If there were something, dear readers, that we could give to everyone of you to show you how much we care, it would be this: a ride in the Star Over London airship. Unfortunately, at £360 a pop for the best ride, this is pie in the sky talk from your favourite London blog so, next best thing, we wangled a freebie and went for you.

Ascending in the 12 seater gondola to 300m you’re afforded a perfect birds eye view of the city, joining the Thames out by the Dartford Bridge and following its snaking bends up to tourist central and Big Ben and back. Once aloft, the airship hums quietly and floats along at 30mph, gently riding the thermals and swaying beatifically. Passengers are free to walk around the cabin, decked out airline style, with windows at the front and back that open, allowing fabulous photographs and a back seat window from which to watch the unique view disappear beneath the voluptuous bulk of the Zeppelin.

This is undoubtedly the best thing you will be unable to afford to do this summer, so if you can wangle a corporate entertainment ride or win a competition in the Evening Standard then do. It’s the ideal way to reacquaint yourself with London and be awestruck by its sprawling, unplanned, crazy beauty. You’ll fall in love with it all over again.

Check back later in the week - we'll have a video of the flight.

The Star of London flies from Upminster airfield until 21 August. There are 3 routes, varying in price £185-260. Be warned, the airship doesn’t like rain or high winds so refer to the website to check your flight if you’re lucky enough to have a booking.

Words by Lindsey Clarke, pics by Dean Nicholas

Shepherd's Bush + transport woes: discuss. With a brand-new Overground station delayed by short platforms, it now turns out the controversial closure of the Central line station was in fact quite unnecessary. Local MP Andy Slaughter has discovered that the decision to close was made by LU, despite Metronet saying it could remain open during work. Meanwhile, passengers were fobbed off with a porky about it being "impossible to replace one escalator while the other is running." Despite the news, the station will remain shut until October.

Harry Potter may have completed his seven years at school, but younger wizardlings are in for several years of service disruption on the Hogwart's Express. Platform 9 and 3/4 will be shifted later this year to allow construction work on the West side of King's Cross, according to Jon Burden the former Duty Station Manager at King's Cross, who led a tour of the area yesterday. The enchanted platform will be relocated to the front of the station, close to the ticket office, in September.

Muggles will also be affected by the redevelopment work. All facilities along the western edge of the station will close down in the Autumn, including the less-than-magic Duke of York pub. Important services, such as left luggage, will be moved to the main concourse, in turn displacing all the shops and food outlets here. Only a fragment of WH Smith will remain. Thank Dobby for St Pancras is all we can say.

These growing pains are a necessary process while Network Rail builds a new (and gorgeous) glass-domed concourse to the West, and carries out essential maintenance on the platforms. An additional siding is also being built between Platform 1 and York Way. As previously noted, this work will close Platform 1 as a thoroughfare, and lead to the dismantling of the pedestrian footbridge that spans the current platforms. And just as the Guardian moves into its new offices, swelling potential east-west pedestrian traffic in the area. This is becoming a hotly debated local issue.

We should have a gleaming new station to rival St Pancras come 2012. But there's a possible sting in the tale. Jon mentioned plans to completely rebuild Finsbury Park station around 2015. Feasibility studies recommend complete closure of the tracks into King's Cross to accomplish this. Nothing has been decided, but if this scheme goes ahead, we could be faced with total or part closure of King's Cross mainline just a few years after the new facilities open. Time to invest in broomsticks.

Image from Swiv's Flickr photostream.

Occasionally an event happens so spirit-sappingly depressing to make us wonder if those millenarian, "hell in a handcart", death knell-sounding types in the Mail's employ might actually have a point after all. Here's one: two cops are on sick leave following an attack by a mob in Croydon, after they had the temerity to ask a 15-year old girl to pick up her litter.

