London, a melting pot of immigrant cultures and strange beasts. Amongst other things of course. But none of this is anything new. Way back in October 1958 a bear arrived on a lifeboat from Darkest Peru with a suitcase full of marmalade sandwiches. Luckily he was discovered on the concourse of Paddington station by the remarkable Brown family (possibly related to our glorious leader, we're not sure) and went to live with them at 32 Windsor Gardens in the now rather prestigious environs of Notting Hill where he took tea with Mr Gruber and annoyed the hell out of the irritable Mr Curry.

Since then Michael Bond's Paddington Books have gone on to sell over 30 million copies worldwide and the wonderful Michael Hordern narrated tv series became the first British animated show to win a a silver medal at the New York Film and Television Festival, in 1979. More recently Paddington has been accused of turning to the dark side as he re-emerged to helm a series of Marmite ads but any fool will tell you that Marmite and marmalade together make a tasty double treat.

Now it's been announced that Warner Bros. are to make a live action Paddington Bear movie, written by Hamish McColl (he of Mr Bean's Holiday, er, fame). The film will feature a (dear God) CGI lead and we are told, won't follow any of the books but instead will create an entirely new adventure for our favourite Peruvian import. We can imagine that in an updated version, Paddington will find himself arriving in London in a container load of Peruvian bears having starved for the entire dank and dangerous journey. He is forced to sleep in a public toilet with the others whilst working for an unscrupulous London businessman with mob connections for next to no wages. The Brown's find him after Paddington has been forced to prostitute himself to raise money for his family back home and Mr Brown takes pity on him after picking him up on Clapham Common. Comic capers ensue as Paddington teaches everyone how to love and be loved until the businessman comes to get him back at which point the grumpy Mr Curry redeems his loathsome existence saving the bear's life by taking a bullet in a violent shoot out at the end.

All we need now is a few suggestions as to who should play who. Comments please...

Image from Tim in Sydney's flickr photostream

The London Development Agency is to train 200 or so of our boys (and gels) in blue (and red and black and yellow) to be nice to tourists, with a view to improving the ratings in 2012. This follows a number of reports over the last year implying that Londoners in general are simply not ready to be nice to lots of foreign sports fans, and that we really don?t have the urban people skills to deal with a major tourist influx.

Now Community Wardens are for the most part a pretty good thing. There are fewer nastinesses on the streets since they came into being, our town centres are cleaner, and we are sure that they are doing lots of jobs (involving little old ladies and lost doggies) that were previously wasting police time. But they do seem to be a pretty militant bunch, unwilling to do tasks that are even a tad outside their job description. And they are certainly neither jolly enough nor vested with sufficient local knowledge.

It is admittedly easy to use them as human polyfilla, doing all the jobs that fall outside the remit of other civic bods ? but Londonist believes that getting them to act as tourist guides and fluffing visitors a bit more should have been part of the package from day one.

Actually, Londonist thinks that London is rather a nice bunch of people on the whole. It is easy to diss the city ? it is part of the pre-Olympics panic that is giving journalists such a good run at the moment. We might get a little cross with the map waving tourists standing in the middle of the pavement, and we might regard some of the travelling stereotypes as objects of fun, but when push comes to shove, I reckon we will all be ready to shoulder ambassador status.

Image courtesy of jez?s flickr photo stream.

Gorillas have been getting a rather good press of late in London. The Gorilla Kingdom at London Zoo, which opened in March, has seen huge numbers of visitors trudging up Regent's Park way to gawp at resident lowland gorillas Bobby, Zaire and Effie swing about their new home.

Meanwhile, a television ad featuring a sullen simian being sparked into life by the crashing drum break of Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight' has become one of the most-watched video clips of the year.

Yet outside of man-made enclosures and television studios, the fate of the gorilla is much less secure. Last week the Red List of Threatened Species claimed that gorillas are sliding towards extinction, owing to habitat loss, hunting, and climate change. A sad report in July about the discovery of a family of mountain gorillas killed by hunters in the Democratic Republic of Congo was a reminder of how endangered these animals are.

