Having successfully exported cholera, colonialism and the Cross to the New World, Blighty is now making an attempt at sending hooliganism Stateside, too: a friendly match between West Ham United and Major League Soccer side Columbus Crew was marred by a scuffle between supporters on Sunday. The Hammers, on a pre-season tour of America in which they will play in the MLS All-Star Game, won the match 3-1, but local newspapers reported that in......

Richard Scudamore of the Premier League has not been the most popular footballing figure of the last few weeks. The executives overseeing football in favoured destinations for his plan of playing Premier League matches abroad, such as China, Thailand and the USA, have lined up to express their objections, as has the President of world football's governing body, FIFA. However, not every land that loves football comes under FIFA's aegis. Scudamore might be able......

Last year Arsenal won everything in sight, a clean sweep of domestic and European trophies. Manager Vic Akers was delighted to secure four triumphs from four competitions. We are, of course, talking about the Ladies team who tonight take on Everton at Leyton Orient's Matchroom Stadium to defend the first of that quartet of titles, in the FA Tesco Women's Premier League Cup Final, kick off 7:35pm. The game is also live on Sky......

There’s a new, rather large, kid on the block. Today, London’s new movie museum, The Movieum (geddit?), has opened its door to the public, catering to the interest of those, who were left wanting, when the Museum of Moving Image (MOMI) was closed in 1999. The Movieum, situated in County Hall on the South Bank, claims to be both tactile and academic, displaying props and sets from a variety of British films, as well......

With voting now closed for the Bloggies 2008 we're sitting on the edge of our un-ergonomic seats awaiting the results (the awards ceremony will be held at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas, USA on Monday, March 10 with the results posted online shortly afterwards). Who will be crowned Best European Weblog? The suspense is killing us. In the meantime then, how nice to wake up on a foggy Wednesday and......

It's rocking around to Eurovision time and in case you didn't notice last year, we get pretty excited about it. Admittedly the UK normally seems to send embarrassing rubbish, but every year we have a little hope that the song we select will be actually good. Today the BBC announced the singers hoping to represent the UK and to be honest it's not a great list. Nearly everyone is from a loser from a......

As the repercussions continue around the Premiership's shock announcement that it was going to take its brand of football around the world in a weekend, its chief executive Richard Scudamore is determined that the plan should survive in some way, shape or form. As we mentioned last week, FIFA's regional associations and its president Sepp Blatter himself have come out in opposition to the idea of our league matches encroaching on their territories at......

If you were wandering around Bayswater last night and wondering why you were surrounded by several thousand Americans, it's not because we started granting political asylum to those seeking refuge from the Bush regime (a bit late for that, really). No, it's because last night, Democrats Abroad held their very own Super Tuesday event for expatriates who wanted something more tangible than pointing and clicking for their favourite candidate. Obama advocates and Hillary supporters......

A couple of weeks ago our attention was drawn to the London FrontRunners, a running club that somewhat surprisingly had decided to stage their unique version of A Christmas Carol at the Drill Hall. Running and acting not being the most obvious of bedfellows, Londonist decided to find out who or what the FrontRunners really are. We met Graham Kennedy, one of the two Presidents, and Leila Brosnan, a long-standing member, just before they......

Hallelujah! Heathrow, Stansted and London City airports are lifting the one bag restriction from today! The era of squashing what you can into a carefully measured single piece of hand luggage or resigning yourself to checking in your bags and the inevitable lengthy scramble at the carousels at the other end is almost over. Security teams at 19 airports in the UK have been deemed capable of checking more than one bag per person,......

And so to our final rugby watching venue post with just 4 teams remaining to accommodate. Italy play Portugal tonight in Paris, 7pm Bar Italia - where else? Japan crunch with Wales tomorrow in Cardiff at 8pm. We didn't think Japan would be the hardest nut to crack but our badgering and internetting and random contacting of Japanese people hasn't turned up a definitive option. So, we'll give you a unconfirmed one. Sirocco London......

Don't you love it when the fair comes to town? The lights, the candy floss, the 'hook a duck', the grenades, the rocket launchers, the assault rifles! Ahh, takes you back to childhood! Your father lifting you onto his shoulders, getting so full of sweets that you throw up after going on the dodgems, examining the latest in targeting technology, watching footage of fuel-air explosive destroying an Afghan town, feeling the reassuring weight of......

While the newspapers and press agencies get their knickers in a twist over coverage conditions for the Rugby World Cup which kicks off in the Stade de France tonight, we're turning our attention to a more pressing issue. Which are the best London pubs to watch the tournament in? Several of the big chains are promising full coverage: It's a Scream, O'Neills, Pitcher & Piano and Walkabout. However, what's the more discerning and individual......

Stand Aside, oh diminuitive purpley chap formerly known as Prince. Make Way for the taller and altogether more substantial man formerly known as the 42nd President of the USA. As previewed here last month, Bill Clinton came to the O2 this lunchtime. To afford the VIP tickets we re-mortgaged our home, sold our grandma to science before she'd even popped her clogs and employed George Galloway to do a bit of fund-raising for us.......

We all know that London property prices are shockingly expensive. But just in case you were in any doubt about it, Halifax, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, has released new figures that leave little room for debate. The average price of a home in London is now £313,122. In the rest of the South East, that figure drops slightly to a mere £259,904. That means that the average home is now above the level at......

