That's a good way of warning people from parking their bikes there, in Chelsea, by marcus_jb1973 Contribute your photos of words around town to this discussion in the Londonist Flickrpool.......

You'll forgive dear old Londonist for being a touch misty-eyed, but in our day a dog was a child's best friend, a source of companionship and a trusted pal through thick and thin. Times have changed though, and according to the RSPCA there's an increasing problem of pooches being used as status symbols and de-facto weapons, rather than the loveable pets who fetch slippers and chew the Sunday periodical. Last year saw a 42%......

The nation’s favourite supermarket (not) plays Scrooge with its staff. Police everywhere would like us to party carefully this season. Quite right too. The food police go to work on a hedgehog. The regular police get to play with tasers, even tho’ it is against their own better judgment. The immigration and detention centre at Colnbrook isn’t a very nice place. So why is it there? Finally, in slightly happier news, we are back......

Hackney Council's Parks Services has urged dog owners to stop their pets from 'strengthening their jaws' on park trees. Apparently, some dog owners are too cheap to buy their pets toys to munch on, and encourage them to chew on bark or—get this—hang from the branches of live trees in several of the borough's parks. This has caused severe damage to some 100 trees in the past few years. The Parks Services have been......

. We're all aware that identity theft is a real problem. We've all been told to shred our personal documents before throwing them out and to keep our PIN details private so that unscrupulous people don't steal our identities and run us into debt by buying holidays to Mauritius and taking out loans in our name. We generally don't worry about our pets though. They don't have credit ratings, so we figured that their......

It's been a busy week for London's fire fighters. They've been rescuing plastic owls, and now they're demolishing homes in order to rescue trapped cats. Oh, and they're probably putting out fires as well. A family in Chingford called fire fighters and the RSPCA in to rescue their cat, thirteen year old Patsy, who somehow managed to get trapped in a three inch gap in the walls. Patsy's owner, Jenny Coates, called in help......

First there was the Surrey puma, and then there was the Shooters Hill Cheetah. The millennium brought us the Beast of Bexley, and now almost every borough seems to have its own salivating, Baskerville-esque so-called “beast”. This week has seen the second sighting in as many weeks of the Beast of Ongar, described as being “about the size of a Labrador”, “like a Panther”, and definitely “not a little tabby cat”. However, as Londonist......

All across the Ist-A-Verse (or at least the American parts thereof), writers and editors are in the midst of enjoying their three-day weekend. But after the week we've all had, we feel like the break is not only needed, but deserved. Just look at everything we've been doing! Gothamist headed into the Memorial Day weekend with a number of tasks accomplished. They worried about Long Islanders giving New Yorkers a bad name. They tried......

LAist is experimenting with blogging dates from J-Date, but finds the best men are found offline. Some date vicariously online and that is one reason why porn is big -- really freaking big -- so they ask if they should cover XXX since the heart of it lays in the city's San Fernando Valley. A writer grapples with her food porn photography obsession, another gets censored on Flickr, one gets scooped by the LA......

We know people can love their pets a great deal and this morning, we have learned of how far a dog owner is willing to go to protect his puppy pal. About as far as the nearest police station, if you are Jose Mourinho. Mourinho, Chelsea Football manager, was arrested last night for obstructing police when two officials tried to remove his Yorkshire terrier dog from his home as it was suspected of entering......

We loved a lot of things about Children of Men (Michael Caine mostly), but also appreciated the little touches that were just futuristic enough to let us know that this wasn't the here and now. Yet it was certainly a London firmly grounded in today's culture and politics as seen through things like the LCD screened bus advertising and TV spots. Just glimpsed long enough these little snippets of media helped to create the......

A pet census (although we think they spoke to owners) shows that Londoners are the least likely to have a furry friend. Only 22% of us have pets! An interesting piece in The Guardian about Tube escalators. London's worst schools are getting better. The dusty tube line we mentioned earlier is now spick and span again. And London wi-fi is... hang on... damn thing... won't connect... London wi-fi... is... is... crap.......

With visions of sugar plum fairies dancing through their heads, the -Ists began to get into that holiday mood. Well, some did. Austinist wasn't as the NY Times dissed them and a local Tex-Mex institution sold out. Making them feel better was music, sweet music and the local theater getting name checked on "Heroes" Chicagoist tried to wrap their heads around a religious movie being banned from a Christmas themed park. To wash that......

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......

Have you always thought you were destined for greater things? Are your kids so thick and boring that you can't even live your life vicariously through them? Still want that shot at the big time? Well, have you ever thought of pushing your pets into the limelight? Right now Disney are on the hunt for the next big feathered thing in the shape of a pirate parrot (and the auditions are in Hammersmith, not......

