If you’re having a stroll along the South Bank tonight, be on the lookout for friendly hawkers trying to push books into your hands. We’re told that Canongate Books will be handing out 1,000 free copies – that’s free, folks – of Lewis Hyde’s 1983 classic, The Gift, along the South Bank at 6.00pm this evening. If you’re not familiar with the book, expect some heavy but worthwhile questions about the role of creativity......

While the turkeys are getting nervous and the butchers are doing a roaring trade in this crucial last week before Christmas, a very unwelcome slaughter has taken place in Letchmore Heath, Herts. Gangotri was a sacred cow at the Bhaktivedanta Manor Hindu temple; she had been injured in what the report calls 'a mating injury' last September and had been unable to stand since then. She was given a fatal dose of barbiturate by......

Last week we challenged you to peer into alternative universes and find out what London would have been like had history taken a different course. Roll the Dice sent in this Teutonic take on the Tube. Had the Germans won either of the world wars, the London underground might now look something like this. We'll leave you to make the inevitable wisecracks about efficiency and punctuality in the comments. Now, we're offering £20 to......

Further to our earlier post and readers' comments we've been in touch with Art on the Underground to clarify about the poster giveaway next week. Each day a different poster will be available from 8am at the 5 Underground stations: Kings Cross, Victoria, Waterloo, Paddington and Liverpool Street. The schedule is as follows: Monday - Mark Titchner Tuesday- James Ireland Wednesday - Klega Thursday - Layla Curtis Friday - Katie Dove Happy grabbing! Image......

Some plonker is threatening London’s leading specialist school for the deaf with closure. Kingston authorities seem unable to decide what to do with a resident paedophile It’s official: they voted, and Blair is off the hook. Could we leave him alone now please? We get the verdict on the schizophrenic chip-throwing man-slaughterer. And then there’s the one about the peeping tom with charitable tendencies. Jack Frosty photo courtesy of sbisson's flickr photo stream.......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

Here's a word of advice if you're thinking of using one of the 12 private suites on the new A380 super jumbo to indulge in some carnal activities: KEEP THE NOISE DOWN! Or use the toilets like everyone else. That's not the word from Singapore Airlines who will be flying the jets to Singapore out of Heathrow next year. They say: DON'T, but we here at Londonist towers could never deny anyone the opportunity......

That's Tony Cowards's wish as he brings his one man stand-up show to The Offside Bar in Islington tonight. Tony, originally from Suffolk but now living in our very own East End, performed his hour long "Festival of Football" at the Edinburgh Fringe this summer where he mixed tales of supporting Ipswich Town with a selection of unusual football headlines and a sideways look at what it means to be a football supporter these......

Welcome to Londonist, your premier source for sculpture news. Michael Moore's new film, Sicko, is now on general release. The flick's marketing campaign is as viral as some of the unfortunates from the healthcare system it depicts. Viz, a selection of London's statues have been bandaged up like so many wounded soldiers. Interesting idea, but we just hope the recent spate of Biggerm/2006/01/another_one_of.php#comments">sculpture theft isn't some marketing game for the next series of Lost.......

It's possible that some of you, dear readers, may occasionally travel upon our world famous London Underground. And possible that you may have experienced some discomfort while doing so, maybe a little over-crowding, maybe a little lateness, perhaps even the odd denial of service. Some might argue that these occasional 'blips' in your commute might have arisen through the failings of the tube maintenance firm, Metronet (now in administration after a predicted £2bn overspend).......

Well, we hear you say, haven’t you reviewed this event already? Shouldn’t you get another hobby, say crocheting? Fun as crocheting may be, after one Londonista’s outing to the Red Death Late Nights following her participation in The Mask of the Red Death at BAC, this Londonista decided to try to see if one could attend the Late Night extravaganza without having seen the previous show. Would it be as fun as crocheting*? Well,......

Gothamist learned about the craziest urban nightmare come true: A huge python found in the bathroom pipes. It was also a nightmare for some Yankees fans, as manger Joe Torre declined to come back and manage the Bronx Bombers. At least the city's attempt to give some direction to subway riders was interesting, pranksters went shirtless at the Fifth Avenue Abercrombie & Fitch and the I Heart Brooklyn Girls calendars came out. And just......

It's time to stand up, speak out and come together for Feminist Fightback, the annual free activist conference taking place at University of East London for it's second year. Because fighting back is still necessary and feminism is not dead - and sadly, women's rights and gender equality still need protecting and promoting. Representatives from groups like Central American Women's Network, Women in Darfur, Women's Environment Network, Southall Black Sisters, MPs, student union representatives......

Last week, we asked you to imagine London in the clutches of a saurian rampage. Daniel Sykes sent in this little gem. It's Reign of Fire meets Pete's Dragon - very much a film we don't want to see. Daniel wins a signed copy of Melvin Burgess' Bloodsong, thanks to the good people at Penguin and their new community site Spinebreakers. Touch Up London returns to abnormal next week, and we want your images.......

