This Week In London’s History Monday – 26th November 1983: An armed robbery at the Brinks Mat warehouse near Heathrow Airport becomes the largest heist in British history, as £25 million worth of gold bullion is pinched. Tuesday – 27th November 2000: 10-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor is stabbed in the leg and dies in Peckham, south London. The following six years would see several trials and re-trials over the killing, finally culminating in the......

It's definitely time to start scrimping on things so you've plenty of dosh for those Christmas outings and present buying blitzes. London on the Cheap returns after a hiatus (we were temporarily flush, we made the most of it...) to help you get the most of the city on the scrag ends in your pocket. Monday: Get in the right frame of mind for Christmas shopping. Fortnum and Mason has just emerged from its......

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......

Fans of pomp and circumstance will line the streets of the City tomorrow to watch one of London’s fine old traditions unfold. Each year, the City of London gets a new Lord Mayor (most certainly not to be confused with the more well-known mayor who inhabits the glass testicle near Tower Bridge). Indeed, the office of Lord Mayor is so tied up in the ceremonial that the official web site doesn’t even bother to......

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......

We said it would be unpredictable. We weren't wrong. We also hinted at nudity and, oh yes, we got the full frontal and more. However, the opening night of the "Touch Wood" new and work in progress season at The Place was strangely lacking in buzz. Unfortunate surprise number one was that Probe, who we'd been hotly anticipating, were all a bit poorly and had to pull out. So, actual programming by the seat......

Monday night sees mad Australians Architecture in Helsinki come to the capital to play Koko after a stop off at Bestival this weekend. Tickets are £12.50 each and still available for box office collection. Faithless play the first of two nights in the capital at Shepherds Bush before moving on to Brixton on Tuesday night, which is mostly sold out though there are some balcony seats left. KT Tunstall plays an instore at HMV on......

The Treatment Rooms is a privately owned three-story house in the West London suburb of Chiswick, which over the past several years has had its exterior walls transformed into an ongoing self-contained conceptual piece of mosaic art. The vibrant and well executed mosaics, which cover the front wall of the house and the back garden wall are well worth paying a visit to see. Recently, Londonist took an opportunity to visit the Treatment Rooms......

Shoreditch Park is a relatively unimpressive green space tucked away behind the Regent’s Canal in Hoxton. There’s not a great deal there, bar a mini-BMX track and some grass, but this weekend, it won’t know what’s hit it, when the Shoreditch Festival commandeers it. The theme of the festival is transforming local spaces and the park promises to be a riot of family tropicana, congo and mangoes on Saturday with a grand parade leaving......

Given that a member of Transport for London's Special Projects Team had assured us in his interview only a couple of weeks ago that the celebrated Tour De France publicity caravan would be commencing its parade around the Prologue circuit at 1:30 pm last Saturday we were more than a little startled when, as we sauntered gently along Constitution Hill at about ten past one, the first klaxons blared, heralding the arrival of a......

What with Paris Hilton's release earlier this week and the upcoming celebration of American Independence (sorry, Londonist!), we've been thinking a lot about freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose, and most importantly, freedom to blog. Here are a few things we're happy we've been free to blog about this week. Being the nation's capital, DCist felt especially proud to let freedom ring this week by exposing the really important issues, like how sad they......

With gay pride hitting London this weekend for its annual raunchfest of protesting, parading and partying, we thought it the right time to approach Megan Jones, promoter of Vauxhall house music mega-club FiRE, to find out what they will be getting up to. What are your plans for Pride? We've got loads on for Pride this year. Firstly we'll be participating in the parade on Oxford Street, and afterwards we'll be hosting the sound......

Europe's biggest gay and lesbian festival, Pride London, is back this Saturday. Expect a hefty downpour, if the current forecast is accurate. There's heaps on this year, though, if you make it out to support your brothers and sisters. It all kicks off when the ever-eclectic Parade heads through the centre of town from 1pm, along a route taking in the West End's Oxford and Regent Streets before heading over to Tafalgar Square and......

From the tallest skyscraper in the City of Brotherly Love to Canadian tourism copywriting brilliance, here's what you should know from our -ist cities: This week, Phillyist took a gleeful listen to the White Stripes' exciting new release, watched in awe as their new tallest skyscraper was finally completed, found a cheaper way to get to Gothamist, invented a tasty new dessert, and brought back their Craigslist Round-Up feature with a bang. Bostonist watches......

Happy Father's Day! For those of you who have dads, are dads, or know dads, this one's for you, from all of us at the Gothamist network. It was a week of bizarre, embarassing headlines at DCist. The trial of the local administrative law judge who sued his cleaners for $54 million over a pair of missing pants left everyone shaking their heads. Then the capital city was nearly brought to its knees, twice, by......

