Right now, on the mean streets of Thornton Heath you might be disturbed to see students from Kensington Avenue School walking Ark-entry like, 2 by 2, in what we guess will be less than solemn procession as they'll be legitimately skiiving off lessons for a full 500m round trip. If there's cheering involved, that's because they're part of a national attempt, coordinated by the charity Brake to break the World Record for number of......

The DCMS finally launched a 2012 Legacy Action Plan today. State sponsored swimming is the central thrust, the headline catching whiz of an idea that's made the news. By 2012, it's planned that all local authority swimming baths will be free to use, starting soon with the over 60s, then the under 16s and rolling out to all comers by the time the Games begin. £140m is going to local authorities to scrap swimming......

Did you walk to work today? Members of the Londonist team managed it as did notable others: Londonista Hazel went in an efficient, no messing about straight line from East End to Farringdon, while, Londonista Dean took in a pastoral pre-work stroll along a north to south route. Did walking to work change their lives? What's it like on the streets at 8am? Will they want to do it again? Let's see... Londonista Hazel......

Is it just your imagination, or is Londonist going all literary on you for the second time today? No, it’s true: we’re just that geeky. But if the Bard’s birthday bash doesn’t have you all hot and bothered this week (speaketh it softly, or surrender thine literati creds), here are a few alternatives to keep you otherwise engaged. Tuesday: If you haven’t booked already, there are still a few seats left to hear Isabel......

Yesterday, Ken announced that London will have a city bike hire scheme, a la Vélib' in Paris, with up to 6,000 bikes located across docking stations every 300m. Hooray! This major investment in cycling - £500 million over a decade - will transform the way we get around the capital although it's unlikely we'll see the bikes on our streets until 2010. Better commuter cycle routes are also planned. The programme will improve pedestrian......

It was a delightfully dry and bright, crisp and chilly weekend in London... except for a sudden bit of flooding along Edgware Road on Sunday morning. Not from the heavens opening in a repeat of the 2007 deluges but from what has been reported as a mechanical digger failure at the crucial junction of Sussex Gardens and Edgware Road not far from Marble Arch. This is the junction where traffic from Paddington Station comes......

A couple of weeks ago our attention was drawn to the London FrontRunners, a running club that somewhat surprisingly had decided to stage their unique version of A Christmas Carol at the Drill Hall. Running and acting not being the most obvious of bedfellows, Londonist decided to find out who or what the FrontRunners really are. We met Graham Kennedy, one of the two Presidents, and Leila Brosnan, a long-standing member, just before they......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews continues, courtesy of James Bryan… This week Michael Caine and Jude Law give it some Pinter in Sleuth, Wes Anderson delivers his latest quirky offering in The Darjeeling Limited, Christian Bale eats maggots in Rescue Dawn and Blade Runner gets polished up in a new release. Sleuth should be a masterpiece, a quartet of talent coming together to intimidate us all into how it’s done. We’ve got national......

Months of research and workshops run by writer Justin Young and director Suzanne Gorman have created Moonwalking In Chinatown, an extraordinary walkabout performance which leads audiences through Chinatown in the dusk behind bobbing paper lanterns and a variety of actors and stewards. Four overlapping stories for four simultaneous groups, each led by a different coloured lantern, have to weave through the early evening Soho crowds. The range of characters and multiple storylines and also......

Heathrow lady sacked for wearing a tiny, almost invisible stud. Story more amusing if you exchange the words stud and lady. Playboy opening massive store in London. No jokes to be had here. iPhone for UK launched in London. Generates 1025 stories on Google News. Still not bigger than Jesus, currently charting 19,695 hits. Losers. The Shard skyscraper is stalling because of 'credit crunch'. You can almost hear the documentary makers searching their audio......

As if Open House wasn’t enough to get you exploring the capital tomorrow, TfL announce London Walking Weekend. They’ve arranged free walks in every borough and have a big tent at the Mayor’s Thames Festival to offer further advice. As usual with such things, they’ve conducted a questionnaire to make the job of the headline writer a little easier. We’re told that 1 in 6 Londoners think Embankment and Charing Cross stations are a......

Face it, with the RMT tube strike, you're not getting anywhere on the underground this week. Unless you're going from somewhere like Camden to Canary Wharf and all of your lines are fine. In which case we're all a bit annoyed with you anyway so it's best to keep quiet about that. So what are you going to do? Well, there are loads of other ways to get across London. Hundreds. We know that......

For most of you, it was pay day this weekend. Wahey! This also means if you're like us, you've spent all your cash in the pub and will now be eating beans on toast all week. Which after going to The Edinboro Castle and having spent so long at the bar you sobered up, doesn't really seem worth the effort any more, does it? But don't worry! All is going to be fine. Even......

Walking, iPods and London trivia are the holy trinity as far as Londonist is concerned. The three have now reached a state of conjoined perfection in Soundmap. Sites offering guided walks via media players are two a penny. We reviewed a whole troupe of them last year. Some are well written but lack production, others are polished but empty. Soundmap gets everything right. The three walks currently on the site cover Soho, Camden and......

