Baking on the 2012 Cupcake has begun…. …just as information comes to light about an Olympic ticket sales scam. And it has been announced that the 2012 Olympic torch will not be travelling the world: a more modest tour of the UK is proposed. Tower Bridge was the scene of a Pro-Tibet protest today. A London bound woman who asked two mindless jerks to stop smoking on a station platform was pushed on to......

Our very own Londonist Eye finally has a friend: Essex man Michael Williams has constructed a model of Tower Bridge out of matchsticks. While our own effort was knocked out in the space of a half hour, using a motley collection of pipe cleaners, straws and bits of twine, the Tower Bridge scale model took Mr Williams a decade and is comprised of 1.6 million matches. In an uncannily authentic touch, the bridge is......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th June 1894: Tower Bridge is opened by the Prince of Wales. It would become an iconic symbol of London, and arguably the most well-recognised ‘bascule bridge’ in the world (even if tourists do sometime mistake it for London Bridge). Tuesday – 1st July 1858: Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection is presented at the Linnean Society at Burlington House, Piccadilly. Wednesday – 2nd July 1865: One-time......

Image courtesy of randydandy via the Londonist Flickr pool Right, so Gothamist isn’t returning our phone calls, and we can only assume that they’re not going to take us up on our Telectroscope dance challenge. Chickens. Dance-off or not, we wanted to check out the Telectroscope for ourselves. Would it be awkward to stand there gaping at people on the other end? Is it worth leaving behind the webcam and the comfort of our......

People are always moaning that London makes insufficient use of the Thames. Well, with a bit of Tower Bridge tweaking, we could build a new port for cruise liners within the Pool of London. Imagine taking the QM2 right into the heart of the City. Got a vision for London that's more surreal than anything Boris could come up with? Send entries to londonist - at - gmail.com.......

We mentioned this in passing last month, but it took until now for the sheer silliness of this “news” to truly sink into Londonist’s brain. An anthropomorphized Tower Bridge has taken to Twittering – you know, that little micro-blogging tool whereby folks can share with family, friends and subscribers what it is they’re doing, thinking and feeling every moment of the day. The Tower Bridge hasn’t yet revealed to us what it’s thinking or......

A preview of Londonist’s dance moves? A secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel will finally be completed. Immediately afterwards, an extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope will be installed at both ends which will miraculously allow people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa. Ding ding ding ding ding – that’s Londonist’s bullshitter......

Tower Bridge will be treated to a £4 million facelift over the next four years. Beginning in the summer, the Victorian landmark will be stripped of paint and redaubed with blue and white. At the same time, ugly sister Southwark Bridge will receive a fresh coat of green and yellow. Goddamn awful London Bridge remains stubbornly concrete coloured. The two repaintings are funded by the The City Bridge Trust, a repairer of London's bridges......

Another entry from Roll the Dice, showing a cunning method of crossing Tower Bridge without being stopped by tourists. Check out more Touch Ups in our archive and, if you feel inspired, send in your own photoshopped imagery of the capital to londonist - at - gmail.com.......

We fell in love with Black Cab Sessions the moment we first heard of them. How could we not? Taking a drive around the best city in the world (okay, we're biased, yes) in a design classic with some of our favourite bands rockin' out in the back seat: it's exactly how we'd like to spend a lazy afternoon. Since we generally are unable to scrape together enough coins to even steal sideways glances......

Bless our cotton socks! It’s British Pie Week. Honestly, we’re not sure if this is a real ‘mark your calendars sort of thing’ or just a marketing ploy by the folks at Jus-Rol. Either way, Londonist can think of all sorts of foods not to celebrate this week. So we’re cool with devoting a week’s worth of merriment toward the humble pie. Should our dear readers decide to join in the fun, we happily......

‘It’s new and it’s bloody scary,’ says the tourist blub. ‘C’est nouveau et terriblement effrayant,’ it repeats in French. Well, you try sounding menacing in that language. ‘Eine neue, unheimlich gruselige Sensation.’ That’s more like it. We prefer the German, especially as ‘die London Bridge Experience’ carries an apt definite article. London’s new tourist attraction beneath guess-which bridge opened its doors yesterday. (After two days of PR misery when power failures scuppered the media......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. M Manzes 87 Tower Bridge Road SE1 4TW 020 7407 2985 Nearest Tube: Borough Mon: 11am - 2pm Tue-Thurs: 10.30am - 2pm Fri: 10am - 2.30pm Sat: 10am - 2.45pm Expect to Pay: Between £2.70 and £4.90 for pie and mash, £3.20 for eels and mash. Rating: 9 out of 10 Ahh traditional London fare. Food born out of......

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. Tower Bridge - Although I have done quite a lot of processing on this, I really wanted to get an un-cliched image of an icon that's been done to death. It was also a really weird light that day, which has......

Tonight the area between London Bridge and Tower Bridge is going to look a little different. HMS Belfast will be camouflaged and the old London Bridge post office building on Borough High St will look like a post box. You won't be tripping out but you will be witnessing the illuminations for Switched On London 2008 lighting up the bridges, the Tower of London, Potters Fields, Southwark Cathedral and more in a fantastically sustainable......

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.......

