We may have jealously watched Glastonbury on TV, but that was forgotten tonight when we witnessed the last ever UK performance by The Police. Headlining Sunday's Hard Rock Calling, Sting, Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland took to the stage and rocked out on a high. Sticking to the setlist which they've played since reuniting last year, they delighted us in the blissful Sunday sun, opening with 'Message In A Bottle' & turning the 35,000......

If you've not headed off to a muddy field in Somerset but still want some live music this weekend, then fear not! There are plenty of muddy fields in London to enjoy instead. Twickenham is the place of action for Bon Jovi fans today and tomorrow, as the fists in the air band fill up the stadium for some almighty cheesy rocking out. We expect to hear Livin' On A Prayer well into West......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd March 1982: The Barbican Centre is opened by the Queen. After 15 years of construction, at a cost of £161 million, the centre would become the largest performing arts centre in Europe (as well as being voted the ugliest building in London). Tuesday – 4th March 1882: Britain’s first electric trams go into operation in Leytonstone, East London. Wednesday – 5th March 1856: The second Covent......

Despite Londoners being inveigled mere days ago to report any suspicious activity to the police, people in Marylebone are now being advised to, er, do the opposite. The reason? A Home Office-run project is to simulate a dirty bomb attack on the capital. The trials, part of a study called Dispersion of Air Pollution and Penetration into the Local Environment, or DAPPLE, will involve scientists releasing colourless, odourless gas from canisters on the street.......

It's not quite the same as having the local bobby back on the beat, but a scheme trialled in south London that addresses public unease with the remote, impersonal nature of modern policing is set to be rolled out across London. The £325 million Home Office plan will see each council ward assigned a team of police and community support officers, with residents given a mobile phone number and email address to contact their......

The Met Police have been hacked. Well, at least the external company that manages its site has been. Someone "emblazoned" their home page with fuzzy, stripey, red-lipped, unibrowed monster Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba, a kids' TV show. Called Officer Brobee on the site -- gotta stay in character, right? -- he said "Oh hai guys, do joo wanna bes a policeman lulz? I see that teh so15 anti-terrorism anti-lulz police are hiring more incompetent......

After recent revelatory reports that constant night time aircraft noise is actually rather annoying and not very good for you in the long term comes the news today that flight paths in and out of Heathrow, Luton and Stansted are to be reviewed. Sounds a bit alarming to Londonist – one of the proposals involves leaving the airplanes higher up for longer, and then bringing them down a bit sharpish. Er? Not on our next......

Where's Gil Grissom when you need him? Before London gets their own version of the hot shot crime scene investigator TV series, the police will have to do. They've got a real nut to crack with the murder of 94-year-old Thea Zaudy. CCTV footage of the suspected murderers, including Mrs Zaudy's cleaner, show them carrying a large empty suitcase from Notting Hill station and later lugging the same suitcase, now full, back to the......

It’s been another bruising week in the London mayoral election campaign. Eccentric Tory contender Boris Johnson may have had the best of it. On Tuesday Ken Livingstone announced that drivers of gas-guzzlers will be charged £25 to enter the Congestion Zone from October – assuming he’s re-elected. The Greens support the move, but the Lib Dems’ Brian Paddick – he’s the gay, “cannabis cop” from Brixton, you’ll recall – was critical, notably of the same......

38. London UFOs Part Four Newspapers across the world were being bombarded by UFO reports by the time the ‘50s had glided by. On July 15th 1963 a farmer from Charlton found a crater, measuring 2 ½ metres wide and the same deep on his land. Around the hole were four impressions, as if something had stood or landed there – soil and foliage surrounding the hole were scorched. Weird lights seen over the......

We hope you’re standing up for this: A KCL study finds that sitting on your arse all day contributes to the ageing process. Whereas regular exercise apparently makes you look like Elle MacPherson. In a wholly uncorroborated and unscientific study undertaken in the last 5 minutes, Londonist notes that the rockstar lifestyle isn’t so bad an antidote to ageing either. Our evidence: 56-year-old Sting and 62-year-old Eric Clapton, who will headline Hyde Park’s Hard......

Photo courtesy of The Sizemore McCabe Project from the Londonist Flickr pool We've just heard about a burglary at a house in Stanmore, north London and the extraordinary swag the thieves took away. Not only was a penny black stamp worth £10,000 among the high-value items in the safe that was ripped out of a wall, there was apparently £175 worth of George Best bank notes. Mixed with our sympathy for the unlucky owners for......

Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people. But bullets need guns to fire them and people to pull the triggers, so it's a bit of a joint effort all round. The technicalities of death aside, one thing we can probably all agree on, and speak up now if you don't, is that we don't need guns on the streets. Of any kind. We'd rather not even have them in the hands of the police......

We don't know whether crime is on the up or down but two new initiatives to engage London youth in the debate hit the news today. In Wood Green, kids suggested that a text 999 hotline to the police might encourage people to report crime on buses without drawing attention to themselves. Across town in Forest Gate, a genuine El Salvadoran gangsta attempted to deglamourise gang culture at a school assembly, giving the Met......

There's some bickering occurring in the London Assembly over just how much crime is occurring on London buses. While Tory transport committee chairman Roger Evans is saying that crime levels have risen on buses, Labour Assembly members John Biggs and Murad Qureshi are contesting this, accusing Evans of scaremongering and twisting the findings in the transport committee report to provoke fear and support prejudices. Biggs and Qureshi have produced a separate report that backs......