London went back to work this morning in a mood universally described as ‘jittery’. We must be vigilant, say the authorities, for the alert status remains ‘Critical’, and further attacks are deemed likely. The authorities are certainly being vigilant. Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was closed for a time yesterday, on the discovery of a suspect package. And in St Albans, a dodgily parked white Ford Transit was cordoned off after its owner could not be......

That racquet has lain dormant in your cupboard for 50 weeks now, but you know at the back of your mind that, before this week is out, the temptation to imitate the grace of Sharapova or the swashbuckling of Federer on your local patch of grey concrete will be near irresistible. The start of Wimbledon signals the only fortnight in the year when you couldn't walk on there any time you like, the sight......

This new space for science, arts and medicine isn’t yet on everyone’s cultural radar. It will be soon. The Wellcome Collection was opened yesterday by James Watson, the giant of science who co-discovered the structure of DNA. Watson said that we Brits ‘should be proud’ to boast such a centre, lambasting the rest of Europe and particularly the USA for lacking decent public science venues. And it really is a treasure. Three galleries chart......

Yes, it’s the latest avian health scare and it’s striking terrifyingly close to home. Swans on the Thames are turning pink. Pink. Even worse, they’re becoming un-waterproof. Turning pink isn’t such a problem in itself. Flamingos carry off pink superlatively and there’s no reason why modestly blushing swans couldn’t become a major tourist attraction for the Berkshire end of the river. Unfortunately, the pink is discolouration caused by nasty bacteria. Being pink, bacteria-riddled and......

This week - The Spartans resist Persian domination (300) and Carmen Electra shoots a British porno (I Want Candy). First up, a film that went straight to the top of the box office chart in the USA, made a hatload and has angered some Iranians, 300. First of all, you'll want to read our own review. What do you mean that wasn't enough for you? What do you mean you want to hear from......

John Inman has died at the age of 71: "John was known for his comedy plays and farces which were enjoyed from London's West End throughout the country and as far as Australia, Canada and the USA." Inman's Are You Being Served? co-star Wendy Richard told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "John was one of the wittiest and most inventive actors I've ever worked with. "He was a brilliant, brilliant pantomime dame and he......

Housing in London is very expensive indeed. In fact it's so expensive indeed that Londonist HQ is imaginary and we all live in Derby. However, thank your lucky charms that you aren't a lowly wannabe Argentinian farmer. He may not have to pay the congestion charge but farmland from the USA to Argentina is rising faster in price than apartments in Manhattan and London. This is all to do with the rising demand for......

It's been a while since we caught up with what our favourite Spice Girl, Scary, was up to. Last we saw, she had just moved to the USA to start a new glamorous life for herself in the Hollywood hills. However, she hasn't been picking her boyfriends well. It seems that while our backs were turned, she got pregnant by movie-poison Eddie Murphy, got engaged to him, then got dumped on a Dutch talk show......

Jackie Danicki begins her blog post on November 24th with the words I am slightly miffed: The kid in the picture above doesn’t look very harmful, right? He’s reasonably well-dressed, anyway. But actually, he is quite a large fellow, and likes to assault random women with the help of an equally vile friend of his. Jackie posted the photograph on her blog and to her Flickr stream as well as passing a copy along......

Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic Airways has announced a new London-U.S. route to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport to begin on 23 April, 2007. This will help open up Virgin to the midwest and heartland of the U.S. It will also be a convenient hub for travel to and from Canada and the north and northwest of the USA. Currently the only direct flights to Canada Virgin provides stop at Ottawa and Quebec, leaving the western......

"Tonight is all about something that doesn't happen enough these days – Musicians helping each other" announced Tom McRae last night as the Hotel Café tour rolled into London after a year long tour of the USA. The feeling was great: a series of artists who are all too small on their own to undertake a full UK tour, but altogether they have the ability to sell out a venue in days. Taking a......

There might have been no 'donkey cocks' this week, but Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares is still essential viewing in this post-Hell's Kitchen USA times. If you didn't see it, Gordon went to Lancashire and shouted at the landlord of The Fenwick Arms for buying too many plates and having a crap menu. As ever on Kitchen Nightmares the solution was simply to cut the menu down to simple dishes and to use good ingredients. As......

This week - Borat visits the USA (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) and British rom-com set on Hampstead Heath, (Scenes of a Sexual Nature). When we saw the posters for this on the tube, with five star reviews from the News of the World and the Mirror, we were ready for this to be shit. Turns out it's ok though, who'd have thought? All of the reviewers......

It's been a few months since we delved into the world of comedy when back in the summer we spoke to Richard Herring and comedy troupe The Cowards. This time round we've been talking to comedy writer, performer and former blogger James Bachman. We first came across James in Edinburgh in 2003 and have marvelled at his now nearly constant popping up-ness in some of the best new television comedies including his regular role......

A few days back, we reviewed The Meaning of Night, a new novel partly set in the shadier parts of Victorian London. We caught up with author Michael Cox, to ask him about his London influences and plans for the sequels. The Meaning of Night is brilliant. Where do you get the inspiration to write something like that? In April 2004, I began to lose my sight as a result of cancer. In preparation......