This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th June 1894: Tower Bridge is opened by the Prince of Wales. It would become an iconic symbol of London, and arguably the most well-recognised ‘bascule bridge’ in the world (even if tourists do sometime mistake it for London Bridge). Tuesday – 1st July 1858: Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection is presented at the Linnean Society at Burlington House, Piccadilly. Wednesday – 2nd July 1865: One-time......

So this week, we spent all our money on cold remedies and extra balmy tissues for our beleaguered noses. The plan is to be back and fighting fit by Monday so here are some of the things we could all get up to this week for very little wonga. Monday: Call the BBC Ticket Line on 0870 901 1227 and get free tickets for the recording of Clare in the Community - the radio......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 2nd July 1865: One-time Methodist minister William Booth preaches to a large crowd at an open-air ‘mission’ in Whitechapel, founding the ‘East London Christian Mission’, which would later be renamed ‘The Salvation Army’. Tuesday – 3rd July 1981: A punk concert at the Hamborough Tavern in Southall, West London, leads to fighting between skinheads and Asian youths. The riot is just one of many violent ‘uprisings’ to......

This week, a trip down Whitechapel Road, courtesy of reader Konstantin Binder. His images show the Pavilion theatre and music hall around 100 years ago and - in the modern image - the gaping maw where once it stood. The Pavilion stood at 193 Whitechapel Road from 1894, replacing two previous Pavilions on the same site that both succumbed to fire. Its heyday was in the early 20th Century, when it was so popular......

The BlogAndMagosphere is currently replete with shoddily written articles about Christmas shopping. That these articles quote ‘starting budgets of £10 per gift’, makes us burn with festive brandy rage. At this time of year, most Londoners are either a Scrooge or a Bob Cratchit: that is, tight as a nat’s chuff or stone cold broke. And London is very expensive. How can we skimp a bit and still complete our gift buying at just £2......

Safeway supermarket at Crystal Palace has given 1,400 cans of soup to the nearby Westow Street branch of the Salvation Army, the biggest donation that the local “Sally” has received since the European Union dumped part of its cheese mountain on it in 1989. Clearly the advantage of canned soup over cheese is that it has a longer shelf life, although a potential disadvantage is that not many of the wandering homeless are likely to......