The mob, some 30 people strong and made up largely of teens, gathered when the girl became aggressive after being asked to pick up a fast food wrapper she had dropped. After the officers tried to take the girl away from the group to talk with her, violence broke out. Both men suffered a number of injuries, with one sustaining a bite wound, and local witnesses reported their "horror" at the level of violence used by the crowd. One officer told a local newspaper that he "feared for his life" during the attack. The girl was arrested and subsequently bailed, while two men aged 34 and 38 were arrested on charges of suspicion of assault and violent disorder.

There's really nothing more we can add to this senseless story, which sadly reminds us of a similarly nasty incident last year. We wonder, if this is the reaction Croydoners give to authority figures, what measures will they take should the proposed booze restrictions be introduced?

Image from Juror8's Flickrstream via the Londonist pool

Science and art coming together is a beautiful thing. A totally wrong coupling that sometimes climaxes in an eruption of sci-art fusion magic. That's presumably what the Science Museum is after in appointing not onlya writer but a dancer in residence for the summer months.

Contemporary dancer and choreographer, Athina Vahla "concentrates on epic, site-specific work taking a collaborative approach to create multi-media pieces." That's artspeak for mash-ups, right? Vahla is specifically working on a bodily response to the Museum's Listening Post installation, an ever updating, huge, cut-up, ambient, internet poem read by creepy computer generated voices. Casting movement to this cutting edge soundtrack of a million disembodied online voices set around the grid of 200 electronic screens is certainly a fine commission for Vahla who has previously occupied a deserted abbatoir and the Old Operating Theatre.

Vahla and her writerly co-artist, Tony White will be running free workshops throughout the summer whilst creating their very special sci-art love ins with premieres in September and October. We will be watching these spaces.

Visit the Science Museum website for more information.

Last night Londonist caught US indie supremos Death Cab for Cutie at Koko in Camden as they played as part of the month long iTunes festival at the venue. Needless to say, after having a number one US album, appearing on the OC back when it was good, having a platinum selling big-label debut and selling out two nights at Brixton Academy in the past two years, getting to see them at the relatively intimate Koko was an amazing opportunity that we just couldn’t pass up.

The tricky task of supporting Death Cab went to Das Pop. Normally if you play the hottest pop band to come out of Belgium in a few years to a room full of indie Death Cab fans you’d be seeing a mass exodus for the bar. Somehow though, they managed to win just about the whole auditorium around, with their catchy tunes that sound like Alphabeat songs done by Iggy Pop. Led by Bent Van Looy who looks like Alex Kapranos (of Franz Ferdinand), but with the energy of Mika, the four piece hurtled through 45 minutes of pure pop bliss. Culminating in a mass sing along at the end to “I can’t get enough of your love” and then current single “Underground”, we realised that although we’d come to see Death Cab for Cutie, they’d got a tough act to follow.

Bursting onto the stage from behind a very plush red velvet curtain, Death Cab for Cutie arrived and plunged through a mixture of old favourites and newer tracks from their massive selling “Narrow Stairs”. The new songs such as “Cath”, “No Sunlight” and “Long Division” fit just perfectly next to old classics such as “New Year”, “Crooked Teeth” and “Soul Meets Body”. A few technical troubles blighted the band throughout the set, prompting lead singer and chief songwriter Ben Gibbard to joke “I feel like I’m in a movie and I don’t know what’s going to happen next!” as he introduced “Movie Script Ending”. One of the biggest cheers of the evening came for the epic “I will Possess Your Heart”, an 8 minute rock out that looks set to be one of the best things the band have done, and a chance for them to stretch their legs musically.

Closing out the main set with “Sound of Settling”, Ben came back on his own to do an enchanting version of “I will follow you into the dark”, featuring everyone singing along for a proper hairs-on-the-back-of-your-neck moment. To finish was the classic “Transatlanticism”, a slow builder that builds into a frenzy, a fitting ending to an evening with some of US indie rock’s biggest stars of today.

Last night's live recording will be available on iTunes towards the end of this week. Death Cab play a sold out Brixton Academy this Thursday night.

Photo is from the author's own collection.

They gave us a chance to win a home cinema system, and now they're showing films for us. You've got to love Film4 and Somerset House.

