Taking a cue from police investigators and reality TV shows looking to create a scandal, Harrow Council in northwest London has started to use voice risk analysis -- a type of phone-based lie detector -- to try and catch fraudsters claiming unneeded benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions. How does it work? "The technology detects changes in people's voice patterns such as hesitation or avoiding direct questions, and identifies them as a......

There are a lot of unsolved mysteries in London. Who was Jack the Ripper? Why can't they figure out a way to keep the tube cool in the summer? Why is London so depressingly expensive? Does anyone really like the 2012 Olympic logo? And the biggest mystery of them all: who threw a pair of trainers over a telephone wire in Gander Green Lane, Sutton? This Is Local London is on a mission to......

We all wear them. We all need them. We all shop furiously to buy the perfect ones for all imaginable occasions. And now it is even possible to accessorize them. We? Them? What? Well, of course, us women and them bras. Bras are usually regarded as things that remain hidden beneath clothing – especially when once-lovely white lace has turned into something grey – but no more! Bra accessorizing is here, thanks to 'Glamorous......

This Is Local London has an interview up with a former gang member about the use of knives in London. It makes for an informative if disturbing read: Knives are normal. They are just like having a mobile phone - everybody has got one... if you get robbed, a knife is handy. If you have got a knife you feel that you have a chance of saving yourself from being attacked. But when you......

A great almost-story from This Is Local London: A six-year-old narrowly escaped losing her toes last week when her shoe became trapped in an escalator in the Bentall Centre That coupled with the Girl’s foot trapped in escalator horror headline conjures up an image of Stephen King like carnage with the runaway metal monster chewing the girl's leg off at the knee. Erm... According to her mother, Sharon, Georgia has lost the tip of......

We missed this yesterday: DEAD football star Emlyn Hughes is using a former policewoman to contact Liverpool FC manager Rafa Benitez. See, now that's a football story. Three years ago the 45-year-old featured in News Shopper, sister newspaper of This Is Local London, when she revealed aliens called "Grays" were giving her orgasms. Miss Cohen is still in touch with the extraterrestrial Casanovas but says her present priority is to meet with Spaniard Mr......

Two hundred million miles from London, in the sand-blasted foothills of the solar system’s largest volcano, sits a rather interesting crater (as these things go). Interesting to scientists because it is relatively new; interesting to us because it has been named Tooting Crater. The tag was chosen by former Tooting resident Pete Mouginis-Mark, who works in the nascent field of Martian geology. No high-resolution pictures of the crater are currently available, but This Is......

Local councils are apparently not above hiring private detectives to keep tabs on the coming and goings of certain gentleman's clubs. It was revealed today that two London lapdancing venues were investigated last year by a council-hired PI after claims that sex was for sale along with the overpriced drinks and pole dancing: Arriving for a Friday night Gentleman's Evening in September last year, the investigator paid £10 membership and £15 to enter. He......

The 'noughties' were meant to be the caring decade but we're buggered if we noticed it at Londonist, especially with a whip-cracking editor having no sympathy for fingers bleeding through too much typing. It seems, however, that the softly softly approach is now de rigeur. First off, the coppers in Wandsworth have decided to send letters to people who don't turn up for court and bail appearances. This Is Local London's story quotes Inspector......

This Is Local London reports that the London Assembly is set to ask Londoners for their views on where responsibility for aspects of London life should lie. The report quotes a member of the Assembly, Darren Johnson, thus: We are in a ridiculous situation where we are supposed to have devolution but the budget and power of the Government Office for London is growing and growing and growing. It should be the directly elected London......