Londonist likes chocolate. And children. (Especially other people's). And good charitable causes. So we were more than happy to hop on the London Eye last night to see the premier of Lindt's Easter Light Show, in aid of ChildLine. And to take part in the demolishing of a couple of gold Lindt bunnies. (Hey, we didn’t say anything about liking bunnies...) Renowned Swiss light artist, Gerry Hofstetter (you might remember he projected a polar......

“Erm… hello. So this is… erm… a dress rehearsal. If anything untoward happens, we may stop.” Some might think that Alison Goldfrapp’s introduction to the ‘friends only warm up show’ at the Union Chapel last night was a little bit insipid. And, to be fair, they would be right. The crowd looked mostly bemused as the large group of performers that is Goldfrapp traipsed onto the stage in the amazing Victorian gothic church in......

Summer Strallen, who played the similarly named Summer Shaw on teen soap Hollyoaks, has just made her debut in The Sound of Music at London's Palladium Theatre. If, like us, you enjoy a bit of a Hollyoaks omnibus on a hungover Sunday, you'll be familiar with Summer's journey from soap star to West End star. For those of you who are Hollyoaks impaired, it's actually all a bit confusing. Strallen joined the Hollyoaks cast......

This Londonista popped to Terminal 5 at Heathrow - due to open in a month's time - and live-blogged about it: It's 7.35am on a grey Saturday morning, and I'm on the piccadilly line. Sure - there are better things to do with my time, but I'm off to be a fake passenger and so to have a nosey around a new iconic building that swishly calls itself 'T5'. It's almost an airport in......

Someone was having a very bad Monday morning: a Czech man managed to cause a whole series of accidents on his way up the M11 today. Brent and Harrow councils aren’t gonna win any popularity awards this year. How’s this for a daft policy – bricking up the cars of those residents who park in their own front gardens. Beggars belief. Ali G: coming to a dreary town centre near you. This Londonista isn’t......

Whatever happened to knocking? Early Wednesday morning at a home in west London, police used a digger—yes, one of those big construction trucks—to smash through a perimeter wall, then proceeded to use sledgehammers and angle grinders to get into the house to search for drugs. They probably would’ve used a battering ram if they had one handy. This was all part of a larger bust involving 500 officers who raided 30 homes and businesses......

Londonist may know nothing and care even less about London Fashion Week, but that won't stop us cartwheeling down the nearest catwalk and devouring garms and gimcracks galore like fickle fashionistas on fascistic diets tearing each others' hair extensions at a Primark opening. The Times has offered a handy cut out and keep (for lunch, perhaps, paper being low in calories) guide to 18 trends for London Fashion Week. Sadly one of those trends......

Nu-metal stars Linkin Park are the main draw on Monday night, with support coming from the mighty Biffy Clyro as they play the first of two consecutive nights at the O2, and whilst tickets are all sold out, there are a few floating around on Scarlet Mist and such like. Stephen Fretwell plays a sold out show at The Troubadour, and reggae star Finley Quaye plays the first of a three night stay at the......

If Sun Hill were a real 'burb of London, then Londonist would want to live there, if only to have plucky PC Reg Hollis as our neighbourhood bobby. So it was with some distress that we heard Jeff Stewart, the actor who has played Hollis in The Bill for over two decades, apparently slashed his wrists after being informed his contract on the ITV show would not be renewed. Stewart was rushed to hospital,......

Harumph. Last night saw a wee splash of rain and a whole load of inconvenience in London. And this rather disgruntled Londonista was caught up in it. It’s not that we are spoiled brats and can’t cope without our PCs and tellies for an evening. By all accounts a snuggly, fire-lit night in, cooking pancakes over candles and making conversation with each other, never did anyone any harm – why the thrice weekly power cut......

It’s cold outside this week, so it seems like the best plan is to cozy up on the couch and watch some telly. Why would you want to risk frostbite? On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 12 November I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here (ITV1, 21:00-22:30) It’s off to the jungle yet again with Ant & Dec as they guide a new group of “celebs” through as many disgusting tasks as you’d......

Our much feted and stylish monarch opened the all-new and yet all-old St. Pancras terminal today after a 10 year revamp (of the station that is, not the Queen). The station is (as of next week) to be home to Eurostar after a 5.8 billion pound upgrade of the railway line between London and the coast (which now means trains can actually go as fast as they do on French soil instead of going shstikoff-shstikoff-shstikoff-all-the-way-home).......

Don't get us wrong. As you can probably tell from last week there's a good deal of enthusiasm for the NFL on here. This Londonista in particular has to confess to a near addiction. However, while last night's Miami Dolphins hosting of the eventually victorious New York Giants at Wembley was the ideal meet-up for the sport's many fans in this country, and the NFL can finally put a big tick in the box......

It’s OK to have foibles and fetishes, especially if you’re a girl. It can be kinda endearing – think Holly Golightly, or SJP and her shoe problem. Trouble is, these don’t wash so well when the public is paying for your little indulgences and you are generally credited with being halfway responsible. Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Mordern, seems to have a stationery fixation – how else can her whopping £49,000.00 stationery bill......

After last week’s news that our ambulances are the best in the country, Londoners should be pleased to hear that there’s now another reason why, if you’re going to have medical trouble, you may as well do it in the capital. Londoners’ chances of surviving a cardiac arrest outside the hospital have more than trebled in the last five years, according to a new report by the London Ambulance Service. About one in six......