The Film4 Summer Screen starts up on 31st July, and runs until 9th August. As in previous years, it's the perfect opportunity to curl up on a nice blanket, a bottle of wine and watch a film outdoors on a (hopefully) lovely summer evening. You'll want to arrive early to snag a good spot and enjoy the atmosphere, and you also may want to think about picking up your ticket soon. Several of the screenings are already sold out, so it's time to get planning.

The line up is quite varied, which we think is great. There's definitely something for everyone in this mix. Here's the list of films still available, and a those that are sold out, as of today:

Thursday 31 July: Hellboy II: The Golden Army (SOLD OUT)
Friday 1 August: Double bill with short: Pan's Labyrinth/The Exorcist (SOLD OUT)
Saturday 2 August: Brokeback Mountain
Sunday 3 August: O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Monday 4 August: Léon (SOLD OUT)
Tuesday 5 August: Fellini's 8½
Wednesday 6 August: Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Thursday 7 August: Singin' in the Rain (SOLD OUT)
Friday 8 August: Double bill: The Elephant Man/ Wild at Heart
Saturday 9 August: Scarface (SOLD OUT)

This Londonista counts at least three of these as all time personal favourites, so be sure to check one out.

Film4 Summer Screen, 31 July - 9 August, Somerset House. For more information go to the website. Tickets start are £12.50/£15 for double bills. Tickets can be purchased via the website or Ticketmaster on 0844 847 1715.

Image of the 2007 Film4 Summer Screen courtesy of John Mason's Flickr photostream

62. The Scariest Urban Legend

Urban legends are often considered myths, or 'friend of a friend' tales (FOAFtales), which differ from classic mysteries in the sense that they are perceived as exaggerated yarns. London has many such tales from its dark, foggy corners, but there is one such story which has become criminally forgotten, and for me remains one of the capital's most horrifying legends – namely 'The Maniac On The Platform' first discussed by folklorist Michael Goss back in 1985. Other such 'urban legends', for example, are phantom hitchhikers, or in the case of New York, alleged alligators said to inhabit the sewer systems. However the so-called platform maniac, said to haunt crowded platforms on the London Underground, would have once equalled even larger scale myths of the world if it had got out of hand.

Michael Goss first heard about the phantom when travelling on the Circle Line between Blackfriars and Embankment in the February 1985. Of course, no-one has ever actually seen the so-called maniac, who is said to be an elusive serial killer who prowls the tunnels looking for hapless victims. And what does he do to these victims...?
Rumour has it that the mystery figure waits for a train to approach and then in sly fashion pushes his target onto the rails to certain death. Back in the 1980s many people spoke of the apparition, it was all hearsay of course, but that's what made the legend spread like wildfire, everyone with their own version of events pertaining to the lunatic. Whispers also spread that at the time the police knew of the killings but would not speak of such as it may have provoked copycat murders.

The maniac was stone-cold fact to everyone, just like the legend of the psychopath said to haunt nightclubs around London and the south-east, injecting people's hands with a secretive syringe and leaving a note in their pocket, which they would read in the morning, saying "Welcome to the AIDS club". Chilling stuff.

We are all prone to conspiracy theories, and the maniac on the London Underground was always out there, and every accident that began to occur on the platforms just may well have been a well disguised killing. Classic folklore. Of course, the London Underground is a perfect place to harbour such eerie legends. Ghosts, giant rats and a race of flesh-eating humanoids are also said to lurk in the gloom, but none of these spectres have ever been seen... have they?

A typical victim of the maniac on the platform will always be known by a friend of a friend whose friend knew the victim's mother etc, etc. That's what makes the urban legend so fascinating, but above all, beyond solution. In the modern climate we fear terrorist threats and so the maniac on the platform has dissolved into legend... but I'm sure, just like all good horror stories, there's a follow-up in the pipeline, coming to a platform near you!

