Last week Londonist took a look at a glorious exhibition of photos of shops gone-by, from decades gone-by. It is a lamentable fact that many of these traditional, specialised outlets have shut up shop for good, and it is also true that there are far too many empty commercial properties in the capital. The Federation of Small Businesses have just launched a Keep Trade Local Tour to help stem the trend of up to 2000......

Help is on the way for those affected by the fire in Camden Market. Thus far, £750,000 has been allocated to help rebuild the charred Canal Market. This is great news for the 90 market stalls, six shops, and the Hawley Arms, which were all damaged in the canal-side inferno. The London Development Agency has set aside £250,000 in a recovery fund for business grants and promtion to get tourist traffic back to Camden......

What's this city coming to when burglars threaten to kill an infant for a few credit cards and cell phones? Recently, two burglars armed with hammers broke the front door window of a young Penge couple's home in Oakfield Road and made their way inside. The baddies demanded the scared couple turn over credit cards and pin numbers, and threatened to kill their 2-month-old if they didn't comply. We don't want to think about what......

We've been known to hit the clubs on occasion to take a little tipple, do a little dancing and mingle with our friends, neighbours and hopefully a few attractive strangers. But a fun night can quickly turn ugly when an insult is lobbed, someone's pride is shot and the drinks shout "Fight!" Still, it's most often a case of the bark being worse than the bite, not usually escalating past a few heated words or......

Despite Londoners being inveigled mere days ago to report any suspicious activity to the police, people in Marylebone are now being advised to, er, do the opposite. The reason? A Home Office-run project is to simulate a dirty bomb attack on the capital. The trials, part of a study called Dispersion of Air Pollution and Penetration into the Local Environment, or DAPPLE, will involve scientists releasing colourless, odourless gas from canisters on the street.......

Doesn't sunshine make everything seem better? Alright, it's been brass monkeys but nothing lifts the winter blues like bright skies, crisp air and early daffodils. It's half term for most kids this week so your commute might even be more pleasant. In which case, perhaps you'll be more inclined to get out after work and try something different that's light on your wallet and heavy on aceness. After all, we really can't afford good......

A 24 bus crashed into a bridge at 9am this morning on Prince of Wales Road NW5, injuring 6 people and wiping out its own roof. The bus was on diversion following the Camden Canal Market fire at the weekend. Other buses had been successfully centering themselves and passing unharmed beneath the arched bridge since the fire cut off access to Camden High Street. We wait to hear what on earth the driver was......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th February 1915: Norman Wisdom is born in Marylebone. He would become a very successful entertainer, as well as (bizarrely) a cult film icon in Albania. Tuesday – 5th February 1924: The Greenwich Time Signal pips are broadcast on BBC Radio for the first time. (Lots more geeky detail on this is available in our post from this time last year.) Wednesday – 6th February 1875: The......

Book-lovers will be checking out a unique new venue on Saturday [2 Feb]: St James Street Open-Air Library in Walthamstow. No payment, no tickets – just bring as many books as you like, and swap them. Fab, but Brrrrrr. Its hours are brief; from 1-3pm the first Saturday of the month. And its book stock is the few hundred its organisers have rounded up from supporters – plus whatever anyone brings. But it’s handily......

After receiving what they judiciously describe as "a lot" of feedback, TfL has announced significant changes to the recorded information announcements on London buses. Those changes mainly seem to involve - hooray! - reducing their frequency. The announcements, rolled out last year in conjunction with a display system, are designed to help visually impaired travellers, as well as visitors, navigate the confusing streets of London. A worthy project, certainly, though it means less hilarious......

Jermyn Street Theatre is a tiny space. And when we say tiny, we mean tiny. We'd guess at 80-100 seats. And if you're over 5ft 10, you can forget about leg room for the evening. Luckily, Opera on the Run's delightfully light-hearted show, The Perfect Picnic should be more than enough to divert your ears and eyes away from any cramp forming in your legs. Recently-redundant David doesn't want to go the opera; he's......

Right, so you're either saving up to blow the last of the December salary on one helluva NYE out or you're just stony broke after Christmas/sales shopping. Either way, unless you're happy to simply hibernate for the week here are some ideas for New Year jollity on a budget. New Year's Eve: Follow our top tips and gird your loins for the massive fireworks display along the Thames, focusing on the London Eye and......

Having closed its doors in 2004, and playing host to squatters in recent months, there's finally some good news to report about the Commonwealth Institute in west London. The disused building is to be the welcome recipient of £20 million development plan, with hopes to turn it into an art gallery (yay!), museum (double-yay!) or "centre for a corporate foundation" (erm, possibly yay - we're not sure what that means). This should hopefully mean......

Fed up of the froth, mirth and sentimentality of the Yuletide muzak yet? To bring you an antidote and alternative soundtrack for your Christmas holidays we caught up with the utterly charming Roi Robertson of Mechanical Cabaret over a sorbet and peppermint tea and ruminated on the band's latest single, pastoral London views and the fact that we've never seen him and Noel Fielding in the same room together... Who's in the band? I......

Our friends at the South East London Folklore Society (SELFS) will be hailing and celebrating Yule tonight with a good old fashioned game of pin the tail on the Yule Cat. There will also be beer, chips, storytelling, songs and games. If you're a fan of urban legends, One Eye Grey, Jack the Ripper walks, gory London histories, oddities, nooks and crannies, the occult, paganism, Morris dancing, dragons, witchcraft and the like, you need......

