The course of true democracy never did run smooth, as proved at some hapless polling stations in yesterday's election fever. We say fever... it was more like a mild sweat. Polling officials in Barnet were certainly sweating when their ballot papers didn't turn up on time for the earlybird 7am start, disappointing voters eager to elect before work. All was well by 7.21am precisely, though so let's hope the briefly disenfranchised were able to......

The sixth in our series of interviews with potential candidates for next year's Mayoral election. Previously: Victoria Borwick (Tory), Andrew Boff (Tory) and Warwick Lightfoot (Tory), Sian Berry (Green), Fiyaz Mughal (Lib Dem). Chris Prior is an independent mayoral candidate standing on a very firm 'Stop Congestion Charging' ticket. We asked him why, and, as with all the other candidates, we also enquired whether he'd ever been sick on the Tube. Chris is the......

File this one under 'what the f*ck'. Hello. Please introduce yourselves, and your cause. We're the London Urban Ironing Collective. Our parents were diagnosed with Cancer in December 2006, so we decided to raise money for Cancer Research UK using the medium of ironing. We're asking Londoners to suggest well known locations where they'd like to see us carrying out Textile Crease Management (TCM). They donate money to Cancer Research UK on our website. make......

Jagshemash! Borat is a hit. It's getting rave reviews, grossing millions, and definitely the most quotable thing we've seen in ages. But Borat seems to have missed most of the -ist cities, and we were all wondering how the film would have been different if he'd made his way around the world on the -ist tour. In Shanghai, Borat would be observing Inane Learnings of Penis Photos for Make Benefit Glorious Flat World of......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Tonight Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award way back in 2003, discusses his writing and latest book A Spot of Bother. £8.50 at the Royal Festival Hall, 7:45 pm in the Purcell Room, find out more. Kevin McCloud......

When shooting people indiscriminately results in a little bad press it's time to do a little swatting up: A police force is issuing its frontline officers with a guide to Islam in a bid to improve relations with the Muslim community. City of London Police is the first force in the country to issue its officers with a guide to the religion. The 86-page "Guide to Islam for non-Muslims" aims to give officers a......

Some of us thought we'd never see the day. Rock'n'Roll's last remaining rebel returns to smoke da' Smoke on June 7th. It's been almost 10 years since Axl Rose last bothered anyone on record, but the once long awaited Chinese Democracy is apparently ready. Rolling in with an estimated thirteen million dollars in costs it's going to have to be slightly better than the best record ever made in the entire history of the......

We promised to keep you updated on what was happening with the statue of Nelson Mandela that Westminster City Council wanted no part of. Well it finally looks like it'll be finding a place in Parliament Square. Or Canning Green. "The clock would start ticking as soon as we have a planning application. With all this pre-planning hopefully it would be a matter of months before it would come through." Good grief. We're not......

So in today's papers we're given the first real details of just how evil the 'Hooked Cleric' Abu Hamza really is. For instance: The jury saw pictures of Hamza's home in Shepherd's Bush. It contained boxes piled with blank tapes and others labelled "master", suggesting they were being prepared for distribution. The tapes included sections on the evils of adultery, drink and e-number additives in food. And so the question of why you never......

We like the Daily Show. We liked it when we had to download it off the internet every day, but now it's beamed daily into our living rooms by More4 we like it even... more. And what makes it so good of course is Jon Stewart. Yes he's American and he shouts a lot...but we can forgive him because he's very very funny. We know that Stewart will one day be lured away from......