If you're currently on a quiet holiday, suffering from a non-debilitating but house-binding condition or idling away your notice period doing as little work as possible, here's a challenge: you have until Saturday to design a flying machine to launch off a 6m high platform and plunge into the Serpentine for those wacky chaps at E4 who've been given a place in this year's Red Bull Flugtag. As the current UK champ Tim Simpson......

Here's what we've learned this weekend while the rest of you have been up t'pub: A truly ghoulish painting of Blair is unveiled. Londonist will have nightmares. Things are almost back to normal at Heathrow. Whatever that is. Londonist doesn’t really understand why people have cars. There’s been a horrific accident on the A2. Very disturbing stuff about our boys in blue. If you like watching the birdies, here’s your big chance. Bridge moves......

Imagine a bubbling cauldron in a remote corner of the Orkney Islands into which Half Cousin principal songwriters, Kevin McCormack and his old schoolmate Jimmy Hogarth, have poured found sounds, accordions, eye of newt, syncopated beats, eerie vocals, twangs, tongue of dog, and electronica, and you have an inkling of the musical alchemy experiments carried out for their second album together, Iodine. We mounted a darkened staircase into Kilburn's elfin grot of Luminaire, where......

Tonight marks the climax of nine months' eager anticipation since we broke the news to you that the NFL was coming to town. Two days ago we secured a ticket via the final sale we mentioned last Tuesday and we can't wait for the action to begin at 5pm. If you're catching the game on TV (Sky Sports live, or BBC2 highlights at 10:50pm), you're in plenty of company. The game is being carried......

Doherty in court AGAIN. No one doing a double take. Around the world in 13 years. By pedal power. Gathering in Battersea Park to support Burmese cause Inquest finally opens into Diana crash. Poor woman - she was the people's princess and queen of our hearts. Gawd rest her soul. Londonist Editor explains that Diana love is an attempt at irony, and far from genuine. Image courtesy of buckaroo kid via the Londonist flickr......

Anyone remember the Sex and the City moment when Carrie has her Manolo’s snatched? They wanted her shoes – say what? Well, such crime is no longer confined to the silver screen, nor the streets of Manhattan. Early yesterday morning, two fashion houses, Brora on Marylebone High Street and Luella Bartley in Mayfair, were broken into and handfuls of handbags and cashmere seized. The villains – reported to have travelled by moped – skilfully......

Boris wants London to tackle bike thieves. Especially this one who's on the run. Not cycling. Which is a little bit silly of him. Yesterday was 30 years since Mark Bolan died in Barnes. We export wax figures just as Chinese terrecotta figures arrive. Terracotta is obviously the new wax. Three people have died in a bus crash. But if that hasn't put you off you can now go from London to Sydney on......

Fresh this Week: If news of the impending Doctor Who hiatus is giving you palpitations, fear not – the Book Grocer brings you not one but three new books based on the popular series: Paul Magrs – Sick Building The Doctor and Martha travel to Tiermann’s World, a planet where sabre-toothed tigers still roam. They arrive to warn everyone that an extremely hungry alien creature is on its way and if they don’t take action......

11. Spring Heeled Jack: A Chronicle of Chaos “But most of all did he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and mocked at him.” Beyond The Wall Of Sleep – H. P. Lovecraft Supernatural? Invader from space? Prankster? Hysteria? Spring Heeled Jack’s notorious crimes that littered 19th Century London remain to this day one of the capital’s most bizarre series of crimes. Here is a brief catalogue of the weird......

21/7 men found guilty. Academic couple killed in car crash on M11. Cavalry Museum opens in Whitehall. Prince Philip becomes a Doctor of Science while his wife opens a new department and grants new charter to Imperial College - which breaks away from the University of London on its 100th anniversary. Phew, what a day to be a Royal. A (possibly) well-named Dr Pratt (allegedly) prescribed an exorcism and other mumbo-jumbo to a Muslim......

As the buzz surrounding the weekend's Tour de France action in London builds steadily, more and more people are asking where will be the best places to watch, especially during the Prologue individual time trial on Saturday afternoon. Unlike the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race, where the best vantage points are well established, there's no obvious form to go on for this one-off cycling spectacular in terms of where to set out your viewing stall......

London went back to work this morning in a mood universally described as ‘jittery’. We must be vigilant, say the authorities, for the alert status remains ‘Critical’, and further attacks are deemed likely. The authorities are certainly being vigilant. Heathrow’s Terminal 3 was closed for a time yesterday, on the discovery of a suspect package. And in St Albans, a dodgily parked white Ford Transit was cordoned off after its owner could not be......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 18th June 1972: A British European Airways plane bound for Brussels crashes moments after taking off from Heathrow airport, killing all 118 passengers. An inquiry later concludes that the pilot had made a ‘speed error’ and stalled the plane, causing it to crash into a field in Staines. Tuesday – 19th June 1997: McDonald’s wins a libel case against two members of the ‘London Greenpeace’ campaigning group.......

There was high drama in Orpington last week, as police made an impressive entrance into a flat after receiving an emergency call. Operators from a telephone monitoring service told Bromley police that they suspected a woman was in trouble, after they could hear a woman crying and whimpering on the phone. In a truly dramatic fashion, they burst through the door after receiving no answer and getting no help from neighbours, damaging the door,......

