Contribute your photos of words around town to this discussion in the Londonist Flickrpool.......

Whether you queued up for the Cans Festival back in May or missed out on car crashes, piano men, and Banksy getting called out, now is definitely the time to head back over to Leake Street near Waterloo. Almost the entirety of the tunnel under the old Eurostar platform has been painted over with new street art. There may not be the star quality of that guy from Bristol, Brooklyn's Faile, or the ever cheeky......

Taggers are, by definition and, at the very least, cheeky young scamps but Andrew Gillman who's facing sentencing for criminal damage today, has truly got balls. Not only is he leader of the prolific and international grafitti gang, DPM Crew, and responsible for thousands of pounds worth of railway streetart/vandalism he's also responsible for legitimately decorating the Eastender's set with his signature tags. Auntie Beeb, in search of East End authenticity, hired Gillman for......

As an antidote to last week's focus on BIG graffiti, here's proof that size isn't everything. The Inner City Snail site chronicles a 'slow moving street art project', and comes from the same tiny stable as the much-loved Little People web site. Creative genius Slinkachu assures us that 'No snails were harmed, they just had their homes vandalised'. Catch the book of the site later this year.......

2008 is shaping up to be the year that street art went truly mainstream in London. Currently, you can see Banksy at Selfridges, a half-mile tunnel of talent in Waterloo and, for the eagle-eyed, that subtle bit of wall painting at the Tate Modern. Street art is also getting big in the more literal sense. Here are just a few of the supersized pieces around town at the moment. At the top of the......

If you've been down Tate Modern way recently, you've probably noticed some new additions to the river-facing wall: the Street Art exhibition, which we mentioned back in April, officially opens on Friday 23rd of May, and the pieces have been slowly but steadily revealing themselves over the past couple of weeks. The tech-savvy Tate staff are live blogging as the artworks go up, and getting the artists themselves to throw in their pictures too.......

A new piece by the arch-spraymaster. This latest work is on Newman Street, North of Oxford Street, and is believed to be Banksy's biggest work to date. We'd like to see somebody try and nick this one. If you fancy a rant about Banksy, check out this thread over on Kudocities. Image by jordi.martorell, one of many from the Banksy Flickr pool.......

In the week that Doris' crack gets filled in, Tate Modern has announced plans for a rethink of the building's river-facing facade. Between May and August, a group of the world's most acclaimed street artists will be allowed to daub their designs across designated 15x12 metre areas on the north side of the former power station, the first time the exterior has been used in such a way. According to curator Cedar Lewisohn, the......

So we had Banksy caught in the act and unmasked a while back.... now here's a video apparently of the man himself at work and having his say: Thanks to Gothamist reader Sam Horine for the heads up.......

What's this? London's famous red street furniture turning blue with the cold? Closer inspection reveals that some pillock with a paint pot has been busy in Bloomsbury. The crude vandalism is almost redeemed by the impractically barbed pavement cock. But this is still the work of a pillock.......

Science, the esteemed global magazine of cutting-edge research, has an unlikely cover star this week. Banksy’s Bethnal Green flower adorns the hallowed page with the following explanation: An example of "art" by self-styled guerrilla artist Banksy, as seen in East London in November 2007. Human behavior that would be characterized as antisocial punishment can also be called art; prosocial institutions, most notably the campaign Keep Britain Tidy, refer to Banksy's work as vandalism. Odd......

The new Banksy work on Essex Road is proving rather popular, as this video from romanywg shows. The stencil is already protected by a perspex panel (not shown in the video), after a recent spate of Banksy maulings. Please send links to your favourite London videos, or ideas for videos to londonist - at - gmail - dot com.......

Carving your beloved's name on the trunk of a tree, or doodling it on the school desk, is so 20th century. For the modern urban dweller, the only way to really impress your betrothed is to spread your love in three-foot high letters on the side of a train. That was Raymond Agbegahs's plan. The graffiti vandal has spent the past decade spraying messages for his girlfriend on train carriages and railway stations in......

Sorry, sorry, sorry. We just can't help it. Tox spotting is our annual hobby. As usual, the moronic tag is plastered all along the Regents Canal, and we spotted it on the side of a Tube train the other day. This plucky yet monotonous scamp (or perhaps a one-trick phoney) just doesn't know when to quit.......

Not only the world’s most famous graffiti stencil artist, England’s own beloved Banksy is also one heck of a studio artist. Don’t believe us (or any of the hype surrounding Banksy)? See for yourself at Andipa Gallery, where – starting this Friday – many of Banksy’s works is to be on view. Most of the exhibition is comprised of studio pieces, many of which are rare and previously unseen. One such rare work is......

Once is a happenstance, twice is a coincidence, but three times is a conspiracy. First the maid of Chalk Farm is painted over (since restored), then we heard the Rosebery Avenue cash machine stencil has also been defaced. And today, it seems the Clerkenwell Road 'Old Skool' pic has been 'collected'. The mural had been surrounded by sheeting for a few weeks, so many suspected it was being removed. But who's doing it? Councils?......