We love to be dazzled by youth. Be it Zadie Smith's precocious debut novel, the Arctic Monkeys storming straight to No.1 or Lewis Hamilton tearing up the track in his first F1 season, we are consistently enraptured and delighted by the ability of the young upstart to reach heights to which they have no right and to let rip with flair and skill that is unencumbered by the fear of failure that haunts the......

News that the Met are pushing to charge London football clubs for policing outside their grounds has given us much to ponder. We see the problem. Our football supporters can be an unruly lot, inclined to flock together in pubs beforehand and roam the streets chanting. Jostling and worse can ensue. It's wise to have a solid police presence to protect fans of both teams and the local residents trying to go about their......

There are plans afootie to make clubs pay for match policing…. …the funds reaped from which will no doubt be a help when the police do really silly things like stealing someone’s wheelchair. Either the BNP is going soft, or ballet is showing its harder side - an unlikely liaison is announced. There are doubts about a lot of Russian things at the mo – the latest being a will they/won’t they situation over......

Once long ago, Mama Londonist wasn't happy with little Londonist and wanted to give us an earful. However, Londonist had got married to this other blog with a trendy hat, a silly double-barrelled name and a penchant for perverting the course of justice. Soon, Londonist was being photographed with its nose full of white powder and its hair all over the place, not in it's usual 'beehive' style as was fashionable in those days.......

Some good news from Greenwich at last. Six months on from the dramatic inferno the Cutty Sark restoration is making progress. Thankfully her skeleton of iron girders withstood the fire so, aside from the small matter of increasing restoration costs by £15m, she's on track to reopen to the public in 2010. We were almost as gutted as she was when the news broke back in May so we'll be interested to hear the......

Amidst calls for their boss' resignation, it's reassuring to know that some London cops haven't lost sight of the big issues facing modern policing - namely, getting "ethnically diverse" mascots on our streets. "PCSO Steve", whose beat covers primary schools in and around Sutton, has spent the past couple of years attending community events and glad-handing celebrities and politicians. Now before you get all high-horsey about the money wasted on PCSOs, we should point......

Black fashion week at the V&A. Police to hold talks with gang leaders. Why don't any of the articles on this topic explain why the police don't just arrest the gang leaders? Speaking of arrest, Eubank's about to receive a call from the boys in blue. Eurostar ads cause offense. Meet Honorary Constable Tizer, a 13-year old feline in the employ of Lambeth North. Image courtesy of tezzer57 via the Londonist flickr group.......

More flak aimed at the police community support officer (PCSOs) as two community officers watched while a 55-year-old man was attacked by three teenage girls. The attack took place at Ravensbury Park near Morden. The pair of PCSOs allegedly hid behind a tree while passer-by Ann Ward, a 59-year-old great-grandmother, came to the man’s rescue. The officers, who radioed for help told Mrs Ward they were there to “report crimes and take notes". There's no......

Looks like HRH is having a bit of a Blair old time right now (either Blair will do). There's that pesky enquiry and now this latest plot to blackmail a minor member of the royal family over some man on man nightclub naughtiness, although thank goodness for the police who've now arrested two men. We* here at Londonist are deeply disappointed at the sad, sorry state of the proceedings. Firstly, it's a minor royal.......

Sometimes it's the little ones that grab ya. Man breaks into cemetery, steals ten grand's worth of grave digging kit, then wheelbarrows it out to his car. That's it. No more. No word on whether the police have found him yet and to be honest, we're highly unlikely to follow this one up unless there's a spate of grave robing in the Sunbury area. Still, you can now spend the weekend pondering what the......

It's a bad news day for the Met as the unfortunate Det Sgt Gurpal Virdi publicly advises potential ethnic minority recruits to London's police force to think twice about it. Det Sgt Virdi has undeniably had a torrid time. Accused of instigating a foul racist internal hate mail campaign he was exonerated by a tribunal in 2002 and won compensation for being a victim of racial discrimination as well as a personal apology from......

Don’t get all excited – this is not a steaming transport exposé. Britain’s favourite crook has surely dashed the hopes and aspirations of thousands of wannabe train robbers with his recent revelation that crime actually doesn’t pay, and that he thinks he should’ve done it differently. Somewhat-larger-than-life Ronnie Biggs has now had the largesse to admit that: “There is no honour to be known as a Great Train Robber….I apologise for glamorising what should only......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 8th October 1965: The Post Office Tower (now known as the BT Tower) in Fitzrovia becomes operational as a major hub for national microwave telecommunications. Today it is the only building in the UK that is legally allowed to be evacuated using its lifts. Tuesday – 9th October 1975: An IRA bomb explodes at a bus stop near Green Park tube station, killing one person and injuring......

We’ve got a right one here – the tale of the wannabe strangler who half choked his chosen victim, immediately felt sorry, and then called 999 to summons an ambulance for her. Young Toby Vane is now quite rightly up in court over his, er, aberration. He claims that he was quite simply pissed off with his (we imagine former) friend after she had verbally tormented him for years. Londonist is impressed. This is clearly......

21. The Beast Of Barnet For ten years the so-called Barnet ‘big cat’ caused confusion in the London suburbs – a few years before the ‘beast’ of Bexley reared its head, even though both were possibly the same animal, or at least part of the same puzzle. Strangely, in 2001 the press claimed that the elusive wild cat had been caught – after many years of frustrating police searches, fruitless tracking, and numerous sightings......