Gordon Ramsay has 'accepted' £75,000 from the Evening Standard over false claims made in the paper that he and the makers of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares 'cynically faked scenes'. And just when you thought this story couldn't get any better, it turns out the offending member of the Standard staff was....Victor Lewis Smith. Hurray! We hope they make him pay the fine out of his overinflated paypacket. Apparently the double barreled arsewipe and sometime TV......

As regular readers of Londonist will know we're big fans of local newspapers and their coverage of the obscure and the exquisitely dull. But today we stumbled across this article from the Epsom Guardian which manages to encapsulate so beautifully every element of bad local journalism (and therefore everything that we love about it) that we initially thought it had to be a wind-up. Kevin Barnes' article is headlined One man and his dog:......

The choicest cuts from our sister sites around the globe. Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out......

Rock stars eh! Travel the world, shagging supermodels and Hollywood actresses, dressing up, going to interesting places, holding down the ultimate dream job AND getting paid for it. Life must be really tough. No worrying about Council Tax rises for you lot, you just stick another single out (although don't get your family to buy all the copies, that would be silly) or do another commerical. Life's grand if you're a rock star. But......

If Flickr is the smiling, feel-good face of the internet, then Grouphug is the seedy underbelly. People come here, not to post cute pictures of their pets, but to confess their sins – the self loathing, dirty desires and daily betrayals we keep from the world. The entries range from the banal: I have no control All things are falling apart Winter is coming To the funny: I have a crush on the rabbit......

- More news on the Tiffany raid. It was a 'smash and grab' attempt involving a four wheel drive vehicle. The moped hit a parked car and unmarked police car killing one passenger and critically injuring the other. - Families don't wan't to bring their kids into central London says MORI poll. Childless adults are secretly pleased. - There's a problem with the brakes on the Northern Line. Ironically this is causing everything to run......

For the foodies who like their meals without any animal influence, there's a real treat in store. It's the London Vegan Festival this Sunday (25th September) and Kensington Town Hall will be packed to the rafters with meat-free goodness. Celebrate veganism with like-minded people enjoying lots and lots of lovely food and drink, and also music, speakers, campaigning and rescue groups and the chance to meet the best ethical suppliers around. Apart from the......

In a tabloid-writer's wet dream (and several of this blogger's actual wet dreams), a troupe of agitated monkeys has been repulsed from Downing Street, tails between their legs. The faction of simian-suited protesters (alas, not genuine monkeys) demanded entrance to the cul-de-sac of power to hand over an animal-rights petition. The stunt was organised by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, to draw attention to what they see as unacceptable experimentation on......

First happy-slapping, now trigger-happy dognapping - the Evening Standard reports today that dogs are being stolen from their owners at gunpoint on the streets of London. Well, perhaps the plural is going a bit far - there's only been one incident: The warning comes after a puppy worth £250 was stolen by a man brandishing a handgun. [...] Dewayne Carrington, 23, a Metropolitan Police administrator, and his girlfriend were forced to hand over Bailey,......

'It's National Vegetarian Week' we said. 'Eat a banana' we said. Do you listen? Do you bugger. And what do you do instead? You go and eat squirrels... Well not all of you... but someone's been nibbling at Tufty and his pals at Sir Terence Conran's Butlers Wharf Chop House (STCBWCH for the hipsters). We thought that grey squirrels were considered vermin now along with the pigeons. Are we reduced to eating vermin now?......

Has the Beast of Sydenham struck again? Yes, according to a slightly breathless local newspaper - this time in Eltham. Laura Downes, 47, of Westmount Road, Eltham, discovered a dead fox in her back garden and thought there was nothing sinister involved. But when she looked out an hour later nothing was left except clumps of fur, scattered around the garden. The following day, the body of another dead fox appeared in her back......

The supermarkets might go mad for pumpkins rather than fireworks; the TV programmes might be flooded with American imports mentioning Halloween rather than bonfire night; but in this dark quarter of South-East London, where electricity is still viewed with suspicion, if not seen as outright sorcery, November 5th weekend is still a time for celebrating the torture and execution of an early member of the Al-Qaeda school of political change. Even the gang of......

It's bonfire night tomorrow: time to scare the pets, burn the traitor, eat sugar coated fruit on a stick and partake in some organised arson. Yay! Below we present our rough guide to bonfire nights across the capital: Clapham Common: One of the biggest, with 40,000 expected to turn up. The fireworks display is expensive and there'll be lots of ooohs and aaahs. Plenty of pubs in the vicinity so booze is easily available. Roundwood......