We don't wish to tar every pedal-pusher with the same garish shade of Lycra, but it can't escape the more observant pedestrian that a small minority of cyclists take an approach to road safety and basic manners that can be best described as "indifferent". Having taken disregard for red lights and one-way streets to new heights, the problem has spread to the Royal parks, where wannabe Victoria Pendletons can be seen tearing it up......

A couple of news items guaranteed to register on Prince Charles' carbuncle-ometer: plans for London commissions by two of modern architecture's most innovative practitioners took a step forward this week. Back in January Frank Gehry was announced as the designer of this year's Serpentine Pavilion, the temporary build that goes up during the summer and autumn in Kensington Gardens. The structure has now been unveiled. An "urban street" that provides a covered walkway from......

Frank Gehry will design this year’s Serpentine pavilion. The Kensington Gardens gallery gains a temporary annexe each year, designed by a guest architect with no previous London commissions. And they always bag a big name - Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Daniel Liebeskind, Oscar Niemeyer… So this year it will be Frank Gehry, who is perhaps best known for designing the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (pictured). It’s a shame he wasn’t the architect of 2007’s......

Today, a very marvellous structure opens to the public in Kensington Gardens. The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, designed by the Tate Modern sun maker, Olafur Eliasson, and award winning architect, Kjetil Thorsen has been described as a spinning top with mind-bogglingly complex geometries and a dark, spiralling ramp twisting around a shell-like auditorium, containing it within taut, twisting strings Our first impression is that is looks like a helter skelter, urban, park shark about to......

The man who cut his wrists in Malcolm Rifkind's Chelsea office before trying to daub slogans on the walls with his own blood, has been found guilty of criminal damage. For the two or three people who haven't heard this incredibly bit of important news yet: Lindsay Lohan had her handbag half inched at Heathrow airport. It contained a ton of diamonds and some asthma medication. Pete Doherty has put in a request to......

We’ve remarked before that, as London residents, we can often be rather complacent about the interesting sights and sounds that our city provides us. London is full of fascinating places and stimulating attractions, but because we know we can see them any time we want we sometimes tend not to bother. So, to attempt to redress the balance a teeny little bit, we’re going to explore some of the areas to which we’ve never......

You know how London buildings always get nicknames (gherkin, cheesegrater, giant glass testicle, yada, yada, yada)? Well we’re wondering what this one’s going to be called. The Translucent Egg? The Floaty Ovum? The Breast Implant? This is the cracking design for the 2006 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, by Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond. Each year, a leading architect is asked to create a striking and innovative temporary structure to adorn the grounds of the Serpentine......

The Exhibition Road Music Day takes place tomorrow on (surprise!) Exhibition Road in South Kensington, the cultural saturation point of London that counts the Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum, Institut Francais, Goethe-Institut and Imperial College among its local businesses. Starting at 10.00am and going on until midnight or whenever the fat lady stops singing, this free event will feature a dizzying array of musical mayhem from across the world. The Music Day......

There's the rest of today, all of tomorrow and all of Saturday. That's a little over two days to brace yourself and exercise your mental defences. When the clock strikes midnight and it officially becomes Sunday 26th March... that's it. It's going to be Mother's Day. Aren't mums lovely? That special lady who brought you into the world and looked after you, stayed up all night worrying and watching over you when you were......

It's been a good week for pissing off the neighbours. Firstly it was a couple of ickle pussy cats in Camberwell, now it's the thought of thousands of James Blunt fans roaming endlessly across London's green and pleasant spaces, high on spritzers and Sainsburys' bacon crunchies. Let's face it, London isn't Worthy Farm, probably looked a bit like it once, but isn't likely to do so again (unless TMFB has his way). So if......

The Old Bailey yesterday took 23 minutes to return a unanimous verdict of guilty to murder against Yousef Bouhaddaou who stabbed teacher Robert Symons in his home during a burglary. He faces a life sentence. Two men have been arrested over the murder of a couple in Upper Norwood last week. The IPCC is to publish a series of "lessons to be learned" from the death of Jean Charles de Menezes as part of a......

Tired of the telly? All Playstationed out? Over the next three days we'll bring you a guide to the best holiday season art exhibitions. So grab your coat, we’re goin’ down the galleries. National Portrait Gallery: Cornel Lucas - Shooting Stars Brings together fifty of Cornel Lucas's portraits including iconic images of Joan Collins, Dirk Bogarde and Lauren Bacall. Why you should see it: Four words - Brigitte Bardot in fishnets. National Portrait Gallery, St......

Cripes, we not really sure where to start. So many exhibitions and only 31 days to see them all in – just remember to pack your brolly because looking outside it seems winter is here again. Tomorrow marks the opening of Edvard Munch by Himself at the Royal Academy. There are over 150 works on display, mostly self-portraits, that span the stylistic and psychological changes he went through during in his career. To put......

Ahh, the good old days of the gentlemen spy: bowler hats, poison-tipped umbrellas, cigarette cases and, best of all, no David Shayler. What's made us all misty-eyes for the golden years of espionage? The discovery of a KGB 'spy's guide to London' in the latest bundle of MI5 files released to the National Archives. "Apparently seized by the Germans from a Russian agent captured in Paris during World War II," only to fall, "into......

Very sad news today: the proposed 'mountain project' for Kensington Gardens has been postponed for at least a year. The idea was to get Dutch architectural firm MVRDV to built a grass-covered "temporary mountain" on to the back of the Serpentine Gallery (most people are happy with a conservatory or maybe a loft conversion, but not the Serpentine, oh no). The project was always regarded as a bit ambitious and now it seems the......

Visit London ("London's official website" apparently....pfff, yeah right) are now offering a "a movie map" based on the film Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. The map is designed to "pinpoint the hang outs of the capital’s most famous singleton" and includes attractions such as Rigby & Peller on Conduit Street, the "ultra hip" Light bar in Shoreditch and the Italian fountains in Kensington Gardens. You can download it here (PDF file). Londonist thinks Visit......