Boris’ fall out with Transys puts plans for a cashless 2012 in jeopardy. Thames Water’s going up. Arsenal’s having a little dabble on the property market. London’s Russians pray for peace in Ossetia. A fourteen year old has been stabbed in the leg in Kenton. Coal mining protestors glue themselves to the door of a mining company in London. Piccie from HowAboutNo!’s Londonist flickr stream.......

Thames Water chase quick buck with luxury flats over super sewer Penny pinching Boris takes early break from Transys, the original Oyster operators, to find cheaper alternative Stop and search at Climate Camp causes consternation The Evening Standard unreservedly apologises to Prince Phillip over prostate cancer story Yum, yum: there's a Thai food festival in Greenwich Park this weekend Image courtesy of Stu_Egan via the Londonist flickr group.......

This is what we have learned this weekend whilst you have been out rolling in the grass: The saga of the missing bike and the distraught party leader has a happy ending after all. Operation Trident are investigating after a man was found shot dead outside RED nightclub in Limehouse. A man has been stabbed to death in Streatham. And Operation Sapphire are investigating the comportment of a senior Harrods employee after sexual assault......

Rats have taken over Muswell Hill. And we're not just talking about the clowns from Haringey Council who dumped those confidential documents a few months back. No, these are the genuine deal, the scurrying little beggars themselves, all brown of fur and sharp of claw. Residents in N10 have spotted sewer rats (species:Rattus evillus) ambling along Dukes Avenue and the Broadway, putting fear and terror into the hearts of locals without so much as......

The Post Offices which are to close are named (and mourned). There’s been yet another stabbing in South London. In the Kings Road siege incident, it has been revealed that the dead man was a barrister, and that he left a note for his wife. It’s all very strange and sad. The Zip Card: kiddies need to carry a valid travel card from now on, which they will forfeit if they misbehave. Pete Doherty......

The police aren’t making it easy enough for Muslims to join the force. Crime rates in London are falling. If you look at them the right way. The 2012 canoe/kayak venue has been moved: the original site was too contaminated. Bond is in town. There’s a Flemming exhibition at the Imperial War Museum. Thames Water have been fined for their shoddy, leaking and unreliable service. But not as much as had been expected. A......

Ken Livingstone's on a tap water crusade. Him and Thames Water have launched a campaign to encourage Londoners to be proud to ask for tap water, however many grannies it's been through. Not only are they extolling the quality of the water and the clear financial benefits, they're trying to make it sexy by running a competition to design a carafe worthy of holding our precious Eau de Londres. Asking for tap water in......

It was a delightfully dry and bright, crisp and chilly weekend in London... except for a sudden bit of flooding along Edgware Road on Sunday morning. Not from the heavens opening in a repeat of the 2007 deluges but from what has been reported as a mechanical digger failure at the crucial junction of Sussex Gardens and Edgware Road not far from Marble Arch. This is the junction where traffic from Paddington Station comes......

Despite the odd recent mishap, London's lidos take their rightful alongside our parks as great places to go around the capital. 70 years ago lidos were people's cathedrals, masterful municipal palaces to promote community health and wellbeing. Over the years since then they have been left derelict or sold off. But now, they are having their renaissance. Blame global warming for warmer temperatures or the Olympics for increased interest in health - but outdoor pools......

In the early hours of this morning a burst water main on Maida Vale caused chaos as roads, homes and businesses were flooded with rushing brown floods. 40 firefighters were called to the scene to evacuate people, divert and pump out the water. Evacuees were taken to the safety of a local pub. Whether the landlord flouted licensing laws to warm everyone up with a snifter has not been reported. Thames Water engineers stopped......

Mannequins clothed in rubbish to encourage recycling. The ultimate in trashy models. Barnet (who?) claims the suburbs are being ignored. Fergie gets pummeled in the scruttocks. Thames Water launch two new boats to skim off river litter. Watch out for mangled cormorant burgers, on sale soon from the South Bank. Latin est doctus in magis schola Image courtesy of chutney bannister via the Londonist flickr group.......

In a residential road in North East London workmen in high visibility vests wrestle manfully down muddy holes with broken water pipes whilst smiling, perky local girls ferry tea and biscuits to the hard working hunks, exchanging playful banter. A scene straight out of a "Confessions..." farce? No. It's the BBC reporting on progress with water mains replacement in Walthamstow. Slow news day, then. It seems our BBC News team are astonished that local......

The term ‘wading knee deep in shit’ has taken on new meaning for residents of Harrow in north-west London. Parents in the Kenmore Avenue area were horrified to discover that the floodwater their children were playing in and near contained sewage waste. Mohammed Ayaiz, whose son, Usmaan, developed an itchy rash after coming into contact with the water, said: “We’ve told him he can’t play outside there anymore and I take him to the......

It turns out that Thames Water is doing more at their Crossness facility than just processing sewage from nearly two million Londoners each day. To give you a very unpleasant visual image to go along with that statistic, apparently that's enough sewage to fill 20 olympic size swimming pools every hour. They also own and manage the Crossness Nature Reserve in Bexley, one of the last remaining grazing marshes in Greater London. It's home......

Everyone's talking about the C-charge today. Five days before the extended western zone comes into play, there are a few pre-launch jitters. Although the number of vehicles entering the original zone has fallen by 20%, congestion and travel tmes are almost back to pre-charge levels. If you're wondering how the deuce those two facts square up, there are three schools of thought: 1. Mayor Ken points his newt-bitten finger at the utility companies. Firms......

