What happens in a Tube station when all the passengers have gone home? Why do Tube workers carry cards about rat piss? And why isn't standing on the right of an escalator necessarily a good thing? Londonist finds answers on our latest nocturnal investigation. Some of London's busiest Tube stations are in a mess. Missing tiles and chicken-wire cornices are a familiar site, especially at King's Cross and Leicester Square. It's a case of......

What was your New Year's resolution? Lose weight? Get fit? Quit drinking.... Same old, same old. Well, Londonist's former Editor, Mike Atherton got a bit more creative than that. He joined Semanal, committing to making one video a week in 2008. It's his first stab at vlogging (like blogging, but by video - geddit?) so he can certainly tick the resolution "try something new" and not have to buy an expensive musical instrument or enter......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 24. Llamas As Team Nice and the Niceties Campaign is a year old, last week we spoke of niceties tokens, which is the mechanism that started Team Nice. So this week I thought I would speak a little bit more about Team Nice. Team Nice is an ever-growing group of people (currently just under 1,000)......

The third of our interviews with the Tory candidates for London Mayor. Previously, Victoria Borwick and Andrew Boff. Warwick Lightfoot has, no doubt, spent a lifetime tolerating jibes about his Tolkeinesque name. He's also acquired an outstanding CV that includes stints as Mayor of Kensington and Chelsea, Special Advisor to the Chancellor and 20 years experience as a councillor. Most impressively of all, he's the first Tory candidate to admit to vomiting on the......

Anyone who has ever surfed the internet in a quest for enlightenment about British theatre will undoubtedly have come across the West End Whingers’ blog. By now, Andrew and Phil have become internet blogging stars, doing for theatre what Belle de Jour did for prostitution with only slightly less lubricant. Andrew and Phil have ranted against ticket prices, bar prices, fringe theatre and the general state of affairs since 2006, accumulating a huge fan......

Just out the Van: Don't forget Bookslam tonight with guests including Mr. Irvene Welsh. There aren't any more advance tickets but there should be plenty on the door. Go early to avoid disappointment. Leave early to avoid hangover. Just kidding. 6.30pm, until late, £6, Book Slam @ Neighbourhood, 12 Acklam Road, W10 5QZ, food available. Givin’ ‘em away: Quite a hefty topic for midweek is John Gray's Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death......

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......

Mama Mouse: [To her eight happy children] My darling children, how happy you all look at our Monday morning breakfast table in our beautiful home in the Cheesegrater. Did you have a good weekend? Mouslings: We had a wonderful weekend! We went to all our favourite night clubs such as Movida, Pangea, Crystal and Chinawhite which we can now frequent because we are rich nd privileged due to the dubious "family business" you and......

I reviewed Kristin Hersh's spellbinding album preview show at the Arts Theatre last time and on Tuesday night I got the opportunity not only to watch her perform a powerful acoustic set with The McCarricks but to meet her in person. We had quite a chat... First of all how are you, how are the shows going, are you enjoying yourself? I haven't had any shows really because it's a promo tour. I'm about......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. If you haven't seen the blog, or spotted them in the Guardian, Post Secret's conceit is simple - send a postcard airing a single piece of your dirty laundry. Now there's a book and an accompanying exhibition at Foyles till December the 10th. The new Smoke - a London Peculiar is out too. Here's......

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......

We like ours with sauce here at the Londonist, and shakin' their maracas and booties like streetwalkers in a Miami Vice musical, South London homies Hot Chip served it up thick at their biggest headliner to date last week at the slowly crumbling Astoria. Surprisingly, for an electro-pop outfit that barricades itself, Kraftwerk-style, behind keyboards at gigs, and recorded two albums in vocalist and synth dude Joe Goddard's bedroom studio, Hot Chip sizzled onstage.......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Tuesday 27 June Is there such a thing as Women’s Journalism? Eleanor Mills, co-editor of Cupcakes and Kalashnikovs - 100 Years of the Best Journalism by Women, argues that women have a special strength when they put themselves and their point of view into what they write, giving examples from the last century. 6.30pm......

What we do is war! Jean Louis insisted during practice, and I passed that off as him just being French and dramatic and paranoid. But in a way, isn't he right? We are waging war on perceptions of reality, with our physical Socratic method. We are losing money, health, safety all that to give the gift of confusion to thirty or forty people a night. In confusion, all the pieces of what you think......

In last week's edition of the FPP, John Hirst excelled himself with a score of 4 out of 5, only missing out on the full 100% through a flippant proclamation that Wigan would overturn Man U in the League Cup Final. So close to perfection! Truly thrilling stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. Even more thrilling was the fact that two people, real living people, not just Londonist writers pretending to be other people, actually......

Did anyone read the interview with Damien Hirst in yesterday's Observer magazine? It was mostly about Hirst getting drunk in Mexico and preparing to offend an awful lot of Catholics with some dead sheep, a few human skulls and some rosary beads, but there was this one little titbit towards the end of the article: When I met him, [Hirst] had just received planning permission for his other big property venture - the creation......