Life's a gas, so says Marc Bolan as well as Joey Ramone. And jumpin' jack flash it may be true: Londonist itself is a gas, albeit an unstable, inert one. Recently we explored the sublime in previewing Lou Smith and Lorraine Liyanage's Gas Organ showing at the Sassoon Gallery in Peckham. With its unique exploration of sound through physics and fire, we couldn't resist paying it another visit, especially when it meant seeing gas-masked......

Hello Jeff! I've only written two proper columns abut the London comedy scene for Londonist, but already I'm getting offers of work from excited parties. For example, the guys at 'What Man?' magazine have asked me to cast a wry eye over the week's men, and I'm particularly excited by an offer from a notable tabloid, to write a column called 'Beef Review'. As the title suggests, it'll be me reviewing bits of beef......

Never ones for being the most talkative on stage, Muse played the first night of their two night stand at the new Wembley Stadium with few words to the audience. This was more than made up for however, by the enthusiastic set full of surprises. If you’re going to the Sunday Muse gig I’d strongly suggest not reading the rest of this review if you want to keep it all a surprise. Going back to......

Kirsty MacColl's final album was the rather wonderfully Cuban-influenced Tropical Brainstorm which included the 2000 hit 'In these Shoes'. Her career had always had its fair share of ups and downs, but a disproportionate amount of her seminal work (either her own songs or cover versions) seems to tap directly into our own feelings and memories at the time - Walking Down Madison, collaboration with the Pogues, A New England, Days. After the success......

"This was meant to be the epitaph for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Evidently it isn't." So said an overwhelmed Andy McCluskey, lead singer of OMD, as he introduced the song "Walking on the Milky Way" to a Hammersmith Apollo full-house that, from first note to last, roared the re-formed band on to a performance on Friday night that must have been one of the most electrifying they have ever given. Billed as a......

Today TFL launch their latest spurious health promotion/congestion tackling campaign “Why not walk it” urging London motorists to leave the car at home and take Shanks’ pony to their destination. Londonist sees straight through this ruse. We all know that motorists just won’t. It’s well established that people love their cars and, given the choice and adequate free parking, will drive them to the corner shop. Only the Portuguese walk less. FACT. So this......

Artist and curator Robert Gordon McHarg III founded the Subway Gallery last year and on 6th of June 2006, the gallery joined the rest of London's art scene. While some galleries like to say they are underground, this one is undeniably so. It's in a pedestrian subway, still open to the public, still used by many people trying to get from one side of Edgware Road to the other. It's, like, totally underground. The......

West Ham are on the search for a new manager after sacking Alan Pardew today. This week's bus strikes are now not happening. Zara Philips obviously doesn't mind the CC hitch as she's become the first royal directly in line to the throne, to take part in an advertising campaign. If you've got new neighbours, check them out. It could be Nicole Kidman in her swanky new London pad. And finally, real life reindeer......

“It is even said to be safer than running or walking as propelling with sticks and long strides ensure there are fewer chances of injuries or stress.” Hang on... "propelling with sticks and long strides" - that's walking with crutches, isn't it? But then again, on second glance... "propelling with sticks and long strides" could be stilt-walking, right? The opening description of a mythical injury and stress free form of transport is in fact......

We were going to save this one for Random Graffiti of the Week, but it's just too delicious to sit on. Walking around Shoreditch over the weekend, we kept spying these odd little stickers plastered with a regularity beaten only by those sodding onlyjoe labels. So what are they? Well, we soon found an explanation here: “What’s a Dog full of Money?” It is NOT a ‘Guide dogs for the Blind’ dog shaped collection......

We gave you the schedule for Friday and Saturday yesterday and you shouldn't be either bored or out of pocket by the end of it (just keep an eye on the time and keep going). If you're still thirsting for things to see and do, we've got a few more suggestions and a useful timetable to make sure you fit it all in... Saturday 27 May Though we mentioned lots of things to do......

This YouTube video is called Inbetweener and is described simply as " Walking up and down Oxford Street, London. In between as many couples as possible." If you enjoyed that you might also like Behinder (we don't have to explain that one do we?).......

Walking past the new Cardinal Place building on Victoria Street recently, Londonist was startled to hear the sickening sound of crunching glass coming from on high. But was it: (a) Simple construction accident? (b) Needlessly complicated smash and grab raid? (c) Claustrophobic office worker determined to open that unopenable window by any expedient? (d) None of the above. Answers in the comments section, if you please.......

It's still Lesbian,Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) History Month and there are events and exhibitions in the capital's museums, galleries, bars and clubs. But there is magnificent queer history embedded in the actual fabric of London: some streets of London are soaked in LGBT tales and issues (literally, in Soho) and for those who want to see the places that have been important to the LGBT community over time, there are several guided tours......

As Cherie Blair and whoever the hell is in the final of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here (Mon 9pm ITV1 - we don't have a clue, as we really couldn't give a broken biro who wins the bloody thing) would probably tell you, it isn't easy being famous. Once you've been in the public eye, slipping back into obscurity must be dreadfully depressing. What do you say to interviewers? "My experience......

Well, we had to, didn’t we? Seeing as how we mention zombies nearly every day, we could hardly let Halloween pass by without some kind of tribute. (And, yes, we know it’s more properly written as Hallowe’en, but apostrophes and search engines mix about as well as the ingredients to the woeful Halloween punch we attempted to brew in Londonist’s coffee machine.) We’re not the only ones on the All Hallows bandwagon, of course.......