Cheers to Dave Hodgkinson, who after winning a pair tix from us for a gourmet food & wine tasting with Jimmy Doherty at Vinopolis was thoughtful enough to post a review of the event on his blog and to give us a heads up. Looks good, Dave. We’re glad you had a good time.......

London bloggers can be a lonely bunch, hunched over their laptops, leaving comments all over the place but not actually meeting and greeting much. All that will change on Tuesday 29 January for this is the date scheduled for the London Bloggers Meet Up, kicking off at 7pm at the Camel and Artichoke pub in Waterloo. It's a good chance for a post-work drink and chat with fellow bloggers, and a rare opportunity to......

It’s cold outside this week, so it seems like the best plan is to cozy up on the couch and watch some telly. Why would you want to risk frostbite? On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 12 November I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here (ITV1, 21:00-22:30) It’s off to the jungle yet again with Ant & Dec as they guide a new group of “celebs” through as many disgusting tasks as you’d......

Just a quick shout-out to announce an upcoming bloggers get-together. The event takes place on 27 November at the Camel and Artichoke, Waterloo. It’s following that simple yet winning formula: get some interesting people in a pub and have some beers. Londonist will be there. The group is still fairly small, but keen to grow into a regular social for all us hard-grafting denizens of e-Grub Street. It’s organised by Dan Bower of We Love......

Depending on how much Internet reading you do, you may or may not be aware that today is Blog Action Day – a day on which bloggers around the web unite to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind. This year it’s the environment. And in honour of this, Londonist could think of nothing more appropriate than to suggest ideas for a greener day in this fair city of ours. 1. Get on......

While SFist cringed at the fatal dose of crime littering the Bay Area, it found solace in Hillary Clinton's San Francisco campaign headquarters opening, which featured loads of exposed mammary glands. In other news, SF Taxi Commission ruled that Satan's cab must keep its (in)famous medallion number, 666; and in an un-fashion-forward frenzy, San Francisco Fashion Week (chortle) bars bloggers from covering and getting smashed at their shows and parties, respectively. Also, they found a......

It's by-election day in Ealing Southall. The West London constituency is bereft of a representative following the death of Piara Kabra. The Labour politician was the UK's oldest at 82. Twelve hopefuls are vying for victory. Virenda Kumar Sharma is the Labour candidate, while Nigel Bakhai stands for the Lib Dems. Tony Lit, meanwhile, represents 'David Cameron's Conservatives'. What? Is that to distinguish them from Gordon Brown's Conservatives? Or is it some kind of......

We like helping you pick what's for lunch. We like sharing with you what we know is going on in the world of drinking, dining, cooking and food shopping in London. But, though we try, we cannot know it all and we trust you to know your onions, know what you like and know where to get it. That element of trust has been developed, nurtured and turned into something quite special by our friends......

With all that went down this week, we thought we thought we'd cheer everyone up by giving everyone a double dose of dogs. It was a rollercoaster ride of emotions this week at DCist. Like the rest of country, we were floored by the news of so many dead coming out of Virginia Tech, and with so many of the victims and their relatives from the D.C. area, we felt it important to pay......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

After two successful public test events the new Wembley has been granted its test certificate by Brent Council and the FA has wasted no time in announcing the stadium as the venue for May 19th's FA Cup Final which could yet feature the dream final of Chelsea v Watford, though it might just as well see Blackburn facing Manchester United. The FA also confirmed that the players of Stevenage Borough and Kidderminster Harriers (FA......

WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING, PLEASE LONDONERS, CAN YOU STOP BUYING THAT BLOODY 500 MILES SINGLE. As if "500 Miles" isn't a bad enough song to start with, it now has the son of the devil Matt Lucas whinging all over it. ARGH. If you actually want to buy something that will donate to Comic Relief, then instead we hope you point your buying finger at Shaggy Blog Stories. Long-term excellent blogger Troubled Diva decided......

Same as the old Wembley? Several bloggers were fortunate enough to be among the 60,000 Brent residents to be invited to the first public event at the new stadium and their first impressions sound a strangely familiar note. Rascal Houdi on The National Midday Sun message board concludes: Stadium, superb.....signage, catering & transport, must do better. In fairness, the new owners have only had the keys for a week and are working like crazy......

Billie Piper is all set to slip into Belle de Jour's gusset! Here's the scoop direct from the diary of a London call girl: Finally - it's official - Billie's on board, and you can expect to see Belle the series on ITV2 this autumn. I couldn't be more excited, and I know the writers and actors and everyone else will do a great job. Hurrah! Hurrah! indeed. Now all the people who have......