Photo by psd on flickr

Back in the days when Bankside Power Station actually burned oil, it stored its fuel supply in a trio of enormous round tanks lying beneath the rear of the building. Nobody can afford such a quantity of oil these days, but the tanks are still down there, and Tate Modern has big plans for them. Last weekend, small groups of museum members toured the eerie underbelly of the institution for a look at things to come.

While one of the tanks will remain sealed off for sinister-sounding "back-of-house operations," the other two are to become, respectively, a display space and a performance space. They are odd and cavernous enclosures to be employing on both counts, and hopefully the curators will be able to use this oddness to good effect. The display space will provide a home for works that are too small for the Turbine Hall and too big for anywhere else - think Joseph Beuys's Lightning with Stag in its Glare and then some.

What's more, this is only the first step in a long-brewing £18 million plan called Transforming Tate Modern (power station pun allegedly unintended). Eventually - meaning, of course, in 2012 - a new eleven-storey tower of art will rise above the tanks, giving the impression that the Tate has run up against an iceberg. Here's hoping that image doesn't hold too much symbolic weight. Planning permission is already in place, so we're just relieved that the new wing is lower-key than the plans for Battersea.

The tanks themselves are pure industrial functionalism, untouched by the imaginative hand of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, but they are a unique corner of our always fascinating subterranean
London. If you didn't do the tour last weekend, you can have a virtual look but you have to imagine for yourself the resonant sonic environment, heady industrial smells and sheer scale. Better yet, book early for 27 September when a mysteryperformance/installation will launch the tanks' artistic careers.

It's definitely worth getting a look down there before the rust stains and exposed wiring are covered over with gallery white.

By Paul Cox

Photos by Amanda Farah.

Speaking to the summit of London Councils yesterday, our Boris did his bit for older people, perpetuating the idea that everyone over 60 needs to go to the toilet a lot or has problems with their 'waterworks' by suggesting that Freedom Passes should grant access to toilets in London's shops, bars and restaurants even if the holder is not patronising the establishment.

Perhaps drawing inspiration from Wandsworth's experiment, he's suggesting that only older people can be trusted with not sprinkling all over the seat when taking advantage of a swish, private loo.

Well frankly, Boris, should the Freedom Pass be extended to give one legitimate access to a privately owned WC then the rest of us would bloody well want our monthly travelcards to give us equal access, paying, as we do, around £100 or more every month with the added insult of having to fork out 30p at mainline train stations.

Although the prospect of some bright spark making weeing Oyster reader friendly and literally 'pay as you go' as a result, would take the piss to the max.

Image courtesy of roll the dice via the Londonist Flickrpool.

An entire catwalk of models dressed as Tilda Swinton; a dress covered in bells that you can hear before you can see; one model wearing an entire collection… such is life in the fabulous House of Viktor and Rolf installation at the Barbican. Including samples of each collection’s couture, as well as pieces of their early work and live footage of their innovative shows, the epicentre of the exhibition is a giant doll’s house, filled with figures dressed in miniature, intricately-made versions of costumes from their collections. For those unplagued by the blight of pediophobia*, the sparkling blend of fashion and art by the Dutch designers is a must-see.

You may have seen the bespectacled fashion duo peering out at you from advertisements all over the city, their grave expressions mirrored by the glassy-eyed dolls surrounding them. Within the world of couture, Victor and Rolf are indispensable, fusing together the politics of fashion and an ice-cool irony. The installation takes you on a chronological journey through their career, questioning fashion’s fleeting and superficial nature as well as their own place within it. In l’Apparence du Vide, Viktor and Rolf hang golden garments (meant to suggest disposable gift wrapping) mirrored by a wearable organza ‘shadow’ on the floor, highlighting fashion’s overemphasis on the cult of celebrity at the expense of an appreciation of cloth and form.
Their later collections still insist on raising questions, refusing to take refuge in their aesthetic and commercial success. In their ‘No’ collection, models stroll down the catwalk with the negative statement twisted into their clothing or painted shockingly over their face and eyes, criticizing the endless turnaround of collections and underlying commercialism that fuels the world of fashion. In this way, the pair criticize the phenomenon of couture while being honest about their desire to play a part in it. As well as imbuing the conceptual into their work, the pair also use the medium to portray their own moods. The ‘Flowerbomb’ show features models dressed entirely in black, only to reveal a positive mirror image in pink and gold on the other side of a revolving stage, celebrating optimism and positivity.

