There's something of a Valentine's theme to the Arts of choice taking place in the capital this week. But Londonist knows for every young Juliet embracing the idea of timeless romantic love, there's a Bridget hugging her near-empty vodka bottle, crooning to Chaka Khan. So, in the name of balance, here's a varied, half 'rom', half 'com' round-up for you all. Shows for Swingin' Lovers: Photographer Gregg Stone, has been taking snaps of kissing......

Whenever Londonist is feeling a tad glum, we have but to turn to Matt Harding and his amazingly silly website to get all cheered up again. Matt Harding is one big internet sensation, albeit a very unlikely one. The former games programmer has made a new career out of dancing badly in front of some of the world’s most recognisable and iconic buildings, and in some of the planet’s remotest terrains. But Londonist has been......

Well it’s awfully good of that nice Mr. Livingstone to organise stuff in Trafalgar Square, and we are all too sorry that we didn’t have time to go to his Diwali day on Sunday 28th October. But Londonist would remind you that Diwali isn’t actually until the 9th of November, and there’s loads more going on by way of celebration. And so that we can live up to our reputation as the world’s 93rd most......

Well, OK, maybe we’re getting a little medieval and melodramatic here (although we could have said "Off with his head!"). But Londonist’s blood is boiling today, and a Londonist with boiled blood is not a pretty sight. We are most certainly not alone. The story of a mindless thug who mindlessly punched a 96 year old man in the face because he couldn’t get past him to exit a tram is appalling. And today we......

Reality TV has found a new audience with the broadcast of a splendid new show, Model Mosque. Shown on the Islam Channel, the programme sees mosques from around the UK (of which there are 1,500 official ones) going head to head to be awarded the title of Mosque with the mostest and to receive £35,000 worth of consultancy. Viewers vote by text on the weekly knockout rounds - the final is on 25th November. Londonist......

Well Londonist has run two animal stories into one here, on account of not wanting to look like we’ve gone soft. And to keep all parties happy, there’s a doggy one, and a kitty one. Although the cat one is actually rather sad: the business of an abused and diseased kitten which was abandoned to die at a West London recycling depot gets us as full of passion and anger as the next daft, animal-mad......

North Kent Police are planning to plant some evidence in the near future, and are looking for suggestions as to what/who to put in the frame. To celebrate the completion of a new and very expensive police station (complete with a shopping mall and restaurants apparently)(Copper Coffee? Cop Shop? Ye Olde Bill? this could be fun) at Northfleet (which is near enough to London to make us interested), some bright spark has suggested burying......

After seven years of speculation and debate, London today finally unveiled its tribute to Nelson Mandela. The 9’ high, 1 tonne statue was unveiled by the man himself in the presence of an impressive cast of London’s ‘great and good’, including Gordon Brown, David Cameron, Ken Livingstone and Lord Richard Attenborough. The proceedings were watched by a vast and cheering crowd, and overseen by Disraeli, Churchill, Lincoln and former South African leader Jan Smuts from......

Londonist would like to introduce their very own special agent. Well, in the assassin water pistol world anyway. We're going to call him 'Derek'. This isn't his real identity and he may not even be a man. Why all the secrecy? Well we've been following Derek as he plays Street Wars, the three week event where people all over London are getting soaked with water pistols in the name off war. Or silliness. If......

Tourist season in rain-soaked down-town London, and all the big museums are, shall we say, a tad busy. But Londonist always has something up its sleeve for a rainy day. And for those of you inclined towards higher aesthetic planes, we would strongly recommend the Design Museum in Shad Thames, more particularly their current exhibition featuring the works of ‘starchitect’ Zaha Hadid. It is hard to over-state the achievements of this prolific lady –......

We told you about BBC show 'The Tower' earlier this week. It's all about The Pepys Estate in Deptford. Well, it seems there's been a little bit of a backlash from the residents. They're not happy. Apparently one of the residents (a retired gangster) says the show holds them in a dim light. Apparently the show has been filming people putting needles in their arms and getting drunk. And the residents don't like it.......

Quick! Where‘s your Oyster card? Haven’t got one? Not for long. London's mayor is to give away 100,000 free Oyster cards, which offer cheaper travel on public transport. Ken Livingstone said the cards had revolutionised travel in London, speeding up buses and Tubes and reducing queues. Since the financial merits of having an Oyster card aren’t really debatable anymore, the only thing left to ask is: are you for an increase in the widespread......

Punky has come home. Six years ago, Punky the Cat walked out the flap of his New Malden home, saying "Just going up the top for a pack of fags," and then vanished without a trace. Humans Maffelda and Bill Hay, under whose roof Punky had dwelt, had given up all hope for his return. But Punky has returned - older, rough around the edges, and virtually deaf - but he has returned. Maffelda,......

More thrilling info on the silliest assassination in post-Cold War history: Apparently the very difficult-to-acquire (unless you're an evil research scientist, like in the movies), and very easy-to-trace (why not drown the fellow in Smart Water™?) Polonium 210, used to kill ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, is also extremely expensive. The Times declares the value of the Polonium used to poison Litvinenko at around $10 million. Why The Times does not give the value in......

OK, OK, we know most of you will be sick of reading about Hawksmoor. But Londonist are completer-finisher types, and after stalking so many lesser London luminaries we feel obliged to tackle the great church-building, conspiracy-generating architect. There must be some readers out there who haven’t read Iain Sinclair’s trademark lucidity-shy ramblings on how Hawksmoor’s six churches align with other sites of dubious significance to form a pretty pattern. Or Peter Ackroyd’s erudite reinterpretation......

How often do people praise their local council for something? Probably about as seldom as they commend traffic wardens or applaud the work of Steve Penk. But Londonist salutes forward-thinking Camden Council, as it reveals plans to install wind turbines atop its town hall in Argyle Street. And, no, we’re not talking about those massive wind farms that regularly get NIMBYs into a tizzy. These are discrete little baby turbines that will sit unnoticed......

The restoration of the West Front of St Paul's Cathedral is at last complete and the scaffolding has come down. This returns to the capital one of its most delightful prospects, the view down Ludgate Hill towards St Paul's, and means that visitors will at last be able to enjoy the full ceremonial effect of approaching Wren's masterpiece without being confronted with an eyeful of unlovely hoardings. But Londonist has a few concerns. The......

Are the people of West Ham "tedious"? That's what Tony Banks, their MP, thinks, and he wasn't afraid to say it to the BBC. "I found it intellectually numbing, tedious in the extreme," he said of constituency work. "It might sound a little disparaging to say this about people's lives and their problems and we did deal with them ... but I got no satisfaction from this at all. I really didn't." Only a......