An aid agency is trying to achieve what the Luftwaffe and V-2 rockets failed to do: the destruction of St. Paul's cathedral. ActionAid has submitted an application to the City, requesting the "total demolition" of Wren's 17th century masterpiece, in order that they can search for precious metals underneath. Surely they can't be serious. The very idea! What's yanked the chain of these cheeky chariteers? The request is actually an ingenious way of calling......

The British Library isn't always so good at promoting their free exhibition space, but they do tend to lay on something special for those who happen to wander in. Make a point of doing so for this summer's exhibit, The Ramayana: Love and Valour in India's Great Epic, which takes the narrative potential of the museum show and runs with it. Walking through the exhibit is an experience in storytelling -- is, in fact,......

The little slice of subcontinental bureaucracy that is the Indian High Commission in Aldwych may soon bring to an end its long history of enraging and befuddling tourists. According to this report out of India, the High Commission will shortly bid "a cheery farewell to snaking queues, complaints of graft and grumpy customers" as it modernises its procedures. The visa issuing process has been outsourced to VFS Global, an outfit based, naturally, India, which......

Yet another reason our love runs deep for literary London: this happy little subculture is as diverse as the city itself. On offer this week is an eclectic mixture ranging from an Asian literature festival, to a panel discussion of the utility of creative writing courses, to a talk with a well-known American memoirist. As always, the difficulty is in choosing which events we just can’t bear to miss. Monday: Blame last week’s summer-like......

Just the tonic we needed after walking to work on a cold, blustery March morn: Richard Branson is mulling over introducing a direct service between London and Kerala. Pressed during a holiday to the south Indian region about whether a connecting flight is on the cards, the Virgin Atlantic boss offered this gnomic reply: "It could be, but there is no immediate plan". Okay, it's hardly a ringing endorsement, but it has got Londonist......

This is what we have learned this weekend whilst you’ve been indulging those spring-time DIY pangs: LU has become very censorious of late. What’s to offend about a photo of a fat, pink-boxer-shorted Christ on the cross? A couple of shoppers were so worried about being caught for card fraud that they ran out of a Bromley store leaving their baby behind. High jinx in High Wycombe. Actually a bit more serious than that......

Damien Hirst has made the Tate's Christmas by gifting them 4 of his art works. The infamous cow and calf bisected and suspended in formaldehyde, "Mother and Child Divided" is the Turner Prize winning crowning glory. This is a high profile donation, timed for maximum festivity and goodwill but Hirst's generosity is not spontaneous or even his own idea. He pledged works to the Tate back in 2004 as part of the Building the......

To top off a year of switching the telly off standby, turning down the thermostat and carbon offsetting concern, you can now give a loved one 12 square metres of greenbelt land for Christmas. Yes, you can help protect London's precious remaining circle of undeveloped land by purchasing bits of it through the Good Gifts catalogue, run by the Charities Advisory Trust. 12 square metres is apparently the size of your average living room.......

Ken's been coming under the cosh for his fact-finding trip to Delhi last month. The mayor and his long-time nemesis, Tory councillor Brian Coleman, have been flapping barbs at eachother in the London Assembly, with the Barnet bruiser landing a number of heavy blows on Livingstone, accusing him of taking a "larger entourage than the Queen". He went on to question whether Ken's fellow visitors Myleene Klass and a group of dancers from the......

It’s cold outside this week, so it seems like the best plan is to cozy up on the couch and watch some telly. Why would you want to risk frostbite? On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 12 November I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here (ITV1, 21:00-22:30) It’s off to the jungle yet again with Ant & Dec as they guide a new group of “celebs” through as many disgusting tasks as you’d......

The nice people from Docklands Light Rail have contacted us to respond to our report from a couple of days ago of an unintentionally unmanned DLR train carrying passengers between stations. Here's what they had to say: The Docklands Light Railway can confirm that on 30 October 2007, at approximately 09:45hrs a train in passenger service departed West India Quay platform 4 without a staff member on board. The train continued to Westferry platform 2......

As many Londoners will know, DLR trains are entirely driven by computer. The DLR staff member on each train, known as the ‘Passenger Service Agent’ (a much less exciting title than ‘Train Captain’, which they used to be called), does not normally have any involvement in actually driving the train. Instead, their main functions seem to be to tell the train when to close the doors, to check passengers’ tickets, and to deal with......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. Spicy Food Plus 83 Wilton Rd SW1V 1DL Nearest Tube: Victoria and Pimlico 0207 834 8068 12pm-3pm, 4.30pm-11pm (Monday-Saturday) Map Expect to Pay: around £5 Rating: 8.5 out of 10 Spicy Food Plus, a rather nondescript hole-in-the-wall about halfway between Victoria Station and Pimlico Station, is (in the words of at least one well travelled London foodie) home of......

Well it’s awfully good of that nice Mr. Livingstone to organise stuff in Trafalgar Square, and we are all too sorry that we didn’t have time to go to his Diwali day on Sunday 28th October. But Londonist would remind you that Diwali isn’t actually until the 9th of November, and there’s loads more going on by way of celebration. And so that we can live up to our reputation as the world’s 93rd most......

Or, Pointless Debate For A Sunday Afternoon... Londonist's pool of writers have been riven in twain over the status of the Isle of Dogs. One faction holds it to be an island, the other claims it as a peninsula. Who's right? Before you weigh in on the argument, consider the arguments on both side. It is an island because 1) It's called the Isle of Dogs. 2) It is completely surrounded by water (see image......