Many comedy fans will already have experienced the pleasure of watching Pappy's Fun Club, the if.comedy nominated sketch troupe who are arguably the most exciting act working on the live comedy circuit. For the uninitiated, Pappy's are a four-piece band of boys whose silly, upbeat and joyous sketches leave audiences with a severe bout of happiness. They have a lovely, fresh take on the traditional live sketch format - by breaking down the fourth......

Well, OK, maybe we’re getting a little medieval and melodramatic here (although we could have said "Off with his head!"). But Londonist’s blood is boiling today, and a Londonist with boiled blood is not a pretty sight. We are most certainly not alone. The story of a mindless thug who mindlessly punched a 96 year old man in the face because he couldn’t get past him to exit a tram is appalling. And today we......

Face it, with the RMT tube strike, you're not getting anywhere on the underground this week. Unless you're going from somewhere like Camden to Canary Wharf and all of your lines are fine. In which case we're all a bit annoyed with you anyway so it's best to keep quiet about that. So what are you going to do? Well, there are loads of other ways to get across London. Hundreds. We know that......

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, 3 September – Wednesday, 5 September Dumped (Channel 4, 21:00-22:00) We’ve already told you about this interesting concept involving contestants living on a rubbish dump, and since you’re no doubt looking to fill the Big Brother void in your......

That's right, the DLR has been going for, if you can believe it, 20 years today. This seems like forever for this Londonista's favourite mode of transport around London. So where did it all start? Well Londonist took a little light rail trip down memory lane. Way back in the 80s, it's hard to imagine but the Docklands were a no man's land in London. (No one came in, no one went out.) This......

If, like us, you’re exhausted and skint after the bank holiday weekend and just not up to taking advantage of all the fun things London has to offer this week, here are a few things you can watch and listen to from the comfort of your front room. On TV, Londonist likes: Thursday, 30 August Robbie Coltrane: B-Road Britain (ITV1, 21:00-22:00) Robbie Coltrane takes to the roads and travels from London to Glasgow using......

We're skint again! We've spent all of our money on festivals only to find that we've spent hours standing in the rain listening to the bands we didn't really want to see but our best mate wanted to because they fancy the singer. This means that yet again, we can't go and do any of the things we want (and yes we're sulking). We can't go to any of the gigs we'd planned to,......

The Proms are a marvellous institution. Remarkably diverse musically, accessible, world class and - crucially - cheap as chips, they are the soundtrack to summer in London and we are privileged to have them on our doorstep. It was with an eager step that we hied ourselves to the Royal Albert Hall on Sunday afternoon for the sold-out 48th Prom, despite the glowering sky and hint of rain in the air. Arriving at around......

A lot of interesting conversations take place in the toilets. Ladies queue for the lavatory and start discussions about just about anything. Men indulge in a subtle, extremely complex sort of code when standing at the urinal, trying to continue an in-depth analysis of the weather. And art... people talk about art in toilets. No, really, they do. This Londonista was locked into the Ladies toilets of Hackney Empire in May this year in......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 16th July 1924: Crowds of photographers, reporters and ‘autograph seekers’ greet the pilots of the first (successful) round-the-world flight as it landed at Croydon airport for its London stopover. Tuesday – 17th July 1974: A bomb explodes in a tourist-packed room of the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41 others. No-one claims responsibility for the bombing, and no culprits are found. Wednesday – 18th......

The latest play from Canadian playwright extraordinaire, Judith Thompson, Enoch Arden in the Hope Shelter combines poetry and music to offer us a brief glimpse into the lives of those we only notice through the corners of our eyes. Taking as starting point Richard Strauss’ 1898 melodrama Enoch Arden, itself based on Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1864 poem of them same name, Thompson has written a contemporary story that suggests art as haven from harsh......

One of Londonist’s favourite web 2.0 communities, last.fm, has just been bought up by American firm CBS for a rather tasty $280m (£142m). Whilst it may not have been sold for as much as other social networks (such as News Corp's £294m MySpace purchase and Google's $1.65bn buy-out of YouTube), it does mean that last.fm can stay in London and still keep its open source nature. Dave explained what Last.fm is all about much better......

Like many a Londoner, you're probably aware that there's a fair amount of crime in this lovely city of ours. In fact, if you're a victim of one of the 917,661 crimes in London in the past year, you're probably shocked to hear that London isn't number one in Britain's burglary league tables. We're still top five though. Only Nottingham, Leeds and Hull are more burglary-ridden, according to a new report by insurance company......

Though it hasn't been that well publicised, everyone's favourite electro indie kids Hot Chip had a new album out on Monday. It's called "DJ Kicks" and is a compilation that: "takes the listener on a sublime journey through the dusty crevices of Hot Chip’s 10-legged record collection it manages to take in wonky electro-pop, Detroit techno, off-kilter house, hip hop, mellifluous drum’n’bass, R’n’B, blues, jazz and Joe Jackson without ever sounding contrived or hackneyed.......

Television's over. Networks are down. The radio is silent. All files erased. Imagine every book, film, play or song is about to be destroyed. What would you save? There's a scene from a film that you watched as a kid, there's a novel you always turn to when you're feeling down, there's a song you play when you think you're in love, there's a play your school put on and you were the lead......