If conceptual fashion is famous for its inaccessibility, this beautifully arranged installation will do well at drawing in the uninitiated. Helpfully explained by contextual notes on each piece, the installation avoids the trap of under-curated work which leaves you stroking your chin and wondering what it all means. Go and see Viktor and Rolf late at the Barbican on a Thursday, enjoy a raspberry Bellini, and plan your next bow-covered, silver-plated, all-singing and dancing outfit.

By Chloe George

*To you and me, that’s fear of the little madams. Yes indeed - whether rag, Russian or Barbie. Even Ballerina Barbie.

Image courtesy of the Barbican.

This is the damning conclusion of an audit into the London Development Agency under Ken Livingstone. During his eight years in power, millions were squandered on pet projects, approved without appropriate checks and balances, says the report, which was authored by Patience Wheatcroft at the behest of her long-time pal and occasional back-scratcher Boris Johnson.

Contentious projects, like a world-class aquarium in the Silvertown Quays complex, were given Ken's glad-hand and pushed ahead despite concerns about cost and viability. The LDA, whose head Lee Jasper was forced to quit in the dying days of the Livingstone regime, became "fat and siloed" under such complacency.

Yet despite the Johnson camp snouting for a smoking gun of corruption, the report states that such profligacy arose through incompetence and mismanagement rather than anything more sinister. Livingstone, who refused to cooperate with the audit on the understandable grounds that the largely Tory panel might not be entirely unbiased, has hit back, dismissing the proceedings as a "kangaroo court" and listing recent initiatives - the gas-guzzler fee waiver, the potentially costly Routemaster project, the canning of the Venezuelan gas deal - that Ken claims will prove costlier than anything the LDA ever spent.

Wheatcroft's final recommendation is that the LDA be denuded of power and re-focused on commissioning projects instead of running them, a move Livingstone claimed would mean "deterioration of the economic situation and quality of life" in London.

With Ken apparently confirming that he sees himself in the City Hall frame for 2012, we don't expect this to go away quietly. It's like the election never happened and they're still out their on the campaign trail, like those Japanese soldiers still on maneuvers in the south Pacific who haven't heard the war ended decades ago. Can we really take another four years of this?

Image from toguko's Flickrstream via the Londonist pool

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break.

Tiffinbites
23 Russia Row (off Gresham Street) EC2V 7PG
020 7600 4899
11.30am-10pm (Monday-Friday)
Expect to Pay: around £8 for mains, maybe £10-12 if you want a starter and/or a drink

With all those workers filing in and all that money flying around, you’d think the City of London would teem with halfway decent lunchtime options. Alas, really good places to eat in London’s financial quarter can be hard to come by. Luckily, there’s Tiffinbites near Saint Paul’s. It’s a glammed up (think Bollywood) “real Indian food served the real Indian way” restaurant with fresh baked naan and a very perusable menu. Londonist tried the Karahi Chicken (“marinated chicken breasts, simmered in gravy with onions, bell peppers and tomatoes”) accompanied by tarka daal (lentils and turmeric stew, “tempered” with garlic and cumin seeds) and pilau rice. Yum. The chicken was exceptionally juicy, which we suspect is indicative of this restaurant chain’s commitment to serving only free range chicken. The folks at Tiffinbites reckon that “eating real Indian food is a celebration of life.” They certain have created a celebrative environment in which to eat. The kitsch-n-class dining area with your favourite Bollywood classics being screened is a fun place to grab a great lunch. Service is incredibly friendly and really we can’t think of anything negative to say about this establishment. Go. Enjoy.

Tiffinbites also has locations at Canary Wharf, Moorgate and Liverpool Street.

Photography by Chris Osburn © 2008