Blimey. It's as if the benevolent lords of music, film and free outdoor events put all their goodies into a bag, shook it up and tipped it out over Trafalgar Square. On Thursday night, like on many nights so far in the India Now festival, hundreds of Londoners will be brought together for an Indian summer night. A huge number of cushion and rug and picnic-carrying people are expected to fill the square's space......

We are curious. Last weekend we noticed this rather peculiar-looking contraption sitting in the middle of West India Dock. Despite quite a bit of slack-jawed staring, we are frankly none the wiser as to its purpose. One possible (and rather obvious) clue is the Crossrail sign that is affixed to it. But that still doesn’t help us much – we can’t imagine why a project that has been inexorably stalled for the last couple......

We don't subscribe to cricket being elitist, generally, especially since the advent of the ace Twenty20 Cup but the MCC is definitely the ultimate in elite club exclusivity. Accompanying a member into the Long Room at Lords is an oppressive experience even when you’ve made an effort to meet the dress code, are really quite sober and excessively polite to everyone in a bacon and egg tie. But the "Home of Cricket" and revered......

With grey skies, low temperatures and ever-present rain comprising the key features of our lovely non-summer, it may seem unwise to choose to see a film anywhere lacking the protection of a roof and four walls. You certainly could choose to stay inside the confines your local multiplex, but then you'd miss out on the return of Film4's fabulous Summer Screen tradition at Somerset House. For ten nights from 2 August until 11 August,......

Ice cream and live music are two of Londonist's favourite things. Imagine our excitment when we realised there was a festival that had both! Yes. Both! Well, that's just the kind of event that'll send our blood pressure through the roof. So what's the event are we so excited about? It's the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Sundae. Over July 28th and 29th the Gods of ice cream take over Clapham Common (so that's......

Previewed on here a week ago, London's India Now season launched yesterday with a party at the London Eye and an intricate replica of the Taj Mahal floating down the Thames. As we predicted, Shilpa Shetty did indeed haul herself to the event. We hear rumours that her agent called the Mayor's Office in a bit of a tiz and begged for her to be involved. The season lasts through until September, and includes......

Swami Ramdev Shibir has sold-out venues across Britain prior to even touching down in the UK. He is loved and revered by millions across the globe and some have paid up to £250 for the privilege of seeing him in person. The Eastern Robbie Williams? A Bollywood crooner? No, he is a yoga Guru and he is about to host what is going to be the world’s biggest yoga camp in Alexandra Palace in......

From next week London will be hosting India Now, a three-month season of events exploring London’s relationship with India and India's culture. It all kicks off with a hefty PR stunt on the morning of 17 July, when a replica of the Taj Mahal will sail down the Thames. Yes, really. It will start from Millbank and head down-stream - pausing for photo opps beside Parliament, the London Eye and Tate Modern. Somewhat like......

We considered saying it was 'a sweet idea' with reckless use of sugar-related terms like 'raw' and 'unrefined' - but then realised how inappropriate these terms are for new art work that is none of the above. Powerful, considered and carefully constructed are more apt words. London-born, New York based artist Satch Hoyt has created several sculptures using only sugar for the City of London Festival. Two sugar slave ships are on display in......

As Londoners, we all walk; to the tube station, to the shops and back, to the burger stand as we stumble home after work drinks gone awry. But how many of us use walking as a form of spiritual enlightenment, or non-violent protest? We’d wager not many, aside from Mahatma Gandhi. And so it is that at long last a guided walk of London has been created in homage to one of India’s greatest......

Fresh this Week: Conceived in Jamaica, Elizabeth Marsh (1735-85) traveled further than most men, including eastern and southern India, visiting the world's biggest ports and naval bases, from Portsmouth to Rio de Janeiro. Author Linda Colley, author of In The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, reads tonight at The London Review Bookshop, or you can hear her on Radio 4's Start the Week. Thursday 14, 7pm, LRB, 14 Bury Place, WC1A 2JL - Buy online......

The 2007 Bollywood film awards return to the UK next week, for the first time since they were originally launched here in 2000. At the glittering ceremony, Oscar-esque trinkets will be handed out for things like the 'Best Villain' ("Boo!") or 'Style Diva of the Year' ("Oooh!"). We're a bit disappointed there isn't something in there for 'Most Swish Light-Bulb-Removing-Style Bhangra Dance Routine', as we've been doggedly perfecting ours on the dancefloor of the......

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest received some decidedly mixed reviews and while we enjoyed the romp it did seem uneven and messy compared to the first movie, which let's face it, didn't really need a sequel. With things left hanging the way they did you couldn't help but feel that Empire Strikes Back had been perhaps too much of an influence on things. So we went along to last night's screening of......

No, this is not a Touch Up London entry involving a giant root vegetable or a cross-looking Stefan Edberg (whimper). The magnificent Swede in question is the rather stunning Götheborg, a full-scale replica of an 18th century merchant trading ship that this weekend popped to visit the capital and have a bit of a face-off with a modern-day warship. It's not entirely an accurate replica - the deck is 10cm higher as seamen are......

Fresh Next Week John Lanchester's third novel Family Romance is the story of an extraordinary family - from his grandparents’ beginnings in rural Ireland and colonial Rhodesia, through his father’s wartime separation from his parents and his mother’s tragic first love, her decision to become a nun and her adoption of a new identity. Next Wednesday, 7pm, £6, The London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, WC1A 2JL, 020 7269 9030. Givin’ ‘em away: Tomorrow......