We all know that Thai food can prove hazardous, but if you're thinking of visiting your favourite seafood restaurant anytime soon, then stop reading now: a Wandsworth woman died after suffering an allergic reaction to a Thai prawn soup - despite never having a prior problem with prawns. Elizabeth Hoborough was discovered gasping for breath by her husband in the early hours of the morning of February 28th, and despite being quickly rushed to......

7/7 survivors and heroes who tried to save others receive Royal Humane Society award The Bachelor: London Calling finds 'true love' with blonde, Californian actress. Oh, telly.... East End clergy get police protection Dodgy circumcising Leyton GP struck off Art is objective concedes Streatham council Man left dead on the loo for a year and a half. Cat dead too. Pearly Kings & Queens at the Covent Garden Puppet Festival courtesy of Siberfi via......

Thanks to a lousy US box office reception, Grindhouse – the adored bastard sprog double-feature of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez – was hacked in two when it finally came here. Film nerds agog at the prospect of a three-hour neo-exploitationfest had to cough for Planet Terror and Death Proof separately, and miss out entirely on the geekalicious treat of the fake trailers that accompanied them. O cruel fate/boringly cautious distributors. But at last......

A fairly quiet time for Londonist music, but this week saw us introduce you to The Wave Pictures on Thursday, catch indie up-and-comers Parka at the Borderline on Tuesday, and suggest you catch "J-Dilla changed my life" at Cargo this evening. Throughout the week, NME favourites play their three week series of Awards shows, and this week sees Babyshambles play Brixton Academy on Monday night, Richard Hawley and Mercury nominated Maps play the Astoria on......

A couple of years ago Chris Roberts - who will be leading our 4th Londonist Walk on Friday evening - (and who is no relation to the Grantham Roberts clan) co-wrote True Blue: A musical about Margaret Thatcher in a bid to come to terms with his own, and his nation’s, past and more importantly setting Geoffrey Howe and others to music. Who better then, to send along as guest reviewer to a spanking......

Just when you thought MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking sites had pretty much achieved world domination, along comes a site with even more infinite aspirations. Londoner Victoria Vanstone’s yourdeathwish.com wants to help you create the “perfect” funeral. Yes, in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, you could be well on your way to arranging the funeral you’ve always dreamed of: choose the musical set list, the wake menu, the......

The Book Club is dead! Long live The School for Gifted Children! Robin Ince's Book Club, for the unacquainted, was a delightfully ramshackle evening of intellectual mirth and experimentation, which was given a grand farewell in December at the British Museum. Tonight The School for Gifted Children kickstarts the glorious sounding N20 Comedy Festival for show, stories, songs and outright lies in the dinky Studio 68 at Battersea Arts Centre. Robin Ince is in......

Anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to tell you that work-related stress is not good for the health, a bit like cigarettes, junk food and bullets. But, since many of those who make decisions regarding our working lives seem to be devoid of even a gram of common sense and require THE FACTS instead, then a study reported in the European Heart Journal may help somewhat. The UCL based study,......

Well, the first day back at work for many of us, and we've all probably not been the most productive ever. So in spite of our shambolic return to regular posting, here's a quick recap of all the stories we would have covered if we didn't just want to crawl back into bed. A week too late for a white Xmas, snow is expected to fall in London tomorrow! That would be all types......

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......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th December 1907: Anti-vivisectionists march through central London to protest at the dissection of a brown terrier dog several years earlier. The ‘anti-doggers’ clash with police at Trafalgar Square, in what would become known as the Brown Dog Riots. Tuesday – 11th December 2005: Much of London is covered by a vast plume of smoke, following a series of massive explosions at Buncefield Oil Depot in Hertfordshire.......

In years to come as historians look back on the events that triggered the untimely demise of this once great nation of ours, they'll probably be analysing the following timeline: October 2003: First grumblings about raising the Council Tax in London to pay for the Olympics if we get it. February 2006: Travelling Ken asks for a bit more money to fund the Olympics, 65p a week on London's Council Tax bills. December 2007:......

Tell your friends that you’re attending a talk on Sylvia Plath – In London. As winter approaches. – and they’re apt to shoot you a funny look and start silently monitoring your behaviour for signs of mental distress. Such is Plath’s difficult legacy. Although her status as a major American poet seems at this point assured, it is the tragic circumstances of her death and the tabloid-worthy details of her failed marriage to former......

Heathrow Airport: to expand or not to expand, that is the question. The debate can begin in earnest, as today Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly laid out options for consultation, including a potential third runway and sixth terminal. With Terminal 5 not even finished yet, it may seem premature to be discussing more construction work, but the Government stressed that it would take until 2020 for a new runway and terminal to be operational. Kelly......

Don't worry. We're not going to have to cling to the sides of trains. Yet. Ken's been to Delhi, where he picked up some ideas about being cool on the streets. Unfortunately it's cool on the streets in a temperature related way rather than cool on the streets in a Fresh Prince of Bel Air way. Addressing an environmental conference, Ken said, We’re heading for some tremendously hot summers, people will start dying in......

