures were recorded by Harden's for its upcoming 2008 London Restaurants guide. That’s 16 new restaurants more than the former record set in 2005, opening at an annual rate of three times what it was in the early Nineties. Harden’s co-editor, Peter Harden, is so enthused by the increase he’s dubbed this point in time a “golden age......

It looks like summer might actually have arrived in London this week, but if you're determined to stay inside, here are a few things to help you bide the time. On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 30 July The Tower (BBC1, 22:35-11:25) After the disputes last week about whether or not the Pepys Estate was being represented fairly in this 8 part documentary, this is your chance to form your own opinion. In episode 6,......

Bringing a bit of brightness to the capital this Sunday is the Hindu festival Rathayatra, a huge event for Lord Krishna and his followers. Starting at Hyde Park Corner at 12.00pm, three enormous, highly decorated beautiful carts each holding a deity will lead a procession to Trafalgar Square. The three deities transported by cart are the centrepiece of this celebration; Hindus and non-Hindus are welcome to follow the progress of Sri Jagannatha, Srimate Subhadra,......

Fresh this Week: Amr Gharbeia and Hari Kunzru consider the internet as a space for free expression and censorship at this event tonight. Amr Gharbeia is a leading Egyptian blogger, currently facing a legal campaign to block his website along with other blogs and human rights sites in Egypt. Hari Kunzru's novels and non-fiction engage with the theme of new technology and his recent writing highlights the complexities of internet censorship as a source......

We think everybody who attended Saturday's sun-soaked Tour de France Prologue would agree that, on the whole, it was a well-organised, popular success. However, with the shadow of the Olympics hanging over every large scale sporting happening in London between now and 2012 our experiences at the race lead us to believe that there are still a few important tweaks that could be made for events like this in the lead up to the......

As the buzz surrounding the weekend's Tour de France action in London builds steadily, more and more people are asking where will be the best places to watch, especially during the Prologue individual time trial on Saturday afternoon. Unlike the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, where the best vantage points are well established, there's no obvious form to go on for this one-off cycling spectacular in terms of where to set out your viewing stall......

The London Review of Breakfasts checks out the Breakfast Club in Islington, and they are impressed with the Full English (plus some) that they get for 7 quid, even though it's the tiniest bit burnt. Russell Davies of the very aptly named eggbaconchipsandbeans laments the end of that very classic cafe, the New Piccadilly. Be sure to check out his Flickr group for photos of the New Piccadilly through the ages. One of the......

A nasty day in London, when it seems we came close to something even more horrific than 7 July two years ago. And rumours are circulating of another discovery in Park Lane. Sky News have a lead suggesting disaster was averted by the first cop on the scene, who saw the car was wired to blow, and diffused the device. The facts as we currently know them: • The attempted attack took place around......