While debate begins over what will be done with recently saved Smithfield market, a gaggle of protesters have taken the bull by the horns and temporarily requisitioned it into a makeshift protest podium. A group of four activists this morning scaled atop the north entrance of the meat supply market, and unfurled a banner cheekily reading: 18% of greenhouse gases are produced by animal farming. Fight climate change - go vegan. Their aim is......

Our Prime Minister got into a sticky situation with a protester. And with that, our obligation to use that godawful and obvious phrase is done. The stickiness in question is the Superglue applied to Gordon Brown's sleeve by Dan Glass, a member of the protest group Plane Stupid with which he was hoping to glue himself to our country's leader to encourage him to 'stick to promises.' Plane Stupid has a reputation for bare......

Tis the season to protest for fair pay. First tube cleaners, then council staff. Last night, waiting staff at Italian chain Carluccios, supported by community group London Citizens joined the call for a living wage. Diners at the Canary Wharf branch were interrupted at their pasta as protestors hoiked up a banner outside the E14 restaurant about their dubious wage terms. As the Independent reports: The company claims that, as a result, waiters are......

Sir Simon Milton appointed Deputy Mayor Wembley Park Sports Ground protestors refuse to budge Ronnie Kray prison barter artwork under the hammer Prince Charles pops down the East End Organisations sign up for the London Child Poverty Pledge (to alleviate it, that is) Image taken at Rise this weekend courtesy of onionbagblogger via the Londonist flickr group.......

Harriet Harman woke up to the sound of overweight superheroes clambering on her roof this morning – for the second time in as many months. Two more Fathers4Justice campaigners have scaled her roof, unfurling a banner saying ‘Stop the War on Dads’ in the process, and vowing to stick it out for the long haul. The two intruders – dressed as Spiderman and Batman – targeted the Minister for Women and Equality because of......

Bush Protest, Parliament Square courtesy of randydandy via the Londonist Flickr pool Following on from our weekend report on the anti-George Bush protests in Parliament Square on Sunday a whole crop of photos have been posted in the Londonist Flickr pool capturing the passion behind the protest and the frankly alarming flashpoint as police barricaded Whitehall. Courtesy of Simon Rigglesworth via the Londonist Flickr pool 25 arrests were reported as allegations of heavy handed policing......

Amid the soap opera of the US Presidential Elections, and with all eyes focused on who will be next in the White House, it has become all too easy to forget that George W Bush is still officially the man in power across the pond. Having been something of a forgotten figure in the British press of late, Bush arrived in the UK today to fulfil the demanding task of sipping tea with the......

Yarrrr! Those Anonymous guys we reported on a while ago are still going strong in their campaign to expose the dodgy practices and nasty tactics of the "Church" of Scientology, and they're planning to make June as enturbulated as possible for the Xenu-believers, with this Saturday's pirate-themed protest outside two of the "Church"'s London sites, codenamed Operation Sea Arrrgh!. The London 'chapter' of Anonymous was greatly heartened by the City of London Police's recent......

Two aviation stories in one day? Reports reach us that a major protest is taking place this afternoon near Heathrow. Now then - the row over a third runway is well-developed. In one corner, pro-expansionists cite the economic benefits to the local area, to London and to the nation of improving an airport that is 98% full. The argument seems pretty water-tight to us (ignore the tourism deficit argument, it's fatuous). In the other......

Entreaties from badly-barnetted glam-rock acts notwithstanding, residents living in Heathrow's flight path can't help but feel the "noize", every sodding morning as the first jet of the day - BA Flight 26 from Hong Kong - roars out of the dawn sky and touches down shortly after 5am. A week after a group of councils lost their case over halting night flights, campaigners are taking a more direct approach to ensure that the aural......

Prepare for gridlock tomorrow when lorry drivers will be protesting rising fuel charges in the capital for the second time in a month. This time, hundreds of drivers are expected to descend on central London where they will park their lorries and present a letter to 10 Downing Street demanding a means to claim back fuel duty. Drivers are currently suffering as haulers are coming from abroad on cheaper fuel. The mass lorry protest......

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, chances are it's a ... This was our thought upon reading the news that a teenage member of Scientology-protesting group Anonymous, who goes by the name EpicNoseGuy on the Enturbulation forums, had his sign confiscated at the May 10th anti-"Church" of Scientology protest in Queen Victoria Street by the City of London police, and has been issued with a......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 28th April 1801: Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, is born at 24 Grosvenor Square. He would become a noted politician and philanthropist, whose works would be commemorated by the construction of the Shaftesbury Memorial (a.k.a. ‘The Angel of Christian Charity’, a.k.a. ‘Eros’) in Piccadilly Circus. Tuesday – 29th April 1745: Cowper Thornhill, keeper of the Bell Inn in Stilton, Cambridgeshire, rides from the inn to Shoreditch......