Well, this weekend comes your chance to do something about it. The Great Gorilla Run takes place on Saturday, and the narrow alleyways of the City will be teeming with people in ape suits bounding through the 7k route to raise money for conservation efforts in Africa. The run starts at 10.30am sharp at the London Underwriting Centre off Mincing Lane, and takes in a scenic tour through some of the capital's more picturesque sites. Londonist recommends taking up a vantage point near Tower Bridge to watch the hordes of simian-suited runners sweat their way through the famous arches.

If you want to run yourself, there's still time to register ? you need to pony up a £100 non-refundable registration fee, and raise a minimum £400 in sponsorship, which will require Bob Geldof-like levels of persuasion at this late stage. It should be noted that you do get to keep the gorilla suit afterwards, which is perfect for Hallowe'en parties or job interviews at Chessington World of Adventures.

More details can be found on the Gorilla Foundation website.

Image from Puddlepuff's Flickr stream.

By Dean Nicholas

It's launching webcasts and podcasts to be more accessible to the teched-up community and encourage local residents to get involved in local democracy.

So, has it recorded a punchy, motivational and trendy radio show with a slurry call to arms from Camden favourite, Amy Winehouse? Have they pulled some gorgeously louche indie boys out of the Good Mixer to give advice on recycling for your downloading delight?

Er, no. They've recorded all the Council meetings and put them online.

Yes! You could be on the 29 bus into town tomorrow morning listening to the proceedings of the Development Control Committee from September 6th. Or sitting at work with your sandwiches watching Cllr Marshall slag off Cllr Stewart for "ludicrous" remarks 53 minutes into the Full Council meeting of 10th September.

The webcasts are, in fact, incredibly good quality and include index points in the Real Player box telling you who is speaking on what agenda point and there's an option to download any presentations from the meeting. You can almost pretend you were actually there...

Which brings us to the major drawback of this surprisingly efficient, smart and helpful service. The content is really superbly dull. The webcasts have been available since 2003 and, in total, only about 22,500 people have used the service. That's roughly 5,500 or so concerned citizens a year (and we think most of those were Councillors' family and friends getting having a giggle at their loved ones' performances in the chamber). Considering it might cost £30K to run the podcasts alone over 2 years you'd think they might want to spice up their broadcasts to make it a bit more worth watching. Have meetings in fancy dress for example, or instigate dance-offs on crucial issues rather than boring old voting.

Still, we applaud Camden Council for its aspirational transparency and look forward to following the activities of the Licensing Committe, live and uncut, on October 8th.

Be wowed by the Camden Council microsite for webcasts and podcasts here.

Image courtesy of kodachrome65's Flickrstream.

Londonist doesn't care about London Fashion Week. Not really. But we're a blog about London and it's pretty big so we thought we'd write something about it.

Here's some of the things that might happen over the next week:

• Mobile phone shops will see a rise in profits as Supermodels break them in fits of rage.
• The lettuce leaf and grape diet will be born.

• People we don't know and whose name we can't pronounce will get pissed on champagne and fall over. London Lite and The London Paper will print this instead of news.

• People we don't know and whose name we can't pronounce will show us stupid things we can't wear because you'd get arrested walking down the street.

• People we don't know and whose name we can't pronounce will tell us that 'they're normal really' and 'they eat all the time'.

Here's some stuff that probably won't happen:

• Someone will say 'it's just a dress'.

• People we won't know and whose name we can't pronounce will wear normal clothes. Jeans, sweaters now it's a bit chilly. That kinda thing.

• There will a surge in fast food as the stick thin beautiful people get a bit peckish.

So as you can see, London Fashion Week is going to pass us by. This is likely to be the last thing you hear on the subject from us. Unless one of those unexpected things actually does happen. Then we'd be quite chuffed.

Flickr photo from Firepile's photostream.

The sixth in our series of interviews with potential candidates for next year's Mayoral election. Previously: Victoria Borwick (Tory), Andrew Boff (Tory) and Warwick Lightfoot (Tory), Sian Berry (Green), Fiyaz Mughal (Lib Dem).