That's right, in the computer room, with the lead piping. Guest commenting is no more. To cut down on spammers, trollers, nobbers, roarers and general troublemakers, commenting on Londonist and any other 'ist' blog now requires you to sign in. It's dead easy, though. Just follow the prompts at the bottom of any post, or at the top left of this page. Signing in also allows you to keep track of your comments and......

As it gets closer to Halloween for LAist, a contributer recollects her tale of staring down the serial killer, Richard Ramirez, otherwise known as the Night Stalker. Must think happy thoughts -- okay, free organic chocolate chip cookies for Los Angeles -- now that's a happy thought. Other happy Los Angeles thoughts include an interview with Jack Kehler of The Big Lebowski (he was the Dude's landlord), a beautiful and magical photographic moment in Venice......

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......

You want entertainment in London, you say? And you want it for free? Well, good sir or madam, you've come to the right place. Anyone who's lived in this fair city for a while knows that free entertainment is actually all around us. From our world-class museums to almost uncountable numbers of galleries; hear talks by some of the planet's great thinkers, and japery from the best new comics. It's all free, and it's......

Some new research has been published claiming that Elephant and Castle will become a top retail destination in the next 10 years. Now, we're as optimistic as the next blog, as demonstrated by our views on the 2012 Olympic logo. But, even for us, this seems quite a stretch. While the odd stall outside the shopping centre adds a bit of character to the place, the centre itself is a bit of a dive......

London Street Art 2 is the sequel to, well, erm, London Street Art. The pocket sized book chronicles some of the more interesting graffiti from the past year. We asked photographer Alex MacNaughton about his latest collection of images - many, like the shot above, show street art that has since vanished. Warning: Some readers may find his comments about Flickr disturbing. There's no 'about the author' on the book, so tell us a......

Arrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggh.... Yes. We still be talkin' like pirates. (We've tried but it's hard to stop.) So we reckon we aught to get back out onto the high seas. Or, at least the Thames. So it be a good job the Bring Stuff Pirate Party is on Saturday. It's on a real boat and everythin'. This means we can drink rum all night, say 'Ooo-arrrrgh' at everyone and talk to parrots. Because you have to......

London, a melting pot of immigrant cultures and strange beasts. Amongst other things of course. But none of this is anything new. Way back in October 1958 a bear arrived on a lifeboat from Darkest Peru with a suitcase full of marmalade sandwiches. Luckily he was discovered on the concourse of Paddington station by the remarkable Brown family (possibly related to our glorious leader, we're not sure) and went to live with them at......

A very special simultaneous live broadcast scheduled for this Friday by the BBC World Service is going to pitch London, New York, Toronto and Sydney against one another for the position of best role model for a multicultural city. The BBC World Service is currently hosting London Week which started on Saturday 18 August and will run until Saturday 25 August. While the World Serice isn't a Londoner's usual radio hangout, it's worth tuning......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

The Treatment Rooms is a privately owned three-story house in the West London suburb of Chiswick, which over the past several years has had its exterior walls transformed into an ongoing self-contained conceptual piece of mosaic art. The vibrant and well executed mosaics, which cover the front wall of the house and the back garden wall are well worth paying a visit to see. Recently, Londonist took an opportunity to visit the Treatment Rooms......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 12. History Repeating Itself? Gordon Brown is clearly still enjoying a prolonged honeymoon period. It must be so. Under ordinary circumstances it would be no surprise to see him suffer for being a leading member of a government that has overseen the second outbreak in 6 years of the debilitating Foot and Mouth disease. Instead......

By which we mean 'tests the patience of those in charge of public safety and wastes everyone's time, money and resources.' Not wanting to be outdone by the Evening Standard's scaremongering, the Daily Mirror sent two journalists to the Stonebridge Park train depot to plant a fake bomb on a freight train, in order to test the security measures in place. A similar exercise was carried out last year when two Daily Mirror journalists......

This week ended with the launch of the seventh and final Harry Potter installation. But while the world was consumed with Pottermania, it's important to remember that there were more serious things going on in the world, too – two of them in -Ist cities. Sampaist was shocked when a passenger jet crashed into the center of Sao Paulo, killing at least 200 people. The airplane, an Airbus A320, skidded off the runway at the......

Two years ago today, four bombs were detonated on London’s public transport system in the morning rush hour, resulting in the deaths of 52 commuters (and four suicide bombers) and injuries to more than 700 others. We all remember that day. We can all tell each other where we were at the time, how close we were to being on one of those trains or that bus, who we knew that actually was caught......

Time to unleash your captioning skills once again. This somnolent snapshot comes from the Buckaroo Kid's Flickr photostream. Use the comments to make us laugh. If you want to submit pictures for this slot, either email them in, or tag Flickr photos with Londonist. *OK, so daily wasn't sustainable. We can probably do this weekly, so long as you guys keep adding good shots to the Flickr pool. But don't be suprised if the......