While our attention is on sociological and artistic dichotomies posed by the scientific community, there is yet more thought-provoking stuff scheduled for this evening. And a good chance to see a little known museum in our city too. Don't say we never give you value for money... The Grant Museum of Zoology is one of the University College of London (UCL) museums, originally founded for teaching purposes in 1827, and is packed with skeletons,......

It's late and you're somewhere near Leicester Square. You want to sit down and rest those dance-weary feet - or like Londonist, you are a glutton and you're looking for some dessert. Head to Café Ciao with its range of gelati displayed and giant plastic ice cream outside. Their dessert menu is full of concoctions like these pictured but if sweet treats aren't your thing, there's a menu of savouries though we haven't visited......

And it worked. After months of news items devoted to Heathrow's T5, baggage mishaps, proposed terminal and runway expansions, and Greenpeace protests, the UK’s third busiest airport has finally said to hell with all that and made its own bid for a bit of attention. And what a bid it is. BAA’s plans to double the size of Stansted – second runway, second terminal, open for business by 2015 – would mean, according to......

There are just too many good events around town this week for us to narrow our picks for certain nights. Thus we present you with multiple options and leave that difficult choice to you. In the meantime, we’ll be brushing up on our science fiction in an effort to figure out how to move quickly from event to event. The solution? Teleporting. Clearly. Monday: writLoud returns to RADA tonight. We like this event, as......

A series celebrating the talent of our friends over in the Londonist Flickr pool who make our site look pretty with their fabulous photographs. Here, they introduce themselves and share their favourite London shots. Going Underground: I like this one as it always makes me think of heading into the city and what adventures are to be had there. Also, the colours really make it stand out IMHO. I didn't have to do any playing......

Residents vs. architects: Those who live in Robin Hood Gardens want the estate demolished, whilst architects fight to save “seminal” modernist buildings. Your daily crime round-up: “Osama bin London” jailed indefinitely; cleaner who killed 94-year-old widow jailed for life; financial trader denies involvement in murder of wealthy writer. We’re sensing a pattern here: Man scales Japanese embassy in London to protest Japanese whaling. Met to build firearms training centre near Heathrow; increased security concerns......

Well damn. Just as we were preparing to submit our accumulated evidence that Paula Radcliffe deserves admission to the International Super Heroes Hall of Fame (wherever that may be), word comes today of a crack in the steely exterior of the marathon world record holder. The three-time London Marathon winner has been forced to withdraw from this year’s event due to an injury to a tendon in her toe (tendons! in the toe! yet......

There's a Spitfire in Trafalgar Square today. Not a Banksy Spitfire, amusingly positioned so it looks like it is crashed into the steps leading from the National Gallery. It's not propped up between the lions by a protest group and it's not there as a misguided celebration of Prince Harry's safe return to England. It's there to launch a campaign to put a statue of Sir Keith Park on the fourth plinth and do......

Of the anywhere from 25,000 to 100,000 people who apply for asylum in the UK each year, Amnesty International estimates that approximately two-thirds are turned away. Once rejected, applicants are given 21 days to leave the country, at which point those without children are cut off from financial support and accommodation provided by the National Asylum Support Service. Many, for reasons as complex as those that brought them to the UK in the first......

Aren’t old people delightful? So feisty! Such spunk! When they’re not threatening your five-year-old with an iron bar, they might be off practising kung fu on would-be teen muggers (and quite rightly – punks) or dispensing advice to lad mag readers. This much is clear: retirement just isn’t what it used to be. Witness Buster Martin, the 101-year-old with an invincibility complex. And no wonder. After first gaining notoriety for refusing to take a......

Harrygate escalates: Prince pulled out of Afghanistan, whilst the media whip selves into frenzy over involvement in the news blackout/leak. Winegate averted (for now): Winehouse will not face charges in connection with husband’s alleged attempts to pervert justice. Guess which city is the world’s museum capital? We’ll give you three guesses; first two don’t count. A day after M&S announces it will charge for plastic bags, Gordon Brown indicates that the government is ready......

Time was when getting into the Guinness Book of World Records really meant something. You had to walk 130 kilometres with a milk bottle balanced on your head. Or keep on teasing the ladies with your Hot Stuff routine well into your sixties in order to qualify as the world’s Oldest Male Stripper. Now, it seems, all you have to do is drink a cup of coffee. At least we know that we all......

Fortunately, there are as yet no news reports of the sky tumbling down. No, it wasn’t a case of a bad couple of pints you got at the pub yesterday evening, nor was it the magnitude of the moment you were sharing with that special someone – the earth literally did move last night. Registering in at a 5.3, according to the British Geological Survey, it is the largest earthquake the UK has experienced......

Even on its quietest weeks, London is something of a happy haven for bibliophiles such as ourselves, though we may be doing nothing more than perusing one of the city’s many lovely bookshops. This week, however, we’re in a veritable book geek heaven, as the London literary scene goes all glittery, playing host to some major names and fantastic events, leaving us tongue-tied and weak at the knees. Do we gush? Very well then,......