To The Editor Of "The Girl's Own Paper" MY DEAR SIR, - The portrait of Her Majesty, which you have allowed me to see, and which is the frontispiece of the present part, is a charming one (the very best, but one, I have seen - and that was a foreign one and unique for private use) and the expression is like our gracious lady; for the expression in the public photographs is terribly......

These listings appear every Wednesday. If you want to let us know about any upcoming science or technology events, you can contact us on LondonistSciTech@Gmail.com Ha! No listings for you this week. Surely you’ve got better things to do in the Christmas period than sit in dusty old lecture theatres? But science never sleeps, and (it seems at the moment) neither do we. So, as a special Christmas treat, we decided to interview the......

First of all, I'd do something for the body: a gentle mid-morning run around Hyde Park with preferably no interference from the speakers at Speakers' Corner and lots of interaction with adorable over-excited, waggy-tailed dogs. These dogs do not leave poo on the park paths and do not chase to bite; they only chase in a friendly, playful fashion. And I find exactly the right volume level for my mp3 player so that I'm not......

Next week the catchily titled Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising will open its doors up in Notting Hill, and despite the rather unweildy name it looks like this is a new London attraction Londonist will be visitng before too long. The musuem is billed as displaying "200 years of consumerism, reflected through packaging design, brand development, poster and TV advertising," and yet it seems to be the result of just one man's obsession......

A week or so ago we began asking for Londonist readers to start sending in their 'opinion pieces' to us for publication over the weekend. Really what we wanted were your rants and your moans about London life, the stuff that you really needed to vent. Now somewhat unsurprisingly a few of the emails we received were about London's somewhat notorious transport system, so we thought we'd post two of those emails here today.......

It appears Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar-winning actress and macrobiotic mother, has a bone to pick with our "dirty", "cold", "depressing", "relaxed" (no, we don't understand that last one, either) city. She advised fellow Americans in this month's Marie Claire - the US version, of course - to watch out for "dirty streets" and the rain - how original of her. Goodness, what a wonderful way to make herself popular with her adopted home's inhabitants! Also,......

So last week we carried the story about the West End show Ducktastic and the fact that the opening had to be delayed because the ducks hadn't quite got to grips with some of the tricks they were being asked to perform on stage. And now today we hear that the star of the show has 'flown the coop'... or, in other words, someone has half-inched the duck. We agree, it sounds like a......

Battersea bridge is closed and all roads that lead to the river seem to be a polluted gridlock at present. Fear not, the Londonist Tech are at hand with a few gadgets that might help those sick of the traffic. Firstly smash your piggy bank. And then pray you have amassed a cool $3.5 million in that porcelain bellied swine because soon no Tech savvy commuter will be seen dead without the new Moller......

It's been a while since the Londonist caught up with our non-'Premiership' teams, but it's back and with a snappy new title to boot. Loans Mid-September and few would have predicted Watford to be in 3rd place. The Hornets narrowly lost to table-toppers Sheffield United last week, but a Milk Cup win over Wolves mid-week should keep that bubble from bursting for the moment. Adie Boothroyd hasn't been resting on his or anyone else's......

Long live reality TV! Without it, this week’s schedules would look worryingly barren – aside from must-see telly like Nip/Tuck (22.50/23.50 Wed C4) and Scrubs (20.00 Fri C4), all the high points of the week’s programming are derived from members of the public making fuckwits of themselves. Also, the Channel 4 scheduler who decided that Nip/Tuck was best shown when most non-insomniacs have gone to bed clearly needs to cut down on the Colombian......

Hope you all had a fun Saturday and Sunday - pity there's always a Monday tagged on at the end like a hidden booking fee. Nice weekend? That'll cost you... But never mind that... what you lot need is some ROCK. And we know just the girls who can bring it on... Remember She Makes War? We fell in love with them a few weeks back when they demolished the bill at The Garage.......

Straight people don't know, what you're about... They put you down and shut you out After running into Kelly Osbourne at the She Makes War gig on Sunday night Londonist was wondering what the latest news was with her dear old dad. It turns out that Ozzy has finally been diagnosed with Parkin syndrome meaning that the shakes that have afflicted him for years (and have been a source of amusement for unfunny wankers......

We Londonistas consider ourselves to be sophisticated, refined urbanites, and as such there's nothing we enjoy more than pelting around Hyde Park playing tag. It's art, you see. No, really. Stop giggling at the back. It is art, but art in the post-Pickled Dead Shark sense, which is to say "something done by someone calling themselves an artist". The artist in question is Tomoko Takahashi - that's her on the right of this picture,......

So it looks like "London" is a four-letter word in a certain rival European capital. The mayor of Paris has begun a campaign against "La Londonisation", his term for the rubber-stamp commoditising of the High Street, destruction of small businesses, and the driving out of the middle classes into the hinterlands (suburbs to you and me). Leaving aside the somewhat convenient timing of this tirade (Paris is frontrunner for the 2012 Olympics, and London's......