Street art can often be a puzzling medium, but 'Decapitator' is literally leaving people stumped. (If you think that pun's bad be grateful we didn't unleash quips about perfect execution or losing one's head) No advertising model is safe from the London artist's reprographic interventions, not even animated bees. Could it be that Londonist inspired this macabre new art form? Images taken from Decapitator's Flickr photostream. Thanks to Dan for the tip and link.......

Heart it or hate it, you can’t argue with the fact that Valentine’s Day and all its attendant sentiment inspire some pretty fantastic photography. We’ve rounded up some of our favourites from our friends in the Londonist Flickr group. Enjoy... Heart, courtesy of buckaroo kid's flickrstream Courtesy of version-3-point-1's flickrstream......

One of Banksy's most famous stencils - the maid of Chalk Farm - got an augmentation this week. Some japester of a joiner added a mantelpiece on Sunday evening. But street art is the most ephemeral of mediums, and the rogue fitting was removed faster than you can say chim-chimeny. Fans of Banksy might like to visit the Andipa Gallery (or 'Galley' as they accidentally call themselves in the press release) on Walton Street,......

You’d be forgiven for thinking that artist Sickboy had lived in London for several years. His temple icons are hard to miss on even the shortest stroll down the obscurest of Shoreditch or Tower Hamlets streets. However, he’s lived here for less than a year. And as busy as he’s been since his moving to London, he still made the time to sit down and answer a few questions about his art for us.......

Shoreditch is held together by a desultory patchwork of stickers. Even the road signs are prone to the adhesive hallmarks of London's street artists. Here we see the familiar toaster icon, perhaps acting as a Lunar module for its dainty astronaut. Image taken on Holywell Lane.......

Today, in the evening, Led Zeppelin are showing us a whole lotta love by bringing it on home. Instead of going to California, or even over the hills and far away to Kashmir, their first reunion rock and roll concert for 27 years is happening at the 02 venue on the Greenwich peninsular. In real heartbreaker news, Londonist read the physical graffiti (OK, bit weak that one, we know) a bit too late – there......

People keep mentioning The Wave Pictures to us. First we caught them supporting Architecture in Helsinki back in September, and tomorrow they play the final of 4 Tuesday night sessions at the George Tavern, Whitechapel. It's an amazing venue but not to everyone's tastes. Candlelight, cheap beer and a relaxed atmosphere, slightly reminiscent of an old village pub but with a mixed and lively bohemian crowd. The paint is peeling and you can't help......

Here’s what we learned this weekend, whilst you were drawing up your Christmas card lists (or crossing people off them): It’s been a bad weekend for London’s performers, with even the ROH being dissed, and one band getting the worst review this Londonista has ever seen. But it has been a great couple of days for pussy cats, with three of them being rescued from a derelict flat, and another being turned into a......

Reader Chloe sends us these images of what is surely a new Banksy piece in Bethnal Green. And she seems to have captured the face of the artist, hitherto unseen. (However, we've seen that flower shape before, around Shoreditch—perhaps Banksy is here teaming up with someone else.) The work seems to be some kind of riposte to Tower Hamlets council, which recently declared it would erase all of Banksy's graffiti in the borough.......

I have to be honest, I never listen to London pirate radio... it's not that I don't approve; it's just not how I access my music. I guess I’m more of a Pandora.com and Last.FM type of guy. I do approve of pirate radio though, people getting together playing music for themselves and their friends has to be good right? So... londonpirates.co.uk is a site worth a look, I love the gallery section with......

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......

Sandhu, we suspect, gets less sleep than a hummingbird in a centrifuge. Over the past couple of years, the author and film critic has eschewed shuteye to learn more about the capital's nocturnal inhabitants. His new book, Night Haunts, presents eleven accounts from an unfamiliar London. There are those in trouble - the immigrant cleaners and minicab drivers subsisting on minimal wages with few rights and little respect. Those who help the troubled -......

Londonist has learnt with relief that London’s Community Wardens are to be taught to smile. Well, they are at least to be taught stuff other than marshalling resentful kids, scribbling reports on graffiti and harassing shopkeepers who infringe on the pavements 1cm too far. The London Development Agency is to train 200 or so of our boys (and gels) in blue (and red and black and yellow) to be nice to tourists, with a......

Tired of watching the cohort of British heroes cast rudely aside at the world's premier tennis event each year, London has finally given our boys a fighting chance by creating a tournament that surely offers Tim Henman (pictured), Andy Murray and his doubles-specialist brother Jamie their best ever hope of hoisting individual silverware aloft in the capital. They've only got three dangerous foreign types to overcome this Saturday in Betfair Turbo Tennis and you're......