A campaign has begun to rejig the way the lanes work in the Blackwall tunnel. There are over 100 signatures on the petition. Power to the people. Those who died in the recent M25 crash are mourned. More arrests have been made regarding 7/7. An illegal motorcyle track in South London is so popular, it now has its own burger van. Image courtesy of Dave Gorman via the Londonist flickr group.......

An armed robber demanded a Playstation 3 but was haggled down to an Xbox 360. London may not make it onto a new version of monopoly in which the London streets are replaced with UK towns. The towns that go onto the board are decided by an online poll - get voting! Chelsea millionaire dies in helicopter crash. Image courtesy of Roxy London via the Londonist flickr group.......

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......

This week - Adam Sandler's family were killed in 9/11 (Reign Over Me) and Ryan Gosling is a crack addict high school teacher (Half Nelson). Before we push on, it is only right that we warn you that Peter Bradshaw hasn't written any reviews for the films that we feature today. Even geniuses like him need a week off, even if he can watch a 2 hour film in 3 minutes superman stylee then......

As expected it turns out that faulty points were responsible for the train crash on Friday night: Investigators have found one of three stretcher bars was not in position, one had nuts and bolts missing and two were fractured. The bars join the moving rails, keeping them a set distance apart. Network Rail chief executive John Armitt said his organisation was "devastated" by the report and he offered an "unreserved apology". The London to......

We saw this movie back in 2005 at the London Film Festival and have been desperate to see it again and drag everyone we know along. Now it's finally got a brief release in London we've dusted off our review... Hands up if you saw Noi The Albino. It didn't get a huge release here, but was a cracking little film (probably find it in Fopp for a tenner). Dark Horse is by the......

This Day In London’s History 1991: A packed rush hour train carrying over one thousand commuters collides with the buffers at Cannon Street station. At 8:44am on 8th January 1991, the 07:58 train from Sevenoaks failed to stop when pulling into Cannon Street station and hit the buffers at the central London terminus at about 5 miles per hour. Despite the relatively low speed, the impact caused the infrastructure of some of the carriages......

The BBC are reporting that the driver of the coach that crashed late last night near Heathrow has been arrested on suspiscion of causing death by dangerous driving. More details of the crash have emerged: Several among the injured have had limbs amputated due to their injuries, according to ambulance officials. Police declared a major incident after the coach, carrying 65 passengers, many of them believed to be returning from holidays, overturned at 11.45pm......

Geraldine McCaughrean's sequel to Peter Pan looks set to hit the big screen. Has anyone managed to pull off a decent Peter Pan on film yet? Not to worry - sequels never ever suck. With that in mind here are five pitches that we'd like to see thrown about in the new year: The Railway Children II: Privatisation: After their father is accused of spiking sushi with polonium-210, three children find amusement in watching......

The results of the official investigation into just what happened to Princess Diana were released today. They make for depressingly mundane reading. No assassination, no fake death, no pregnany, no secret engagement, no plot full stop. Setting out the results of his three-year, high-profile report into Diana's fatal car crash in Paris, Lord Stevens bluntly told reporters at a packed central London news conference: "This was a tragic accident." If you buy the official......

The first time The Arcade Fire played a gig in London we used words such as wonderful, genius, joyful, uplifting, indescribable, and danceable. If you missed out or simply want to see a man in a crash helmet being used as a drum again, then you probably want to get credit cards to the ready this morning. The Montrealers have announced a whole week of dates starting at the end of January where they'll......

Faithful to its abundant exclamation points, new play iAy Carmela! opens tonight, at the Shaw Theatre in Kings Cross, with a gala event. As we like to grab all opportunities by the balls, we catch director Tom Wright (above right, being grabbed by the balls) for a quick chat about the Spanish Civil War, vaudeville, fart jokes and 1930 fuel economics. Tell us a bit about the play... iAy Carmela! was written by a......

The trial of the City lawyer who was stabbed outside Kensal Green underground starts today and already we've learned his attackers used his phone to call their girlfriends. Also on trial today: Three 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old, accused of murdering Zainab Kalokoh during a christening in Peckham. The 33-year-old was shot dead while cradling a baby. Network Rail have pleaded guilty to charges related to the 1999 Ladbroke Grove crash. They now face an......

The Londonist lab is still waiting on the results so we're still not sure whether you have to be a moron to buy a 4x4 in the first place or if there's something in the upholstery that impedes oxygen to the brain thereby slowly turning you into a prick. Or prickess in this case: A heavily pregnant woman was pinned against a post by a 4x4 and racially abused in a road rage incident,......

...because it's a Virgin. Apologies, that was truly terrible. Anyway, on with the news: Beardy billionaire Richard 'Dickie' Branson is trying to break the Glasgow to London rail speed record today. One of Virgin's tilting Pendolino trains left for Glasgow at 12:37pm, hoping to eclipse the 4 hours 14 minutes record set in 1981. The journey is 401 miles. Two years ago a Pendolino set a record for the trip between Manchester and London.......

The Tour of Britian, which finished in London on Sunday, was supposed to be a bit of a showcase to demonstrate how capable the capital will be hosting next year's Tour de France, that is until five people had to be taken to hospital after an almighty crash: A Metropolitan Police motorcyclist turning off the course hit a race marshall motorcyclist on his left. They crashed into crowd barriers injuring two men and one......