This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 49. Tube driver talk I was getting on the Northern Line the other morning and the young guy that speaks on the tannoy, announcing the trains, made the commuters a little bit happier. He stood in the middle of the platform, speaking into his speaker-thingy in a such a way that it was as if......

The trains have been re-routed, the signage amended, the tube announcements re-recorded (completed, luckily, before the woman behind them was given the heave-ho). The re-opening of St Pancras means that Waterloo's reign as Britain's main international train station, a duty it fulfilled without complaint for thirteen years, is well and truly over. But what to do with those elegant Eurostar platforms, so admired in their mid-Nineties infancy? The plan in the short term is......

Londonist imagines that saying "mind the gap, "stand clear of the closing doors" and endless variations on "The next station is...." for a living can get a little wearisome. Professional voice-over artist Emma Clarke does just that. Hence, she decided to spice up her days by making a few spoof announcements and posting them onto her website, including one that went: "We would like to remind our American tourist friends that you are almost......

We think everybody who attended Saturday's sun-soaked Tour de France Prologue would agree that, on the whole, it was a well-organised, popular success. However, with the shadow of the Olympics hanging over every large scale sporting happening in London between now and 2012 our experiences at the race lead us to believe that there are still a few important tweaks that could be made for events like this in the lead up to the......

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. In Gothamist's neck of the woods, they found out that many things are possible: A man caught a 40+ pound fish off the Rockaways and took it home on the subway. Graffiti......

All Londonist Sport's Christmases have come at once. It is being reported that today the NFL, the world's premier professional league of football American-style, is about to announce that a game will be played between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants at the soon-to-be-completed Wembley Stadium some time in the autumn. "Oh yes," we hear you murmur. "We remember that sort of thing from the late eighties and early nineties." Well, yes......

An interesting post on the Wooster Collective caught our eye this morning (and a few of yours too - thanks to everyone who dropped us an email pointing to this): The King's Cross area is currently being knocked down, cleaned up, rebuilt and gentrified in time for the 2012 Olympics. As a consequence of this, a large population of people who live and work on the street are being displaced. Many of these people......

While the London Film Festival was having its gala opening in Leicester Square, a decidedly less glitzy and less James McAvoy-related film gathering was taking place down at BAFTA headquarters over on Piccadilly. Just Watch Me: Award Winning Canadian Short Films brought together some classic National Film Board cartoons with newer shorts by David Cronenberg, Guy Maddin and Chris Landreth (who won the Oscar in 2005 for his animated film Ryan). Also, there was......

Are you worried about the creeping loss of civil liberties in Britain? We are, having had our own run-in with heavy-handed police not so long ago. So when we received the following email, we thought it'd be a great idea to post it up here, in order that as many of you as possible might read it and with any luck decide to take part: A recent law has made it illegal to protest......

A nationwide two-minute silence will begin at noon today. Announcements will be made on all Underground trains and platforms reminding people when it is about to start. There will also be an evening ceremony at Regent's Park for the more than 1,000 family members and known survivors of the bombings at which the names of all 52 people killed by the suicide bombers will be read out. Plaques commemorating the victims of 7 July......

With a regularity only seen for bands who have a new album coming out very soon, Radiohead are in the news yet again today and this time it's a quick head up for their fans! If you haven't already been cheated out of a billion pounds by a tout for Radiohead's Hammersmith gigs in May, then be careful because those pesky touts are trying to sell tickets for gigs that don't even exist. Radiohead's......

... To Woolwich, to be precise, or so we are told. Now, we aren't too sure where Woolwich is - it's out past zone 2, darlings! - but we're pretty sure that more DLR can only be a good thing. Also, we were amused by:A 540-tonne boring machine for the new 1.5-mile (2.4km) stretch has been put in place ready for tunneling to start in April.It will excavate enough material to fill 40 Olympic-sized......

Things are a-brewing on the South Bank. The proposed Beetham Tower, AKA 1 Blackfriars Road, AKA The Boomerang, looks like it’s found a major occupant. But a substantial redesign will also be necessary. The 68 gleaming stories will rival the nearby Shard in elegance and stature, while its bizarre pregnant bulge renders the design both original and iconic. Or at least that was the plan. Now, several elements, including that bulge, have been criticised......

Super League favourites St Helens stomped all over the good vibes at the Stoop on Saturday, as they rolled over London's latest incarnation of a top-flight rugby league team, Harlequins, 40-16. The result was unsurprising, given that the Saints, with GB captian Paul Sculthorpe back in action and new signing Jason Cayless bristling with aggression, look like a very tidy outfit indeed. But the fact remains that Harlequins will have to start producing results......

Expect an increase in the number of headphones appearing on regular bus users to help drown out the dead robotic voice of fate... Visually impaired people should find London's buses easier to use if plans to introduce next stop announcements prove successful. The system, similar to the one used on the London Underground network, is being tested on Arriva's route 149 buses, in north London. What we're concerned about is that someone in their......

Just a quick reminder that the next of Ken's regular press conferences is due to take place this morning, and it will be available to view live online if you want to tune in. Mayor Ken will be talking to assembled journalists and making a few announcements around 10 this morning and you can click here to view the webcast. Be warned though the picture and sound quality on these things are pretty bloody awful......

- What are you going to do today, Brain? - The same thing I do every day, Pinky. Complain to London Underground. Get to tube station on time, in fact, early, meaning to get to work and knock off early. Discover that there are 'minor delays on the Hammersmith and City Line'. Wait. Train comes, packed to the gills (if trains had gills - do any land animals have gills? I believe grasshoppers and......

You may have noticed that we skipped this week's mid week listings post. That's because we've decided to roll them into one bumper Friday post combining new tour announcements and a randomly bizarre recommendation of gigs for the week ahead. There's a bumper crop of shows to mention this week, but not until we've stopped laughing at the news that Justin Hawkins of The Darkness bought back a copy of their forthcoming album off......

Talk about setting yourself up for a fall: rail passengers who use services between London Waterloo and the West Country are to be consulted on what they think of the South-West Trains franchise. This is to discover "what would encourage passengers to use the service more", according to the BBC. So - to take a perfectly hypothetical example that isn't, repeat isn't, burning fresh in Londonist's memory - if you have parents in Dorset,......