Dusting off the snow from last year, every day this month the Londonist team will be pointing you in the direction of a Christmas present that (with a bit of luck) you won't already have on your list. Climb up onto our collective lap and we'll see what we can move from our sack to your stockings... The Londonist team is full of interesting people doing exciting things but one in particular has been......

Advent is upon us. Hanukkah starts on Wednesday. Office parties are already everywhere. Tis the season to be jolly, jolly, jolly but we know this can be draining, emotionally and financially. Don't let the state of your wallet throw you over the edge. We can't afford to buy tickets to the BFI IMAX all-nighter next weekend and we're not allowed to enter our own competition. But we can do the following splendid things for......

Residents of Stoke Newington, you should be proud. Local proprietor Kirit Ved is flying the Stokey flag all the way up in Birmingham where, at a glittering ceremony, he has just been named Independent Newsagent of the Year 2007. VED News, on Church Street in N16, was singled out by the judges for its impressive range of newspapers and magazines from around the globe. Reflecting Hackney's polyglot populace, Mr. Ved stocks titles from the......

When they're not being re-imagined as metaphorical objects in overrated films, plastic bags are unsightly things. A familiar bane of London's landscape, the "urban tumbleweed" is an ecological nightmare. We all know that we're supposed to ditch them in favour of reusables; yet 13 billion bags are issued each year in the UK alone. That's 220 per person. Only one in 200 bags is recycled, while the rest are doomed to landfill sites where......

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......

Once again South London demonstrates that it is at the forefront of cultural hip and happeningness. This year’s Elefest (at the Elephant and Castle - duh!) is as bright and sparkly as ever, with a range of events covering almost every conceivable cultural medium. Londonist is just really sorry that this article didn’t go up two days ago, as it means we have missed the first two days. Hey ho. We particularly like the......

A punning headline that doesn’t quite work is our stock in trade. Such is the case here, where we want to highlight a band of enthusiasts who seek out tales of London’s mysterious and arcane. The South East London Folklore Society meets every second Thursday of the month at The Old King’s Head - down one of those pokey little alleys off Borough High Street. Next Thursday (13 September) Rob Stephenson will talk about......

This weekend, a man was found dead in Orpington High Street. Apparently his death is being treated as 'sudden'. What's surprising about this is that although his death was sudden, no one spotted him for 13 hours. Think about this for a second. A whole day. We never really think about time passing. But we're starting to realise just how long a day really is. We'd like to think if we were sick, or......

Emma Hutchins' one woman show embodies its own ethos of "having it all". Written and performed by the woman herself, she rises to the occasion delivering 3 familiar yet absorbing Bridget Jones-esque monologues and throwing in some Japanese Butoh for good measure. Ambitious? Yes. Misguided? Certainly not. Butoh is a dance form where each move is initiated by emotional truth. Isobel's entrancing, effortful progress from prone to standing to intensely, baby pigeon steps forward......

If you're feeling your age, then you'll have fun this weekend. Two events have been noted on the Londonist radar and both concern the silver end of the social spectrum. First up for your diary is Bells of Shoreditch on Saturday, a durational performance installation in St Leonard's Church, along Shoreditch High Street. As part of the Shoreditch Festival , performance and installation artist Anne Bean has gathered a diverse group of women to......

London is experiencing a restaurant boom. Over the past year, 158 new outlets compared to 89 closures were recorded by Harden's for its upcoming 2008 London Restaurants guide. That’s 16 new restaurants more than the former record set in 2005, opening at an annual rate of three times what it was in the early Nineties. Harden’s co-editor, Peter Harden, is so enthused by the increase he’s dubbed this point in time a “golden age......

Camden Fringe gig #3 finds us upstairs at the Liberties Bar for our first stand-up comedy show: Paul Kerensa with "Genesis". This is his first night of 6 at the Camden Fringe before he's off up to that other place, up there. No, not heaven. Edinburgh. As you might expect this is a comedy take on the many ludicrous stories in the first book of the Old Testament whilst pulling together comedy strands that......

Our first foray into the Camden Fringe was oddly reminiscent of our last Edinburgh experience. A rainy, busy street at 3pm in the afternoon, leading into a tiny, dark and terribly hot mini-theatre, beer in hand. If only there had been a street full of aspiring thesps flyering outside we could have sworn we'd been up there. But no. This is Camden and praise be, our first show was really very good. Room 110......

Due to the crazy rain today, there have been mass closures around throughout London Underground. As of 14:15, the following stations have been closed due to flooding: Shepherd's Bush (Central Line) Turnpike Lane Victoria (Circle & District Lines only) Paddington (Circle Line only) Gants Hill South Kensington Kilburn Tooting Broadway Vauxhall Turnham Green Tooting Bec Clapham Common Colliers Wood North Ealing (Westbound services only) Hammersmith - Dist & Pic lines (Eastbound services only) The following......

One club event we've neglected to mention really (and we really should have) is the birth of the amazing Modular Weekly parties at Ditch in Shoreditch. Modular is the label home of some of our favourite electronic artists including The Presets, MSTRKFFT, Klaxons and Cut Copy, as well as looking after Jack Johnson & Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And when they put on a party, they rock it! Sure if you're not wearing skinny jeans,......