To West Ealing, where news of residents getting into a lather over lampposts has Londonist asking that age-old, perennially unanswered question: don't folk have anything better to do with their time? Dubbed by one wag as the "Battle of the Bulbs", the row erupted after resident groups gathered to protest Ealing council's decision to remove a number of antique lampposts and rehome them in the Heritage Quarter being developed at West Ealing. Battle lines......

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......

Four Greenpeace protestors mounted a freshly landed Boeing 777 on the tarmac at Heathrow this morning to protest against a 3rd runway and it's implications for the "climate emergency". BAA are calling the protest "unlawful and irresponsible" which it probably is but, more pressingly, how the hell did 4 volunteers with a flourescent banner manage to walk from Terminal One, across the tarmac to the plane and clamber on top of it without hundreds......

Decades ago, Notting Hill/Ladbroke Grove was the hippest part of London: a warren of squats, not quite legal after-hours drinking dens, hippies, proto-punks and political activists. This exhibition at London Print Studio is a commemoration of the posters and printed ephemera of this scene shown along side similar artwork from around the world and from more recent times. This is art born out of necessity; work that says it doesn't actually have to be......

lol Scientology courtesy of Joe Lee They came, they saw, they protested. And trolled Scientology IRL. Meme-heavy but fun, good-natured and above all peaceful, the hordes of Anonymous donned their V masks and descended on the sites of the Church of Scientology, at Blackfriars and at Goodge St. The 'organisers' of the protest - although Anonymous is more an anarcho-syndicalist commune than a top-down hierarchy - professed themselves thrilled with the turn-out, which ran to......

A group of masked protesters will gather outside the Church of Scientology's centres in London on Sunday morning at 11am, starting at the centre on Queen Victoria St before moving on to the Goodge St location. But what has prompted this IRL display of anger? The protests - which will take place in various other countries on the same day - are the latest and strangest episode in an all-out war between the famously......

Photo courtesy of The Sizemore McCabe Project from the Londonist Flickr pool We've just heard about a burglary at a house in Stanmore, north London and the extraordinary swag the thieves took away. Not only was a penny black stamp worth £10,000 among the high-value items in the safe that was ripped out of a wall, there was apparently £175 worth of George Best bank notes. Mixed with our sympathy for the unlucky owners for......

Last Thursday, Amnesty International brought Guantánamo Bay to London's American Embassy to mark 6 years since its opening and, more importantly, to raise the profile of the campaign to close the notorious detention centre. A replica prison cell was installed outside the Embassy and an all night vigil held. Kate Allen, Amnesty's Chief Executive, was one of the prisoners. The following morning, protestors joined the powerfully visual demonstration dressed in orange boiler suits and......

He’s climbed the world’s most iconic structures from the Eiffel Tower to the Petronas Towers. But French ‘Spiderman’ Alain Robert chose a curious challenge during his trip to London yesterday: Portland House on Victoria Street. Here’s the brute. As in, here’s Portland House, not Monsieur Robert. He’s much more gorgeous, see ---> The Gallic climber scaled the 320 ft building as a protest against climate change. On reaching the top, he was arrested for wasting......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th December 1907: Anti-vivisectionists march through central London to protest at the dissection of a brown terrier dog several years earlier. The ‘anti-doggers’ clash with police at Trafalgar Square, in what would become known as the Brown Dog Riots. Tuesday – 11th December 2005: Much of London is covered by a vast plume of smoke, following a series of massive explosions at Buncefield Oil Depot in Hertfordshire.......

The Turner Prize may have been spirited away to Liverpool but Mark Wallinger's recreation of Brian Haw's protest camp outside the Houses of Parliament pre-SOPCA nailed the Turner Prize for him last night. Although he chose to exhibit himself dressed as a bear, wandering around a gallery in Germany for the prize exhibition it was clear that the judges awarded the annually controversial £25,000 gong to Wallinger on the merits of his "bold political......

Whilst the Sex Pistols and The Verve were hawking their wares for the proper reviewers, Londonist was hightailing it down to the Empire for an early start. Since The Broken Family Band cashed in the cool Cambridge climes for our dirty old town, we can now legitimately claim them as our favourite London band (no doubt to howls of protest from the other Londonist writers and possibly the guys themselves). TBFB (for all you......

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......

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,......

As it gets closer to Halloween for LAist, a contributer recollects her tale of staring down the serial killer, Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker. Must think happy thoughts -- okay, free organic chocolate chip cookies for Los Angeles -- now that's a happy thought. Other happy Los Angeles thoughts include an interview with Jack Kehler of The Big Lebowski (he was the Dude's landlord), a beautiful and magical photographic moment in Venice......

Fight the temptation to sneak under the duvet tomorrow night - it may be getting dark ever earlier and there's a definite hiding-under-duvet chill in the crisp air but fight! Resist! Protest! Agitate! Agitate: Late at Tate Britain! The first Friday of every month is the special late opening of Tate Britain and there have been some very good themed nights to kick off the weekend in style - the burlesque evening, the village......

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......