We do enjoy a good debate here at Londonist HQ so were pleased to be asked along to last night's Guardian/BAFTA Film Forum entitled The Role of the Film Critic in the Digital Age: It is easy and inexpensive for anyone to set themselves up as an internet authority on film - and online film reviews, blogs and podcasts are widely available at the click of a button. Does the internet threaten the role......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

The congestion zone, bloated and gorged on the wallets of London motorists, finally loosened its belt this morning. A doubling of girth was observed in the ensuing westerly bloat, which takes in some of London's richest inhabitants. Fans of JG Ballard will be intrigued to learn that the area approximating to Chelsea Marina is included on the extreme western fringe, as though on purpose. But what's the reaction? Mixed, of course. And the overall......

Valentine's Day is only a few days away, and we here across the Gothamist network wanted to express, in the spirit of the holiday, just how much we love you, our readers. Don't let it get to your heads, though. There are plenty of things we love, you included. Just be glad you're not amongst the things we hate. SFist saw their beloved mayor enter rehab, and they loved the opportunity to gossip about it.......

Our weekend roundup of all that's good in London blogs While most bloggers, us included, cocked a sarcastic snook at the Starbucks store locator, Diamond Geezer has, typically, been more inventive. He's put together a crude map of London showing the number of outlets per postal district. W1, naturally, has the most with 32, whereas poor/lucky RM1, BR1 and SM1 only have one each. Our old friend Brian, the blogging pigeon, did some investigative journalism......

MykReeve is a fave photographer of ours from the Londonist pool and it's all down to shots like this. The Preacher Man also shows the lengths that some bloggers will go to even without an Internet connection.......

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

It might be the holiday season but some of us have just returned from dial-up horror and can barely contain ourselves from attempting to read the whole internet. So, although a little later than some other bloggers we could hardly let this one go without mentioning could we: A graffiti gang has caused thousands of pounds of damage to a north London Underground (LU) station. They sneaked into Camden Town station and covered walls,......

If you're hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs "so are you nakie" to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

If you've seen the cute and colourful video to Annie Mac favourite and Crazy Itch Radio highlight Take Me Back To Your House, then not only will you be rejoicing at the first Basement Jaxx video in a while to not include eye-avertingly massive breasts, but you'll have unbeknown to yourself, been introduced to the wonderful world of Dragonette. Dragonette sees said vocalist, Martina Sorbera, joined by three Canadian musicians to create sparkly, glamorous,......

Halloween is Tuesday, which means this weekend is really the time for all of the –ists to celebrate. And whether they’re designing super-spooky costumes or talking about the super-spooky upcoming elections, we’d say that they’re doing a fine job of it. Austinist knows that few things in life are scarier than zombies, people with way too much money, and politicians who try too hard to be funny. Slightly less scary, depending on whom you......

Thursdays are a funny one. It's almost the end of the week so you're more often than not tempted to go out for a bit of a booze, even thought you'll live to regret it in the morning. This week we positively encourage you to do it though as it's the launch night of new London clubnight Do Dirt at Dust in Clerkenwell - a night for Mucky pop, rude raps, sleazy rock and......

Knickers. Where would we be without them? Well some of us would be slightly chilly today while others would be left with nothing to think about all day while pretending to work. A world without knickers would be like having the toy in a Kinder Surprise without the chocolate egg or an Avril Lavigne CD without the case to look at. We love knickers. And so not surprisingly do the lingerie loving bloggers over......

Every once in a while, a band or an artist comes along, which sends 'the bloggers' WILD. A couple of years ago it was Annie and now it's Lily Allen. 20 years old, from North London, and the daughter of none other than Keith Allen, Lily's summery ska sound has happily crossed over into radio airplay with Radio 1 playing her on a regular basis. Throughout May she's playing a gig each Thursday at......

If our Blogging Demystified event last month didn't answer all your questions (hey, we're only human you know) then can we suggest you get yourselves down to the Adam Smith Institute tomorrow night for their bizarrely-titled Dead Trees & Pyjama Kids talk which promises to take a good look at "the interaction between the mainstream media and the blogosphere" (that's Adam on the right there by the way). The discussion will kick off with......

A big thank you to all of the speakers at last night’s Blogging Demystified event at the Apple Store, hosted by Londonist. Equally, a deserved sláinte to the hundred or so people who attended and persevered over the considerable background noise. And a melodramatic Shakespearian bow to those of you who came along to the pub afterwards for some beery postscripts. As hastily organised first-time efforts go, the evening seemed to be a success,......