The Mayoral race has been quiet recently. Londonist suspects that it is the calm before the shitstorm. According to a recent poll, Boris is only one point behind Ken. A sign that campaigning is going to start making a dent on the Winehouse news in the London Lite is that Boris, from the blue corner, has launched a new Back Boris website. The photo gallery shows us that recently the campaign trail has taken......

If you're stumbling around department stores, going red and sweating with embarrassment as you try to choose the perfect piece of lingerie for your other girlfriend, then this Thursday help may be at hand. Both this week and next Thurs (20th Dec), John Lewis on Oxford Street are hosting a Lingerie Buying Academy for Men. With detailed instructions on how to gather the necessary information you need beforehand (check for size, colours, brands etc),......

The dear old Evening Standard is all up in arms that people are being "forced" to shut their dustbin lids or risk not getting their rubbish collected. We're not quite sure why. Surely, putting your rubbish in a standard issue (240L, wheelie, locking) bin and keeping it shut helps keep our streets cleaner and safer? Foxes can't get at bin bags, things can't blow away, unsightly stacks of supermarket carrier bags and globs of spilled......

Paul McCartney's ex was in London yesterday for a photo shoot for the charity Viva!. Along with Heather Mills, Viva! would like us all to please eat less meat, dairy and other animal products in order to reduce global warming. We fully applaud Viva!'s commitment to the environment, and thoroughly enjoy names that feature punctuation, but we wonder how effective this campaign really is going to be. While we can't personally see switching to......

Whilst we, the London punters, expressed overwhelming support for action on throw-away shopping bags last week the big high street retailers have been mewing at the London Assembly opposing an outright ban. Under DEFRA's new waste strategy the major UK supermarkets and other large retailers are committed to reducing the environment impact of carrier bags by 25% by 2008. Whatever that means. But they're reluctant to back a ban as it diminishes choice and......

Depending on how much Internet reading you do, you may or may not be aware that today is Blog Action Day – a day on which bloggers around the web unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind. This year it’s the environment. And in honour of this, Londonist could think of nothing more appropriate than to suggest ideas for a greener day in this fair city of ours. 1. Get on......

For those of you who are still dubious about London’s public transport system, you may be interested to hear it’s just been rated as the third best in the world. Although station cleanliness and comfy seats may not initially strike you, it is, apparently, one of the most luxurious transportation systems in the world. Carrying 3 million people a day, and featuring a whole host of options from the iconic double decker buses to......

19. Freakish Falls! During the August of 1920 in Woodford, stones poured from the sky for three consecutive days without explanation. Four years later at Eltham, Plumstead, Woolwich and Shooters Hill a great ice storm battered the area, despite the afternoon being the hottest for two years! The hailstones were the size of eggs, and some jagged in nature, measuring five-inches which fell from the sky, cutting residents who ran for cover. In January......

The sixth in our series of interviews with potential candidates for next year's Mayoral election. Previously: Victoria Borwick (Tory), Andrew Boff (Tory) and Warwick Lightfoot (Tory), Sian Berry (Green), Fiyaz Mughal (Lib Dem). Chris Prior is an independent mayoral candidate standing on a very firm 'Stop Congestion Charging' ticket. We asked him why, and, as with all the other candidates, we also enquired whether he'd ever been sick on the Tube. Chris is the......

Fake holy water seized! By God! Fake fags seized! By dog! Calls for Edgware Road station to change its name to Chapel Street Market. Which has the surreal advantage of being an anagram of The Spectral Meerkat. UPDATE: Seems it's actually Church Street Market. Whoever can come up with the best anagram for that wins a goat. Do you really, really enjoy plastic carrier bags? Is their acquisition at the expense of the environment......

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......

Shoppers in Wimbledon certainly got a shock when they popped into wholesome chainstore Lush for their smellies. Greeted only with a smile and an apron to protect their modesty as the shop workers took a novel stand on protesting. So what are they on about? Well, it appears they're none to pleased about, ahem, excessive packages. Environment wise. According to store manager Wendy Reiding, they're all about the recycling and they want to be......

If you’ve ever boarded a Tube train after it has reached the end of its line and is preparing to make the return journey, you will have had the experience of wading knee-deep in London’s best cat tray liners – the freesheets. Folded neatly on every seat, splayed across every square inch of floor space and perched haphazardly on every ledge are those peons of journalistic greatness, the Metro, thelondonpaper and London Lite. Together......

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......

Mark Watson is a comedian. You may have seen him on the box on 'Nevermind the Buzzcocks', 'Mock The Week' or 'Time Trumpet'. You may have heard his Radio 4 show, 'Mark Watson makes the world substantially better'. You may have seen him live, perhaps on his current tour of his show 'I'm worried that I'm starting to hate almost everyone in the world' or perhaps you attended or have heard of his legendary......

