It's the question on everyone's lips. Has Auntie's capacious bosom, formerly so welcoming of the frosty extremities, been overly nurturing to our fiery nucleus? Or alternatively: why do they blather on about London so much on the BBC and never mention Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? Yes, cast your mind back to last November, when the Big British Castle was accused of being London-centric. Never one to forego a drawn-out and expensive investigation, the......

You may have noticed that not every element of London's media was truly fair and balanced in their coverage of the Race for City Hall. Chickens, you may commence roosting: one of Boris' bandwagon-jumpers has been given his marching orders for encouraging people to vote for our new Conservative chieftain. Talksport's James Whale has been sacked after breaching Ofcom rules that ban presenters from showing bias towards a political party prior to an election.......

The arrival of two Hollywood heavyweights in our fair city has given the local media the perfect opportunity to do what they do best: namely, sneer at the lady while swooning over the gent. Renee Zellweger and George Clooney have been in town this week for the UK premier of the Clooney-directed film, Leatherheads. And the differing reactions to the pair from the ranks of Fleet Street's finest couldn't be more illustrative. Gushing journalists......

Well, not all of them, obviously. But the London launch of a US newspaper heavyweight, and a high-profile fundraiser for a Presidential candidate, has given us threadbare cause to run that rather glib headline. Moving on.... For London's business and financial elite, the pink pages of the Financial Times are the only thing to be seen reading on the morning commute to work. However, the FT's sturdy grip on matters monetary will be challenged......

Feminists. They don’t shave their armpits and they bathe in toad spit and the pubic hairs of young boys. Right? Well, you could try asking that question at the European Feminist Summit, but we would advise against it. Part of the London Festival of Europe, the summit, titled The Future of European Feminism will discuss feminism in the 21st century, in the context of Europe, politics, art and media. With feminist blog The F......

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......

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......

This is what we have learnt this weekend whilst you have been making your mince pies: The tube link to Heathrow Airport is celebrating its 30th birthday. Spicing up Christmas - they’re back and better than ever. Apparently. Appalling teenage violence continues. Perhaps they should all be kept indoors from the ages of 12-19. The Savoy Hotel has closed for a facelift. As one does when one reaches a certain age. ‘Cept this one......

Langdon Park DLR station opened yesterday, to initially no fanfare, until Ken turned up with some free Oyster cards. Diamond Geezer has blogged in heartfelt detail about the "shiny alien mothership" lighting up a neglected, marginalised area. Langdon Park now easily links up with Canary Wharf and Stratford, where a second platform was also officially opened yesterday, possibly anticipating the immediate influx of people escaping Tower Hamlets for a day. TFL are consulting about......

As Londoners we pootle around our fair city doing Londonish things: pretending to read anything off the Orange shortlist, pretending not to read the free newspapers, pretending not to notice how bad the man sitting next to us on the bus smells, rush-rush-rush with our minds usually elsewhere. And then once in a while we focus and spot something unusual, something that hasn’t happened before, or that wasn’t there yesterday. Thus it is with spaces......

O2, it seems, are cornering the market in progressive mobile gadegtry, already having the monopoly on the shiny smart iPhone and now the pilot phase OyPhone. Sorry, "Oyster Wallet" is the much more sensible and meaningless name for TfL's latest technology wheeze which puts your travelcard in your mobile phone and today, 500 Oyster users begin trialling the Nokia 6131 handsets with Oyster embedded. Barclaycard are also in on the trial, charging up the......

Some good news from Greenwich at last. Six months on from the dramatic inferno the Cutty Sark restoration is making progress. Thankfully her skeleton of iron girders withstood the fire so, aside from the small matter of increasing restoration costs by £15m, she's on track to reopen to the public in 2010. We were almost as gutted as she was when the news broke back in May so we'll be interested to hear the......

Media regulators Ofcom have finally come to a conclusion about one of George Galloway's inappropriate outbursts on radio station TalkSport. As a sitting MP and representative of Bethnal Green and Bow, it was not acceptable for him to have hijacked the morning show for promoting himself as a better candidate for Poplar and Limehouse. Called to stand-in for regular hosts on the morning of 10 August, Galloway proceeded to outline his plan to pitch......

Rapha makes clothing for serious cyclists - the couriers, the racers, the hardcore fundraisers pedalling over the Andes. They are also organising one of the most unusual events we've had the privilege of hearing about: this Saturday is the second Rapha Roller Race Culture Clash which is "a four-way clash between teams of bicycle couriers, cycle journalists, media folk and a ‘dark horse’ Dutch team made up of unnamed riders." And before you try......

Apparently they are fed up with being dissed in and by the media, and distrusted by society at large. As the BBC launches its Talking Teenagers campaign, a brave and shiny teenager has taken up the challenge down in Bexleyheath, claiming that the press are too keen to focus on under-performing, dysfunctional adolescents and all too ready to ignore happy teenage stories (such as her own – she is a champion St. John’s Ambulancer). Londonist......

Here’s what we’ve learned this weekend: Today is Remembrance Sunday which actually falls on 11th November - Armistice Day. The Queen and other Royals attended the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall last night. The Ceremony of Remembrance and Cenotaph Parade take place on Whitehall from 10.30am with Two Minute Silence at 11:00am. There was some pomp, circumstance and kids with strawberries on their heads at the Lord Mayor's Show yesterday. The......