Time Out recently presented St Pancras Station as their inaugural 'Wonder of London'. Profile Books goes a couple of stages further by including the terminus in its 'wonders of the world' series - buildings and monuments, such as the Colosseum, Stonehenge and the Forbidden City, whose 'names will be familiar to almost everyone'. We're not sure if the station is quite in that category yet. It's doubtful it has anything like the global and......

Hitler notwithstanding, testicles customarily gather in pairs. Yet London only has one - the glass bollock near Tower Bridge known as City Hall. The less said about its daily ejaculations, the better. This gonadic deficiency will soon be redressed, thanks to a new scheme from Hamiltons Architects and Development Securities. They’ve received planning permission for this bulbous office block in Hammersmith. The ten-storey scheme will squat next to the Hammersmith and City station, and......

Fans of pomp and circumstance will line the streets of the City tomorrow to watch one of London’s fine old traditions unfold. Each year, the City of London gets a new Lord Mayor (most certainly not to be confused with the more well-known mayor who inhabits the glass testicle near Tower Bridge). Indeed, the office of Lord Mayor is so tied up in the ceremonial that the official web site doesn’t even bother to......

Revolting peasants and Scottish heroes, a buried river, and a 1000 years of death, slaughter and destruction. Smithfield surely deserves some kind of cultural centre. And there just happens to be the perfect place to put it, if we act fast… As many readers will know, several buildings of the famous meat-market complex are under threat. The General market, Fish market and Red House are in a dilapidated state and the targets for demolition......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 15th October 1881: The Royal Comedy Theatre (now simply known as the Comedy Theatre) opens in the West End. Tuesday – 16th October 1987: In the early hours of the morning, a huge storm of hurricane intensity wreaks havoc across London (and much of the rest of southern England). Wednesday – 17th October 1814: At the Horse Shoe Brewery on Tottenham Court Road, a colossal vat containing......

Oh dear! There’ll be trouble in the Square tonight. Trafalgar, that is, not Albert. There’s a new kid on the block – and he’s (er, literally) dead creepy. Anubis, ancient Egyptian god of all things dead and deadly, has come to town. He’s attached to the O2 marketing team, and he’s been plonked next to Nelson to promote the forthcoming Tutankhamun expo at the dome. We don’t think Mayor Livingstone will be too pleased about......

Gorillas have been getting a rather good press of late in London. The Gorilla Kingdom at London Zoo, which opened in March, has seen huge numbers of visitors trudging up Regent's Park way to gawp at resident lowland gorillas Bobby, Zaire and Effie swing about their new home. Meanwhile, a television ad featuring a sullen simian being sparked into life by the crashing drum break of Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight' has become......

This chesty old hoare-nut comes round time and again. What's the most emblematic edifice in the capital? To end all debate, Londonist went in for a more scientific approach than petty arguing on a forum. We visited all the London web sites we could think of. In each case, we noted down which structures the site features in its logo or banner. The one chosen by the most websites wins. So was it Tower......

Londonist loved Treasure Hunt. It was so exciting. Annika Rice running around in a jump suit, cameraman Graham up her arse and a shiny helicopter to scoot from one end of Wiltshire to the other solving clues, avoiding scary Wincy Willis and hunting for, what was usually rubbish, treasure. Sadly, Treasure Hunt and even its successor, Interceptor (Annabel Croft and nowhere near as good) have long gone but you can relive the thrill of......

Lots of new restaurant openings in London this month; in particular, a number of small single-venue establishments as well as small local chains are establishing new locations. Have you been to any of the below? Or have we missed any other new openings this month? Tell us by using the Comments link at the bottom of the article... Aubaine Popular French local opens a second outpost, including a space that goes from patisserie during......

No, this is not a Touch Up London entry involving a giant root vegetable or a cross-looking Stefan Edberg (whimper). The magnificent Swede in question is the rather stunning Götheborg, a full-scale replica of an 18th century merchant trading ship that this weekend popped to visit the capital and have a bit of a face-off with a modern-day warship. It's not entirely an accurate replica - the deck is 10cm higher as seamen are......

Go visit the newly reopened Potters Fields, beside Tower Bridge. The space itself is neatly landscaped (at a cost of £3 million) and offers impressive views. But the reason we commend it with all our heart(s) is the entertainment. Specifically, ‘Get Lost’ – a walk through comedy-theatre experience that ‘may scare young children’. It’s set in a maze, populated by bizarre characters. We’re not going to tell you anything more about it, other than......

Thanks to everyone who voted for their favourite Touch Up London image from last week, using the 'recommend this' links. Here's the winner. Well done to jmayo for the giant pooch. Here are the final results. 1. Giant corgi by jmayo (35 votes). 2. Pinball Tower Bridge by Boi Hole (28 votes). 3. Westminster Abbey jigsaw by Fenring (22 votes). 4. Scary big queen by esc (8 votes). 5. Westminster boxer by SomeWhatFraudulant (2 votes).......

And the final entry from the Something Awful forums. Boi Hole's pinball wizardry completes our five-day photoshop extravaganza. If you like what you see, vote by clicking the 'recommend this' tag below. To check out all five entries (and previous silliness), click the 'touch up London' tag. Vote for your favourites from numbers 40 to 44. The winner will be announced on Tuesday afternoon.......