It was one of Boris Johnson's election pledges to bring in mobile weapons scanners and knife detector arches and today saw them appearing at tube stations and on London's streets as a very public and visual response to the knife crime murders of the past week. As one astute Londonist reader has pointed out, where was the swift resort to "in your face" policing after the unfortunate teenage girl was allegedly covered in lye......

Not only can blogging wage war on your health, but public figures are getting in trouble for their online opinions. The BNP’s Nick Eriksen learnt this the hard way last week, after he was sacked as the party's London Assembly candidate for publishing jaw-droppingly obtuse views on rape on his blog. The post has since been removed, but luckily journalists were quick to spot the following: "Rape is simply sex (I am talking about......

The stats continue to astound: 1 in 6 women has been raped 2 women are murdered each week by a partner or ex-partner 98 percent of domestic violence goes unreported 50 percent of women seeking asylum in Britain are fleeing rape U.S. researchers estimate that only one third of women report rape by a stranger; that number declines to 13 percent when the rape is by an acquaintance. Perverse though the logic may be,......

There have been many suggestions for women's safety at night: travel in groups, don't get minicabs, always walk facing traffic, carry a rape alarm, make sure you're home before it gets dark and stay indoors until daylight. All really helpful - for putting sexual equality back to the dark ages (so to speak). Women should be able to be out and about at night without fear of being attacked, raped or sexually harrassed which......

Crickey, what does it say for us mere unarmed mortals when top cop Inspector Glen Smyth is too scared to travel solo on trains late at night? Admittedly, Smyth's fear has been provoked: a failed attempt to arrest a drunk, unruly train passenger in Feltham on the night of the England V. Germany football match at Wembley left Smyth all bloody-nosed. A spokesman for the British Transport Police says: He has a right to feel......

A new exhibition opens this week in Trafalgar Square. For one week only the Journey installation will be wowing visitors to the square. But there’s good wow and bad wow, and this is definitely in the latter category. For the exhibition is portraying the misery and reality that is modern sex trafficking. The expo unfolds through a series of seven containers designed by some big artistic names including Anish Kapoor, each one representing different stages......

We all know that in case of an emergency, you dial 999 and emergency services will come rushing to your aid. Apparently though, there seems to be some confusion on what exactly constitutes an "emergency". Examples of things you should not call 999 for include: An argument over the rightful owner of a DVD Needing assistance in turning on your water supply A spider in your living room A mobile phone not working properly......

The second of our interviews with the Tory candidates for London Mayor. Previously, Andrew Boff. Victoria Borwick is a born and bred London lass whose Mayoral campaign carries the tagline 'A red head not Red Ken'. She has 25 years of management experience and is currently a councillor for Kensington and Chelsea. She has four children, doesn't like tinny techno and knows a thing or two about Cleopatra's Needle. But does she have the......

Report: public 'misled' over Menezes shooting. Murder, murder, murder, rape and murder. BBC London sure is a depressing place today. And their Crossrail story isn't too optimistic either. Robbers use digger to raid cash machine. They fail. Our old friend Andrew Hudson-Smith has built some neat representations of London in Second Life. See image above. Image taken from the the Digital Urban blog.......

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with......

This week - The East German Stasi listen in on a writer's life (The Lives Of Others) and Disney rape our minds (Wild Hogs). First up, The Lives Of Others, a film written and directed by a man called Florian Maria Georg Christian Graf Henckel von Donnersmarck. It won the Oscar for best foreign language film this year for that name alone. It beat Pan's Labyrinth to the prize, a film that we thought......

The deep forests of Finland: home to elk, trolls and many, many groups of friends who play metal together (metal bands account for 57% of Finland's GDP, true fact). It's a far cry from the rather less grim and frostbitten setting of Brixton, but the two came together on Friday when Finnish Viking folk metal band Ensiferum played at the Fridge. For the uninitiated, Viking folk metal does exactly what it says on the......

That was the headline that greeted readers of Tom Duncan's column in the Newham Recorder last week. His comparison of watching a football team under perform to watching a loved one gang raped is undoubtedly the crassest and most offensive local news headline we've ever seen. The story was picked up on a Leyton Orient FC message board where fans showed their disgust at the article and rallied a bevy of complaints to the......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

A guy attempts to drug his dinner date and is caught: in June last year when the head waiter saw Spall putting a pill in the red wine of his companion while she was in the toilet. Officers searched his pockets and found a blister pack of Xanax, similar to the so-called date-rape drug Rohypnol. Only one tablet was left. The judge quite rightly finds him guilty of administering a substance with intent to......

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of attempted rape after attacking a woman involved in a car accident: She was driving in Enfield, north London, on Wednesday night, when she collided with a traffic island. Two men offered to help but took her to Theobolds Park Road where officers say she was indecently assaulted. Police were called by members of the public who saw the semi-naked woman... A 19 year old has been......