A series celebrating the talent of our friends over in the Londonist Flickr pool who make our site look pretty with their fabulous photographs. Here, they introduce themselves and share their favourite London shots. I was on Oxford Street, when I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I'd originally gone to do some shopping, but ended up spending the better part of an afternoon taking photos of Londoners next to an abandoned......

We like independent traders, specially those that are a bit different or even odd. Small set-ups doing interesting things with one eye on their ethics, the other on their speciality, the other one their customers in the style of a benevolent, entrepreneuring tri-clops. Well, our friends over at Qype are down with them too and have created the Hidden Gem Awards to celebrate them, to culminate in a "glitzy awards ceremony" later this year.......

He attacked someone at Waterloo Underground station taking pictures. The photographer in question, though, was quick thinking and snappy and took this very clear mugshot of his assailant. British Transport Police are now seeking to find and question him. PC Ben Dawson said: It would appear the victim, an amateur photographer, who enjoys taking snaps of London street scenes, was taking shots on the escalators when a member of the public took exception to......

Hang on to your TLSs. Literary London is a lioness roaring in a few weeks ahead of her regularly scheduled appearance in March. With both the London Word Festival and Jewish Book Week launching this week, we’ve got enough events in our diary to keep us busy until spring. Keep an eye on this space as we highlight our favourites from these festivals over the next couple of weeks. Monday: You want poetry? RADA’s......

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......

A series celebrating the talent of our friends over in the Londonist Flickr pool who make our site look pretty with their fabulous photographs. Here, they introduce themselves and share their favourite London shots. Tower Bridge - Although I have done quite a lot of processing on this, I really wanted to get an un-cliched image of an icon that's been done to death. It was also a really weird light that day, which has......

It was a delightfully dry and bright, crisp and chilly weekend in London... except for a sudden bit of flooding along Edgware Road on Sunday morning. Not from the heavens opening in a repeat of the 2007 deluges but from what has been reported as a mechanical digger failure at the crucial junction of Sussex Gardens and Edgware Road not far from Marble Arch. This is the junction where traffic from Paddington Station comes......

Photo courtesy of The Sizemore McCabe Project from the Londonist Flickr pool We've just heard about a burglary at a house in Stanmore, north London and the extraordinary swag the thieves took away. Not only was a penny black stamp worth £10,000 among the high-value items in the safe that was ripped out of a wall, there was apparently £175 worth of George Best bank notes. Mixed with our sympathy for the unlucky owners for......

Pigeons may be flying rats to Ken Livingstone and thousands of other Londoners - but to some, they are war heroes. And worth a pretty penny in portrait form. Oil paintings depicting the birds who flew back and forth during two world wars, acting as spies and messengers have been sold at auction for astonishing prices. Sold by Bonhams auction house, the eight oil paintings were purchased mostly by an unnamed buyer who placed......

Last Thursday, Amnesty International brought Guantánamo Bay to London's American Embassy to mark 6 years since its opening and, more importantly, to raise the profile of the campaign to close the notorious detention centre. A replica prison cell was installed outside the Embassy and an all night vigil held. Kate Allen, Amnesty's Chief Executive, was one of the prisoners. The following morning, protestors joined the powerfully visual demonstration dressed in orange boiler suits and......

It was New Year's Eve. You stood looking up into the sky as the fireworks faded and the boom and crack of them rang faintly in your ears. That was it, you thought. That's the last party until spring time. But you were wrong! Because in London, you can have New Year's celebrations several times over before the clocks go forwards, starting with the Russian 'Old New Year' in Trafalgar Square this Sunday! And......

We're game for these 2012 Olympics and, yesterday, tried to get all excited about the Get Set Roadshow that will be shimmying its way through all 33 Boroughs soon. But then we saw Londonist Flickr Pool contributor, MykReeve's first-hand shot of the thing and were somewhat underwhelmed. Many thanks to MykReeve for being our man on the scene.......

Car owners in Lambeth can breathe a sigh of relief: Lambeth Council is no longer going to clamp illegally parked cars in the borough. But before drivers start flooding into Lambeth to drop off their cars anywhere they like under the impression it's a vehicular wonderland south of the river, let it be known that parking tickets and fines will still be enforced and cars will be towed away instead of clamped in extreme......

Big names making big sculptures are making big waves. Six new ideas for sculptures for Trafalgar Square are open to public viewing from today - and you will have the chance to pick which one will follow the current whacking huge great Thomas Schütte coloured plexiglass sculpture that sits on the fourth plinth right now. The fourth plinth has remained empty since money ran out and a permanent statue of King William IV couldn't......

Hallelujah! Heathrow, Stansted and London City airports are lifting the one bag restriction from today! The era of squashing what you can into a carefully measured single piece of hand luggage or resigning yourself to checking in your bags and the inevitable lengthy scramble at the carousels at the other end is almost over. Security teams at 19 airports in the UK have been deemed capable of checking more than one bag per person,......

We celebrated the good guys of the London Ambulance Service and St Johns Ambulance looking out for us on New Year's Eve - but we're a little less jubilant about the crowd of cameras keeping a beady eye on us every day of the year. A report in September last year said there were 10,000 surveillance cameras in London recording our every move, and putting the UK into the highest ranking country in the......