Just when we thought MySpace was good for nothing. As part of comedian Mark Watson's 'Mark Watson is Crap at the Environment' project, comes Pimp My Plant Pot. The Crap At The Environment project is, an attempt to start a movement of people who are concerned about climate change and environmental damage, yet, until now, have been completely or fairly shit at doing anything about it. This shitness may have been caused by uncertainty......

Back in November, we went down to Trafalgar Square to see comedian Tim Fitzhigham blow up the world's largest ever man-inflated balloon to raise awareness about carbon emissions from aviation. It might be so 2006 now ("the environment? that was so last year") but we asked him a few questions about the stunt, Hello! How are you? I'm very well thank you for asking How long were you blowing for? It turned out that......

Michael Halls-Moore is a man on a mission. Or, rather, a man wanting to be on a mission. His dream is to go into space. But he's a student at Imperial College, and not the most likely client for Richard Branson's 100-grand-a-shot Virgin Galactic trips. No matter. He's going to get there anyway thanks to a cunning internet scheme based on the Milliondollarhomepage concept of pixel-based advertising. On his website, BuyMeToTheStars.com, you can purchase......

Yesterday, Londonist went down to Trafalgar Sq. to see comedian Tim Fitzhigham attempting to inflate the world's largest ever man-inflated balloon. By the time we arrived he had been inflating for two hours and had already fainted. Twice. The man is a loon. However, he is a seasoned professional, by no means was this his first record attempt, he has made something of a career out of them. Not only did he break a......

We've got to hand it to Ken, when he goes for something he really goes for it: The daily charge for vehicles in carbon emissions band G, which includes some 4x4s, is to rise to £25 from 2009. Ouch! If you were thinking of buying us a new Jaguar X-type for Christmas... don't bother. But even as Chelsea Tractor lovers were reeling from that blow, Ken steps in with the real body slam: Mr......

Simply Botiful is the new installation by Swiss artist Christoph Buchel and the cramped, creepy, unsettling work is an alternative reality where viewers can walk from room to room to find themselves climbing into the back of a lorry, squeezing around piles of obsolete cameras and tiptoeing through an abandoned sweat shop, filled with sewing machines that seem ot have only been humming and singing in unison moments before.What else are you likely to......

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......

A Greenpeace report released today points to chemical contamination as a factor in decline of European eel population: The report, "Slipping Away: the presence of perfluorinated chemicals in eels (Anguilla anguilla) from 11 European countries", including the UK, reveals that European eels, once common but now in rapid decline, are widely contaminated with perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), a source of rising concern due to their toxicity and widespread distribution in the environment. The eels tested......

...because it's a Virgin. Apologies, that was truly terrible. Anyway, on with the news: Beardy billionaire Richard 'Dickie' Branson is trying to break the Glasgow to London rail speed record today. One of Virgin's tilting Pendolino trains left for Glasgow at 12:37pm, hoping to eclipse the 4 hours 14 minutes record set in 1981. The journey is 401 miles. Two years ago a Pendolino set a record for the trip between Manchester and London.......

The London Assembly is pondering what's going on with London's allotments. The Environment Committee is apparently going to look into whether allotments are disappearing to make way for things such as the Olympic Village in Stratford. With luck, they might even suggest what to do about it, because it'll be a little disappointing if the outcome of their investigation was 'Yup, they're disappearing,' and they left it at that. The timing is fortuitous (ok,......

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......

We briefly mentioned yesterday that Ken is thinking of imposing significantly higher congestion charges on the drivers of the more environmentally-unfriendly cars that enter the congestion charge zone. Let’s make no bones about it. Coupled with the existing higher road tax for gas-guzzlers, this sort of measure would represent a real incentive for drivers to develop an environmental conscience when choosing which cars (if any) to drive. Bravo! Sort-of. But has Ken got this......

Bit of an eco two pronger this one - first up is the news that while big companies are encouraged to do all they can to recycle, smaller firms are being sidelined: The London Assembly's environment committee has published a report claiming smaller businesses are being all but ignored in the drive to promote the use of recycled products... It is totally unacceptable for the Mayor, LDA and London Remade to focus only on......

Research by motor insurer, MORE TH>N, reveals Conservative leader David Cameron’s call to reduce traffic in the school run would save lives and that many motorists would switch to hybrid cars given the right incentives. Keith Maxwell, motor insurance manager for insurer MORE TH>N comments: “From our own research we know that British motorists are already considering changing their driving habits. Registrations of hybrid vehicles increased by three-quarters from 2004 to 20052, demonstrating a......

Hewitt Heckled Over Health Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt was heckled today at Workers' Union Unison's Health Conference. Hewitt revealed at the conference that reforms were needed to save the NHS, including more job cuts, and a reduction in the number of hospital beds. Hewitt repeated the claim she made over the weekend that the NHS has had its "best yeard to date". As a result of this claim, the NHS staff booed and heckled......