If you could release a spoken word album of cabbie stories you would have to advertise it in a K-Tel Hit Parade LP style. It would sound something like this: New from K-Tel, it’s the 100 best Cabbie stories coming to all good record stores! Who could forget such classics as; “You’ll never guess who I had in the back of my cab the other day…” Or the mercurial: “The trouble with Blair is......

Although largely un-reported by the mainstream press, Arsenal Ladies Football Club have this week have put the cherry on top of a feat which is a minor miracle in football terms. This accomplishment has never been bettered or equalled by their English counterparts, male or female, and unlikely to occur again. By securing the Premier League title, The UEFA Cup, the League Cup and the FA Cup they have powered their way to an......

It's Chinese New Year this weekend and we will be saying goodbye to the Year of the Dog and welcoming the Year of the Pig. Pigs are considered lucky animals because all they seem to do is sleep, eat, hang around for a bit then eat some more and then take a nap. They lead carefree, calm and fattening lives, and we could all do with a bit of porcine serenity in our lives.......

Ah, the lowly bagel. Never has bread been so misinterpreted. Bagels should not smack of baguettes or donuts, nor should they be the size of an infant’s cranium. True bagels are boiled first and then baked, generating a crispy shell and a dense and chewy centre. They should fit neatly in the palm of your hand. Can the real thing be found in the Big Smoke? Here are our top recs: For the purist… Brick......

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......

If you're hiking, consider charging up your iPod, as Seattlest finds out that a man lost during a hike was found by the glow of his iPod. That cleverness seems to be devoid in cops who were using police cruiser instant messaging clients - although we imagine IMs "so are you nakie" to be included in cop shows, just for realism. If only the cops were busting the Hummer-driving jerk who made a poor......

Remember when the Tate Modern first opened and one of the rooms contained a gigantic heap of metal that was constantly dragging itself across the floor only to be pulled back by great clunking chains? We loved that. And now we love the idea of a flying steamroller: The Flying Steamroller, 1996, is a huge sculpture which consists of a twelve ton steamroller that is attached to a pivoting arm with a counterbalance weight.......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

Following the success of Masters of Horror in which acclaimed horror movie directors were given a slice of TV to play with and the 'hey it wasn't so bad, but lacked any Soul' remake of Salem's Lot Americans have been treated to a new series with the rather long title of Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. It sports a decent enough cast (William H Macy leads one episode) and films......

The thing with tradition is that it has to start somewhere. The problem with rattling on about old and established routines to the point of preservation means that there's less room for modernisation and the chance to start a new tradition from scratch. Take for example the Guards regiment's bear skin head gear. Many feel that in this day and age wandering around with a great big lump of dead animal on your head......

We had a schedule for last weekend, a full to bursting at the seams schedule that would guarantee a very fulfilling Culture Crawl for whoever dared to undertake it. Londonist attempted to Do It All - and these pictures are evidence that it is possible to take in some architecture, some performance art, some live music, a photography exhibition, hte cafe of a major national museum and a Korean opera all in one day and......

A new survey has shown that half of the businesses operating in London do not have a plan in place to deal with a terror attack or other emergencies. The US Embassy is now claiming diplomatic immunity over it's $500,000 worth of unpaid congestion charge fees. London will host this year's EuroPride, Europe's largest gay and lesbian cultural festival, over two weeks in June culminating in a 500,000-strong parade. Plans to turn the Oyster......

This day in London’s history 1984: WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot and killed in St James's Square during a protest outside the Libyan Embassy. She was the first policewoman to be murdered on duty in Britain. The event inspired car insurance salesman Michael Winner to etsablish the Police Memorial Trust and a memorial to WPC Fletcher was commissioned for the square. In 2005, the National Police Memorial was unveiled by the Queen, it stands......

Good sense finally overcame irrational fear yesterday as parents of the Fort Myers High School pupils voted to let their children risk their lives right here in Lononistan: American pupils are to be allowed to take part in London's 2007 New Year parade after a ban over safety fears was overturned. Florida officials stopped Fort Myers High School pupils taking part over fears of "trains blowing up" in the wake of the 7 July......

Remember the American kids who were warned not to come to London in case it exploded? Sure you do. Well they find out tomorrow if the trip is still on: Fort Myers High band parents will vote Thursday on whether to send their children to London for its New Year's Day parade, a ballot that could result in a cease-fire in a war of words grabbing international attention. Lee County School Board members Tuesday......