66(6)! The Coventry Street Vampire It is a case obscure, hardly spoken of. Whilst the legend of the Highgate 'vampire' continues to intrigue and be discussed, something just as wicked occurred several decades before, in the West End at Coventry Street. In 1922 a giant bat-like creature had been seen in the vicinity of West Drayton Church, as I have mentioned before, and some believed it was the vampyric spirit of a creature once......

A Jewish graveyard in East London was vandalised yesterday with 30-40 tombs damaged. Headstones were smashed, railings trashed and a small fire was started up against a wall in Plashet Cemetery, East Ham. However, this latest incident is small fry compared to the major attack that left 386 gravestones damaged in the very same cemetery, back in 2003. The desecration of burial grounds is an affront to people of any, or indeed, no faith......

Fed up of the froth, mirth and sentimentality of the Yuletide muzak yet? To bring you an antidote and alternative soundtrack for your Christmas holidays we caught up with the utterly charming Roi Robertson of Mechanical Cabaret over a sorbet and peppermint tea and ruminated on the band's latest single, pastoral London views and the fact that we've never seen him and Noel Fielding in the same room together... Who's in the band? I......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd December ????: Nothing of any interest has ever happened in London on this date. Sorry. Tuesday – 4th December 1882: The Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand are opened by Queen Victoria. Wednesday – 5th December 1905: Part of the roof of Charing Cross station collapses, killing six people. Thursday – 6th December 1983: Britian’s first heart and lung transplant operation takes place at Harefield......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 19th November 1558: Queen Elizabeth I travels to Highgate on her accession to the throne. She is met by the bishops and escorted through London. Tuesday – 20th November 1992: Fire sweeps through Windsor Castle, causing £40 million worth of damage to over 100 rooms. Wednesday – 21st November 1695: The great composer Henry Purcell dies at his home in Westminster. The cause of his death in......

Sometimes it's the little ones that grab ya. Man breaks into cemetery, steals ten grand's worth of grave digging kit, then wheelbarrows it out to his car. That's it. No more. No word on whether the police have found him yet and to be honest, we're highly unlikely to follow this one up unless there's a spate of grave robing in the Sunbury area. Still, you can now spend the weekend pondering what the......

Meet Language. Based in East London (but not defined by it!), they've chosen their myspace category to be "melodramatic popular song", are obsessed with falafel, like dressing in black, have a song called "Theme for a Porno", record on Hornsey Road and were screwed out of a producer by Kate Nash. They're not bitter mind. We were going to tell you our favourite song but having just listened to them all again on myspace......

Londonist has a case of the spookies – deathly headstones in deathly places. More specifically, Sutton Cemetery. According to This is Local London, bereaved relatives frequenting their loved one's resting place have been confronted by not-so-subtle wooden support stakes and yellow post-its informing them of the instability of the headstones, which must then either be shored up or replaced. A spokesman from Sutton council explains these actions are a response to the rising number......

The very same weekend that we profile the strangeness of London’s enigmatic Spring Heeled Jack, news reaches us of supernaturally swift ambush attacks in Chingford Mount Cemetery. Nicknamed the “Gazelle” in recognition of his nifty getaway sprint, we can’t help drawing some parallels between our mysterious Jack, famous for leaping out at ladies, eyes aglow, ripping their clothes and legging it, with this here Gazelle, springing on unattended cars and nicking stuff whilst the......

1. The Highgate Vampire Note: This article has been amended after complaints from the 'Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester'. We apologise for any misrepresentation. Dusty vaults, ivy-strewn pathways, desecrated coffins and shadowy goings-on. Sounds like something from a Hammer film doesn’t it? However, the hi-jinx of Highgate Cemetery reached just such a gothic climax during the 1960s and early ‘70s when it was alleged that a tall, dark, red-eyed spectre prowled the foggy catacombs of......

Since the discovery of his torso in the Thames in September 2001, the mystery child named "Adam" by the investigation team has baffled the police and has sparked a five-year probe into possible ritual killings in London and Nigeria. The horrific discovery of such a small child's torso, abandoned after such brutal mutilation is something that will stay with many Londoners. Adam was between four and six when he died, and forensic work has......

Ok, enough of the teaser posts, The London Collection is a new book from Think Books which was written by four members of the Londonist staff. Basically the book is an alternative guide to the capital, with kind of a Schott's Miscellany feel to it (or 'a bit of a toilet read' if you want to be crude about it). Over the next few weeks we'll be bringing you a few sneak previews of......

This day in London’s History 1948 The last Olympics to be held in London draw to a close. With most of Europe still under ration and all the piggybanks long smashed to pieces, it wasn’t a universally popular decision to hold the XIV Olympiad on this side of the Atlantic, if at all. Still, London got the nod, with a slightly remoulded Wembley as the focus. We weren’t exactly the most magnanimous of hosts:......

We've had a problem before about the dead being a tad greedy, so it comes as a relief to see that finally they're being forced to budge up a little bit: A cemetery is offering second-hand graves, with "refurbished" monuments including headstones, obelisks and crosses, to be used again. Recycled burial plots, complete with the original memorials, still contain the remains of those who died at least 75 years ago - the names of......

Formed out of members of Art of Noise & The Auteurs, we first came across Infantjoy while wallowing in 'OMG SARAH NIXEY IS BACK!!!111!!' induced glee a few months ago. Guest starring on their working of 'Silent Night', we were intrigued by this duo who seemed to produce mesmerizing, elegant instrumental music. Almost cinematic sounding, their concept album Where The Night Goes is based on the idea that 'each track takes place at a......

This bit of Health & Safety news already made the Extra Extra, but after mulling it over for a while we wanted to give it a little more space... Not that the dead need any more. They're everywhere! And worse than that they still refuse to get up and make us the George Romero Centre of Excellence that we could so easily be if they weren't so goddamn lazy. So we'd like to suggest......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Among the treats available to lit lovers this week are a reading in a cemetery, a reading in Shakespeare's Globe, and if you're willing to travel to Oxford, a whole slew of famous faces over the next couple of days... Events Around London (and Beyond): The Oxford Literary Festival continues through tomorrow (the 29th),......

Normally when Londonist goes stalking, it’s to track down connected works of art, or famous buildings by the same architect. But we decided to take the word ‘stalk’ back to its hunting routes this week. Prompted by the news that the Beast of Bexley has at last been photographed, we thought we should go and bag ourselves a wild cat. Big cat sightings are not unusual in the UK. Although their existence in the......

Found Magazine is itself a real find: it's a collection of the poignant, funny, frightening and just outright odd bits and pieces of paper that slip through life's cracks. As the website says: We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles - anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. Anything goes... There's a voyeuristic thrill to be had browsing Found......

Let's face it, The Time Traveller's Wife is a bit of 'a tube book'. It's been pretty much unavoidable since it came out and Londonist lost count of the number of times people have pleaded with us to read it. Which doesn't mean it's a bad book, or that we won't actually get round to reading it someday...it's just going to have to wait until we finish Peter Ackroyd's latest tome. Anyway, the reason......