This Sunday TfL take over the North London Line. Yes, the service also known as the loony line and infamous for fare dodging and criminal activity on unmanned stations is getting a rebrand. Goodbye (good riddance) Silverlink! Hello London Overground. The long neglected, feared and cursed service that links Stratford with North London and pootles all the way around the West to Richmond is being brought into the TfL fold. It's even getting coloured......

Something is stirring in the catacombs beneath London Bridge. A cache of skeletons has been uncovered close to the steps where Nancy betrayed Bill Sykes. And construction workers on the site of a new museum are too afraid to work as tools go missing and lightbulbs explode. What sounds like the cover blurb of a Neil Gaiman novel is being presented as fact over on the BBC. Apparently, two Kentish brothers building a new......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 22. Badge of honour Hurrah, Team Nice’s prototype for badges for pregnant women has been made. It’s too early to tell how effective they will be. If you have a bun in the oven, or indeed know of someone who does, please email team.nice@niceties-token.com and we can send you some, as we really want to......

This weekend Bloomsbury erupts with the Bloomsbury Festival celebrating this famous area. Well known for its literary and historical significance it is also a thriving haven for arts and artists and packed full of beautiful, quirky, intriguing buildings and organisations and the chockerblock programme reflects every aspect of life in Bloomsbury Quarter. Check this out: The Egypt Exploration Society, Foundling Museum, Charles Dickens Museum and the October Gallery are among the "Open Houses" over......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 20. Kids Today I discovered this conversation on Fridaycities – the London social network site (if you want to join it you might need this code: pfpxc3ogqu5). They were discussing why people think that so many kids are stabbing each other. A few different points were made about this, one being that knife crime and......

21. The Beast Of Barnet For ten years the so-called Barnet ‘big cat’ caused confusion in the London suburbs – a few years before the ‘beast’ of Bexley reared its head, even though both were possibly the same animal, or at least part of the same puzzle. Strangely, in 2001 the press claimed that the elusive wild cat had been caught – after many years of frustrating police searches, fruitless tracking, and numerous sightings......

Unless you're hiding under a stone in deepest darkest Kent, you'll know about the astonishing 'invasion' of the Terracotta Army, with the British Museum opening their flagship exhibition a few weeks ago. We wrote about their arrival on these very pages for you, so you've really got no excuse. Such is the clamour to see the soldiers that they will stay for a full six months. Getting them here is clearly quite a coup,......

Soho streets were brought to a terrifying standstill yesterday afternoon when "a very hot and sharp smell" and a cloud of acrid smoke provoked chemical attack panic with police sealing off the area and closing roads. The Ambulance Service dispatched a Hazardous Area Response Team Unit as Firefighters with breathing apparatus broke down the doors of the Thai Cottage restaurant. However, as The Times reported, Soon after 7pm on Monday they emerged from the......

Autumn is tussling with the tail end of summer. It's nearly time to start closing the curtains early, sticking the central heating on timer and making soups and stews. Bed socks on! Here’s your London related home based media entertainment for the week. On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 24 September Withnail and I (C4, 01.30-03.25) Drink, drugs, debauchery and dirt in Camden Town. Need we say more. (Actually, just to confirm, that's 01.30 on......

If you've been wanting to join the cycle revolution but are put off by all that aggressive, unpredictable and dirty traffic out there then maybe this weekend's Hovis London Freewheel, which will trundle through nine miles of traffic-free town on Sunday, will help you get on your bike. The number of cyclists on London's streets has apparently increased a stunningly impressive 83% in the last 12 months. Unfortunately, it's too late to register to......

Months of research and workshops run by writer Justin Young and director Suzanne Gorman have created Moonwalking In Chinatown, an extraordinary walkabout performance which leads audiences through Chinatown in the dusk behind bobbing paper lanterns and a variety of actors and stewards. Four overlapping stories for four simultaneous groups, each led by a different coloured lantern, have to weave through the early evening Soho crowds. The range of characters and multiple storylines and also......

If you have ever longed to exorcise yourself of those dreary afternoons in chilly church halls and torturous tinned food stockpiling that seemed to be the sole remit of Harvest Festivals at primary schools two decades ago, then your chance to experience a very different kind of Harvest Festival is taking place in Camberwell this Sunday. Inspirational art organisations motiroti and home are both jumbles of creative, international, artistic energy and will be combining......

The sixth in our series of interviews with potential candidates for next year's Mayoral election. Previously: Victoria Borwick (Tory), Andrew Boff (Tory) and Warwick Lightfoot (Tory), Sian Berry (Green), Fiyaz Mughal (Lib Dem). Chris Prior is an independent mayoral candidate standing on a very firm 'Stop Congestion Charging' ticket. We asked him why, and, as with all the other candidates, we also enquired whether he'd ever been sick on the Tube. Chris is the......

The rather tortured word-play of "thera-pea" is worth it, trust us. We've got an extraordinary event for your diaries and all will become clear... Bobby Baker is an artist who has been bringing the mundane and the ordinary such as housework and healthcare into the world of art and performance for the last three decades, using food as her media and live presentation as the way to communicate. This means dancing with meringue ladies,......