Good news! Four water firms in the south east of England are lifting their hosepipe bans after months of above average rainfall. Thames Water, Southern Water, Three Valleys Water and Sutton and East Surrey Water have lifted the ban, which affected more than 13m customers. Go on then, what are you waiting for? Go frolic outside with your hosepipes. Of course we advise you to tie yourselves securely to the hosepipe first in case......

Wandsworth Council have given consent to six planning applications and one variation concerning detailed designs for one of our favourite lump of bricks - the Battersea Power Station: These consents, representing a total area of 4.5 million sq ft mean that, for the first time, the project can now move forward towards the construction stage and leasing programme. Victor Hwang, President of Parkview International explains why it's taken so long to get this far:......

Two arrests have been made following the Elephant & Castle shooting we told you about yesterday. The Olympics will 'eliminate child povery' according to Gordon Brown and Ken Livingstone. Thames Water has been sold for £8bn to Australian banking group Macquarie. Let's hope they can make some quick improvements. In case you hadn't noticed Madonna's new son has arrived in London. Looks like Will Young will be taking the part of Fiyero in the......

The final bill for the Forest Gate 'anti-terror' raid came to more than £2 million, we've been told today. South West Trains is planning to strip seats out of trains on the most overcrowded routes from London to Surrey and Hampshire in order to 'reduce overcrowding'. Thames Water have set themselves the target of installing water meters in every home in London from 2010. Ken has offered TfL and the Met an extra 375......

Pentonville prison has a pretty bad vermin problem. Can any budding pied pipers please report to the head warden. According to Ken the environment is the issue which will dominate the next election... ...However Ken also let slip that the German owners of Thames Water aren't very keen on talking about his toilet flushing habits. Is Sigourney Weaver coming to the West End? If she is she might want to think about joining Dirty......

Seems London is under attack from all sides. Not only have we had a major fire over to the east, but the we’re also knackers-deep in water over to the west. A burst water main has flooded homes and a busy road in west London, causing major traffic disruption. Several vehicles were also partially submerged when the 21-inch pipe burst at about 1230 BST. And now for the understatement of the year: A Thames......

6 men (well five men and a 17-year-old) appeared in court today charged with offences relating to the recruitment and training of terrorists. An enquiry has been launched to find out why 900 people were trapped on the Piccadilly Line for up to two and half hours on Tuesday night after a woman jumped in front of a train at Hyde Park Corner. Thames Water are building a huge new £1bn reservoir near Abingdon.......

Thames Water have announced today that they are withdrawing their application to the government for special powers to limit water usage in London (stuff like to watering parks and and sports grounds and filling of private swimming pools). (You have to love the use of the phrase 'special powers' - like x-ray vision is going to stop someone filling their pool.) After what was described as "near average" rainfall fell in the past two......

A leaked memo from Thames Water would seem to suggest that they're going to cut their workforce by 25% over the next four years. In London last year 6.16 million Penalty Charge Notices were handed out for illegal parking, improper use of bus lanes, moving traffic offences and contraventions under the London Lorry Control Scheme. Looks like the planned 200mph North-South rail link might be abandoned as it will be too expensive. London Lite......

Last Friday night, a 35-year-old a Brazilian man, was stabbed to death yards from his home in Fairbanks Road, Tottenham. Yesterday morning a huge fire broke out on the set of the new James Bond movie at Pinewood Studios. Thames Water is going to tap into the city's underground water reserves for the second time this year. They usually only have to resort to the aquifers once every ten years. A married, British Transport......

The Environment Agency has announced that our beloved Thames Water was, last year, fined for pollution more than any other firm in England and Wales. Well done Thames Water! In case you were wondering, the exact amount was £128,000 over four different incidents, that's more than double any of the fines levied at its counterparts in the water industry. Two thirds of the pollution cases related to discharges of sewage to the Thames. Lib......

Have you seen these yet? They're all over the Tube platforms and the carriages themselves and they show some famous London landmarks such as Battersea Power Station and the Tower of London....except they're filled with gallons and gallons of water, complete with sailboats and swimmers. Next to the hastily photoshopped image are the words: Saving this much water over the next two years (or something similar). Because, you see, the adverts are for Thames......

A while ago we reported on the somewhat confusing situation concerning Ofwat's decision to make Thames Water 'agree' to spend money on fixing their leaks instead of fining them. Well today it it looks like they're going fine them as well. Industry regulator Ofwat said on Wednesday it was considering fining Thames Water for customer service shortcomings. The move relates to failures under a so-called guaranteed standards scheme (GSS) that have occurred since July......

Ok, so this headline: Water Company Escapes Fine For Leaks sems pretty straighforward, but when you consider this headline Thames Water to pay £150 mln over leaks from earlier today, things get a bit confusing. What it boils down to is that Thames Water has escaped being fined by Ofwat but they have 'agreed' to spend an extra 150 million pounds on repairing leaks. Ofwat have issued a statement saying: "Thames has bound itself......

A 35-year-old man has been arrested in Surrey for the murder of Sally Anne Bowman who was stabbed and seriously sexually assaulted in September last year in Blenheim Crescent, south Croydon. Kings Cross Station has reopened this morning now that the gas cylinders in the nearby building have cooled down. More than half of British Muslims believe that Sir Ian Blair should resign. Thames Water has been warned that unless they act now, come......