As you prepare to hop on the tube this evening, check out Metro. It's full of... ducks. These ducks have been placed lovingly in well-known works of art by Londonist Flickr regular Misty, which we feel is very important to mention because Metro have completely forgotten to do so on the full page they have dedicated to her images. Those lazy ducks… and their handy spoonerisms.......

This week, Londonist caught two bands at either end of the musical scale - American metal stars Wolves in the Throne Room @ Underworld and the ever great Elbow at an intimate Porchester Hall show. We also started offering you the chance to win tickets to see Late of the Pier on February 28th. We also previewed the forthcoming second iTunes festival, which starts this coming Thursday. Looking forward to this week however, Monday night......

The book grocer’s coffers are chockfull of goodies this week, so let’s jump right in and get shopping... Monday: Crikey. Take a look at author and critic George Steiner’s publishing credits and you have to wonder whether the man has actually slept in the past fifty years. Yet the premise of the prolific writer’s most recent work, My Unwritten Books, is that there are actually some subjects that Steiner has purposely left unexplored. Join......

LAist listed a top ten list of sorts: things they hope not to see in Los Angeles in 2008. (one example, pictured above). Shanghaiist was surprised to learn that "godless," "atheist," and "commie" China is soon going to be the world's largest supplier of Bibles! Torontoist picked some of their favorite photos of 2007. Londonist was relieved to hear the fire at the Royal Marsden hospital didn't harm any of the patients even though......

News of a film installation to be unveiled at Rayners Lane and Sudbury Town stations shortly alerted us to the fact that TfL's jolly and diverse Platform for Art programme had undergone a rebrand and will be relaunching as Art on the Underground at the end of this month. There's not much in a name, of course, but always fans of wordplay and puns we rather liked "Platform for Art". However, TfL has opted......

Editors start a three night residency at Brixton Academy on Monday (17.50, here) but the real treat has to be Reading's squelchy electro boys Does It Offend You Yeah? shuffling their stuff at Barfly. Campy London trio Palladium are at Madame JoJos (£7, here and dreamy Canadian shoegazers Stars play The Scala . The incredibly bouncy Operator Please have flown in from Australia on Tuesday to take part in the NME Freshers tour alongside The......

Chicagoist is gearing up for this weekend's annual Air & Water Show along the lakefront. In what's becoming an annual tradition around there, staff member Todd McClamroch even got to fly with one of the participants. Chicagoist's decidedly opinionated readership was also appalled that one of their staffers found a popular local brewpub to be a great place to bring a kid. They also think that an unlikely activist for immigration rights should just take......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 6. Dizzy Lizzy Previously: It's easy for us all to look away, but if you were sitting on a bus and someone directly asked you, very politely, if they could sit down because they were about to pass out, would anyone (who was able) refuse? For research purposes only, I'll test this out… This was......

Mayor raps Tory 'election plot'. Amuse yourself by misconstruing this BBC headline. DLR firm to operate Dubai Metro? And Hong Kong firm to operate London's rails. LoR production opening night. Says the Indy: Is it now the one show to rule them all? I wonder what the Elvish word is for "no". Image courtesy of red5standingby via the Londonist flickr group.......

Busy week for music as bands start to warm up for the massive festival known as Glastonbury next weekend. Monday night sees Pearl Jam grace Wembley Arena, with support coming more than ably from the brilliant Idlewild. Tickets are sold out; however as always check for a last minute allocation or Scarlet Mist for a fair deal. Doors are at 6pm. Everyone’s favourite Liverpudlians The Coral grace the Astoria as a warm up for Glastonbury,......

If you’ve ever boarded a Tube train after it has reached the end of its line and is preparing to make the return journey, you will have had the experience of wading knee-deep in London’s best cat tray liners – the freesheets. Folded neatly on every seat, splayed across every square inch of floor space and perched haphazardly on every ledge are those peons of journalistic greatness, the Metro, thelondonpaper and London Lite. Together......

Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingston sat smiling professionally side by side today at a presentation to members of the International Olympic Committee whilst the press carried gleeful stories about their respective divergent opinions of the infamous logo. Tessa Jowell declared herself, rather touchingly, "unusual" on the Today programme this morning because of her view that the logo is "terrific". Ken, on the other hand, was denouncing the team responsible for the epilepsy inducing brand......

Apologies for the first-person perspective - normal service will resume after this post. About a year ago, Phil, a friend of mine, had a run-in with the British Transport Police over the use of a four-letter word - "shit" - when describing the accuracy or otherwise of a metal detector set up at Highbury & Islington station. I witnessed the whole thing and wrote about it on Londonist; the story was then picked up......

“With any luck, they also eat squirrels and tiny, annoying dogs.” So said AlyxL, commenting on our earlier post about big cats. Well AlyxL, if that is your real name, it really doesn’t matter. We have occasionally popular performance artist Mark McGowan to act in that capacity. The serial stunt-puller ate a corgi live on Resonance FM last night. (By ‘live’, we really hope the Metro is talking in the broadcasting sense.) McGowan, whose......

Another exciting week of music in the capital coming up, with us here to give you the best guide through what's hot and what's not in the indie / pop scenes this week. Want a lazy way to spend your Bank Holiday Monday? Why not see Good Shoes at Morden Park bandstand? They're on at 2pm, and we previewed it earlier last week here. Later on Monday evening The Holloways play The Electric Ballroom......