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......

It's definitely time to start scrimping on things so you've plenty of dosh for those Christmas outings and present buying blitzes. London on the Cheap returns after a hiatus (we were temporarily flush, we made the most of it...) to help you get the most of the city on the scrag ends in your pocket. Monday: Get in the right frame of mind for Christmas shopping. Fortnum and Mason has just emerged from its......

New writing theatre company Paines Plough are presenting an absolutely cracking new way to see plays this autumn and making us think that there should be more theatre programmed like this. New writing, an exciting theatre space, a sensible time slot, a hot snack and a drink are all included in the ticket price and you can be on your way having had your culture fix by 8pm when other theatres are raising the......

Thanks to a new grant, previously unseen areas of St Paul’s may be opened to the public. The £250,000 pot from the World Monument’s Fund, could see a new ‘exploration centre’ in the crypt, and access to the Trophy Room, containing Wren’s original model. But what else might we find when they open up more of St Paul’s? 1. God. 2. Thousands of tourists 3. A couple of Londoners 4. Lara Croft’s entombed remains......

The name of the band Korpiklaani means 'forest clan' in Finnish, so perhaps it isn't so surprising that the band started their set at Camden Underground an hour or so late. Our theory is that they got lost on the Tube, distracted by the leafy promise in such place-names as Oakwood or Wood Green or Green Park, only to be met with bitter disappointment upon venturing aboveground. What really matters is that Korpiklaani eventually......

Hooray! It's nearly Halloween! Jack-o-lanterns a plenty, scary masks and annoying trick or treaters who get hyped up on way too many e-numbers (and probably a few cans of cider nowadays). Still, there's so much stuff going on this year, you'd be a fool to stay inside hiding under your sofa this 31st October. It just wouldn't be Halloween without the Rocky Horror Show. So Everyman Cinema snapped up this spooky treat. Dress up,......

Revolting peasants and Scottish heroes, a buried river, and a 1000 years of death, slaughter and destruction. Smithfield surely deserves some kind of cultural centre. And there just happens to be the perfect place to put it, if we act fast… As many readers will know, several buildings of the famous meat-market complex are under threat. The General market, Fish market and Red House are in a dilapidated state and the targets for demolition......

The fortieth anniversary of the Abortion Act this week meant that the abortion debate has been all over the news, culminating in demonstrations in Westminster this weekend. In a dramatic gesture, pro-lifers projected the statistic of 6.7 million aborted foetuses since 1967 onto the Houses of Parliament last night as part of the Alive and Kicking campaign to "make abortion rare" by reducing the upper time limit and prohibiting abortion "for social convenience". Today,......

What do you do if you’ve got a gallery full of works by William Morris, one of Britain’s most famous artists, and you’re a cash-strapped borough council? (a) Publicise the gallery and get loads of tourists spending their money there. (b) Hitch a ride on green awareness — Morris was an early environmentalist and the collection is housed in his former home, in magnificent grounds, all of which the borough owns. (c) Suggest giving......

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,......

Local trader Mike Weedon has proposed new toilets to be built in the trendy bar and club-filled area of Islington. The proposal has been taken seriously by Islington Council as imore public conveniences should be available ... but not if they're named after Joe Orton. This infamous homosexual playwright of the 1960s rocked London with controversial plays such as 'Loot', What the Butler Saw' and 'Entertaining Mr Sloane' (a corpse in a cupboard and......

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) is having an unusual autumn. While most performing arts venues start September with a new programme of plays, workshops and special one-off events, BAC is bolting its main doors and sending all those who dare approach through the back door and around each room in the venue for the mind-blowing Masque of the Red Death. We have had a range of experiences in this extraordinary production – and it just......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 8th October 1965: The Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in Fitzrovia becomes operational as a major hub for national microwave telecommunications. Today it is the only building in the UK that is legally allowed to be evacuated using its lifts. Tuesday – 9th October 1975: An IRA bomb explodes at a bus stop near Green Park tube station, killing one person and injuring......

Avid weekend readers of this site may be interested to know that tomorrow (Sunday) sees the annual get together to commemorate would have been Kirsty MacColl's upcoming birthday. Londonist has always had a soft spot for Kirsty that has continued after her death in 2000. We paid full tribute to her earlier this year. At noon, fans, friends and family will gather around her bench in Soho Square to celebrate her life and music.......

It's not everyday you come across a band with a name like Tits of Death, so it was about time we took 10 minutes with a band we'd formerly christened a ten-breasted rock machine. Playing Kinki at Madame Jo Jo's tomorrow night (Thursday), they've promised reduced guestlist to anyone emailing hello@titsofdeath.com with the subject line LONDONIST. Not only will you get to see this smokin' hot quintet but also electro-poppers Huski and the unbelievably......