Although it's almost ten years old Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue still stands up as a classic piece of adult anime (and by adult we mean it's a sophisticated piece of cinema in case you were thinking 'tentacle rape') and it's great that the Barbican are renewing some interest in it as part of their japanimation season which kicks off Tuesday: Mimi’s decision to leave pop group “CHAM!” to become an actress is taken badly......

While we don't seem to be able to turn on the television these days without seeing Kate Thornton or Vernon Kay peering on down at us, we never thought the day would come when a member of Blur who isn't Damon Albarn would be over-exposing himself to crazy heights. Alex James has always been our favourite member of Blur. He's got cool hair, and well, he's just quite hot isn't he. But we're not......

We have to hand it to the police - they know how to protect our Christmas shopping: Bells will be handed out to Christmas shoppers to attach to their bags to combat thieves and pick pockets. Don't snigger. These are obviously B.E.L.L.S (Bobby Emergency Lightly Lethal Security) systems. The would be thief tries to make off with your bag only for it to transform into a 25ft MECH that shoots first and asks questions......

We first saw the retina scorching video for David Hasselhoff's 'Jump in My Car' a while ago and just assumed it was made in 1986. Not only is this thing new, but the Hoff is treating London to an in-store appearance: 'Baywatch' and 'Knight Rider' actor David Hasselhoff is to celebrate the release of his new single 'Jump In My Car' by meeting his fans in London. The star will greet his fans in HMV's......

You know when you hear a new band and you immediately love their songs. You wait and wait and finally you see them live and it's all ruined. Live they were absolutely rubbish. Well screw all that, because we finally saw Dead Disco live on Saturday night in Blackpool and they blew us away. Tight, professional and with one of the most impressive front people we've ever seen, we stomped around the dancefloor like......

Where would we be without the Royal Court Theatre? Snuggled next to Sloane Square tube station and beaming benevolently on the Chelsea shoppers thronging London's fashionable King's Road, this playhouse for new writing and new drama was where the angry young man was born, where post-war British theatre took shape and eventually abolished the Lord Chamberlain's censorship of the stage, where the new wave, new shock of British dramatists and writers exploded into national......

Met chief Sir Ian Blair secretly recorded a confidential conversation with Attorney General Peter Goldsmith during the investigation into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. Ironically the call was about the admissibility of telephone wire tap evidence in court. Met officers have contacted lawyers acting for the Jean Charles de Menezes' family to ask for permission to examine DNA samples taken after his death in connection with a rape case. Thames Water is......

We doubt that anyone is too surprised that Tony Blair needs a large crutch to support his bizarre decision making process, and fewer still were shocked that he decided to babble on about it now rather than say at the beginning of his leadership when it would have been political suicide. When you're approaching the last days in any job it's the perfect time to steal office supplies and start telling people what's really......

Two members of the gang who raided Ernest Jones in Richmond, and took £120,000 worth of Rolex watches, were on day release from prison. The London cab driver accused of rape by 'the sister of a British film star' has been cleared. Wendy, the Virgin Atlantic stewardess who repeatedly screamed "We're going to crash! We're going to crash!" after the London to Las Vegas flight she was working on hit 'severe turbulance' is today being......

Well, TV Troll was 50% right, which is better than nowt, as salt-o'-t'earth Strictly Come Dancing winner Darren might say. We're still kicking ourselves for not having put money on Shayne to win as we predicted aaaages ago; we could have bought new cushions for the dungeon or something with the winnings. Congrats to the winners and the runners-up; both finals were superb, although it was a pain in the arse having to swap......

Fringe venues are pint-sized at the best of times and the small but perfectly formed Bush Theatre (sandwiched in between a raucous O’Neil’s pub on one side and the giant Shepherds Bush Empire on another) is no exception. Still, it’s hard to imagine a more apt space for the up-close-and-personal nature of its latest play, Jack Thorne’s When You Cure Me, the last of the Bush’s Tainted Love season of new writing. In this......

Bob Kiley is to step down as London Transport Chief in January 2006. Epolitix.com has all the goss'. Angela Merkel arrived in London yesterday to play 'middle woman' between us and France over the EU budget. Cristiano Ronaldo will not face charges over the alleged rape in the Sanderson hotel in October. Patrick Stewart just can't stay out the news. Now he's gone and lost the only script for A Christmas Carol, due to......

Garry Glitter used to be more famous for his BBC props department inspired wardrobe and that one song that Bill Drummond nicked the best bit from when he was going through his Timelord phase. Now of course Glitter goes hand in hand with kiddy porn, paeodophilia and NAMBLA: Glitter was sentenced to four months in jail in Britain, but served only two, after admitting downloading more than 4,000 images of children, some as young......

After a tearful Popstarz on Friday, Londonist had a very operatic weekend, with the premiere of Anthony Minghella's new staging of Madame Butterfly at the English National Opera on Saturday, and Opera Rara's one-off unstaged performance of Donizetti's Il diluvio universale on Saturday. This is not the place for a detailed review of the Opera Rara event, since it's too late to tell you to go to it, and if even if we could.........