OK, we put our hands up. We're guilty of talking about Banksy far too much, and even making the occasional factual error about his work. But here's a mega-blooper from the mainstream press. See this classic Banksy piece from Rosebery Avenue? It's been there for years. Yet several newspapers are proclaiming 'Banksy Strikes Again', including The Times, Metro and the Daily Mail (who have now pulled the story). They're even getting the location wrong,......

Speaking of accessibility, one scheme offering a (sadly non-literal) hand to the differently abled is a new porn site for the blind. (Yes, yes, the gags are obvious.) Metro describe how this cavalcade of aural sex can be enjoyed: The X-rated site features erotic stories read out by scantily-clad women. Users can also listen to graphic descriptions of saucy photos. For those who are not blind but are visually-impaired, a ‘zoom’ button lets them......

Spring is when we get busy here in the Ist-A-Verse. Very busy. But, after staying bundled-up indoors all winter, it's nice for us to be out, about, and collecting things to write about for you. Here's a glimpse at what's been keeping your favorite citybloggers busily away from home and out of bed. For LAist, strong winds attacked LA on the same day the Feds raided the Crips. Not to fear, though: the Japanese version......

That quintessentially Shoreditchian pastime, urban golf, has lost its founder. According to Metro: Jeremy Feakes, who invited golfers from across the globe to compete in the East End, died of head injuries after a fall onto concrete at his studio in Hoxton. He had been planning to launch 'urban golf' worldwide, after the success of his annual Shoreditch Urban Open in London. Looking at the memorial page, it seems Feakes died over a month......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

We briefly introduced Dragonette last year when we went to see them at Ghetto, and since then they've gone from strength to strength. Dragonette are Dan, Martina, Joel and Will. From Toronto, the band have been based in London for the last year or so while writing and recording their debut album of sleazy sounding electro-pop. Competition is their piece de resistance. A slinky song about "fucking your girlfriend", Martina blissfully sings "Goodness I......

We're drowning in paper: Up to 12 tons of newspapers a day are being abandoned by commuters on London Underground stations and trains, new figures show. The statistics were revealed by Ken Livingstone following a question raised by the London Assembly Conservatives at Mayor's question time in January. They have asked Transport for London to install more newspaper recycling points on the network to tackle the problem. Sure recycling is one way forward, but......

Remember how we went to see Robyn last year? Well this week she is back in the UK playing a proper full-on gig, rather than the acoustic sets she graced us with last time. Here's her new single to wet your appetite: Robyn plays Metro this Friday and Cargo on Thursday 29th March......

Valentine's Day isn't too far off... what to get her this year? Perfume? Flowers? Why not drench her in semen? Hari's, an upmarket beauty salon in Chelsea now offers a 45-minute "Aberdeen Organic Hair" treatment that can give your hair the ultimate shine by massaging into it a protein-rich mixture of semen from thoroughbred bulls and a plant root. Owner Hari Salem had apparently tried hundreds of products including wild avocados and truffle oil......

The soon-to-be-constructed 'Cheesegrater' building seems to have attracted a little murine attention. Could it be the same family of mice we previously encountered at Newham Hospital, and Asda? Could it...could it? Papa Mouse: [to his 8 starving children] My little mouslings, now that we have been driven out of both Newham General Hospital and the Lavender Hill branch of Asda and we are hungry and homeless, we must concentrate all our efforts on finding......

Between fake terrorist alerts and scandals big and small, this just might be the Best Best of the -ists ever. We're exhausted just thinking about it. First up, SFist, who saw their little 'ole site be the center of what was a nice little scandal (even getting their editor on TV) only to find their scandal dwarfed by the even bigger scandal caused by their Mayor boffing one of his aides' wife. We're not......

Texas is thawing, the Northeast is freezing, and a sort of natural order seems almost restored to the Ist-A-Verse. Almost. Londonist HQ—that is to say, the city of London—was battered by heavy winds, making it a bad time to be a twelve-meter (nearly forty-foot) tall snowman. Still, not everyone decided to keep warmly covered. Meanwhile, back indoors, the Big Brother racism is now causing all kinds of headaches for international diplomats, and Londonist got into......

Sunday. Usually, a quiet, contemplative day in the Blogosphere. But not here in the Ist-a-Verse. Nonono! Just look below and see all of the wild and crazy stuff our staffs are up to. In Austin, bands are beginning to confirm for SXSW and the rumor mill is up and running. Good thing, too, because we all know how much Austinites love live performances. Austin also found itself in the national spotlight, with Longhorn Legend......

Great Christmas story over on Yahoo: Harrods has sacked a Father Christmas for his offensive remarks, the world-famous London department store has said. The sinning Santa had his contract torn up after two complaints from customers visiting the Father Christmas World grotto at the store in west London's plush Knightsbridge district. He had asked one family of South Asian origin whether they should be shopping at a less prestigious supermarket instead, Metro newspaper reported......

It’s disheartening to arrive at a gig and find one of your favourite bands selling their own merchandise from the top of a beer-soaked table, chain-smoking to help them endure the electro-schlock being peddled by the support band. Recent warm-up slots with the Raconteurs and The Magic Numbers couldn’t help the Philadelphia 5 piece sell out the relatively tiny Metro club, confirming your worst fears about the music industry’s inability to work out what......