Chris Prior is an independent mayoral candidate standing on a very firm 'Stop Congestion Charging' ticket. We asked him why, and, as with all the other candidates, we also enquired whether he'd ever been sick on the Tube. Chris is the first so far to offer a policy to combat this scourge of the underground. Read on...

Where do you live in London and what do you like best about it?
We live in Battersea. The open spaces and parks.

Why do you think you should be Mayor and what policies would you bring to the office that would make you stand out against anyone else who wants to be?
I will abolish the congestion charge on day one and embark on a transformation of public transport.

The congestion charge is an unfair tax - it is wrong that a nurse has to pay the same as a millionaire; it costs nearly 65p in every £1 to collect and it simply does not work. I believe that congestion and pollution are London-wide problems that require London-wide solutions. Democracy matters, Londoners must be given the opportunity to decide whether they wish to keep this example of bad government.

With the political will, I see no reason why London should not have a public transport system as good and hopefully better than any other major city. London gets a raw deal as far as public investment is concerned with billions of pounds diverted from the capital to give the North and Scotland better public services than Londoners enjoy. I think this wrong.

I believe that global warming and our reliance on oil is a major threat to Londoners and the rest of the UK. I would apply pressure on the government to reprioritise defence spending. Yes, we need to do much more to target terrorists, but rather than spending tens of billions on cold war weapons such as new fighters, aircraft carriers and a Trident replacement, we should instead invest in environmentally friendly transport and the infrastructure to support it.

I believe that trying to make money out of emissions with new taxes is fundamentally wrong. We should be helping people cut emissions by encouraging plug-in hybrid and electric cars. I would provide London-wide vehicle charging points.

How do you yourself travel around London?
By car and public transport.

What is your policy regarding irritant noise from mobile phone music players on the tube and buses?
I think people need to respect others. I would continue the current media campaign against noise pollution

Would you have introduced the Congestion Charge and if not will you repeal it?
No and yes!

Do you support the building of a new runway at Heathrow and how would you reduce your own international travel if you become Mayor?
Yes and no. I believe that it is vitally important to do much more to protect the environment but with investment this can go hand in hand with progress. I think that London can benefit a lot from best practices in other cities and I am determined learn from these lessons and bring them home to our city.

What would be your vision for the city by 2020 and how would you achieve it as Mayor?
A green London with the most modern and flexible transport system in the world, through the policies previously outlined.

I would reduce crime with the twin policies of doing all we can to encourage people not to embark on a criminal career but lobbying government to keeping them in prison for much longer if they chose that option.

I believe that we must give Londoners much better value for money, improved services as lower cost. Local government cannot be exempt from improvements in efficiency seen elsewhere.

I also want to make our city the entrepreneurial hot bed of Europe and would cut taxes on small business to help this happen.

Do you have any London-based trivia our readers may not know?
I doubt it.

Have you ever been sick on the tube?
No but sometimes the conditions are almost intolerable. All this must change. On the specific point, I would introduce public lavatories at platform level in all stations.

By 'Race4CityHall'

Or, stuff you think about London that's true but is actually rubbish.

2. Dick Whittington and his cat.

Everyone enjoys a good story. Especially one with a happy ending, interesting characters and familiar friends. Well this Londonista was a bit shocked and annoyed to discover that Dick Whittington's cat was completely made up. Well, that is to say there's no evidence to show it ever existed.

For those of you who can't remember, let us tell you the story. Go and get a cup of tea first and make yourself comfortable and then we can begin. Once upon a time roughly around 1350, there was a young man called Richard. Dick Whittington was from a poor family so he came to London to seek his fortune. (Which sounds like every student to arrive in the city to do a drama course.)

The story goes that he's having a bit of a tough time, so he decides to return home. Instead he reaches Highgate Hill and hears the Bow Bells ring and thinks they're talking to him (as you do) or at least sending him a message. Like the one immortalised in this rhyme:

Turn again, Whittington,
Once Mayor of London!
Turn again, Whittington,
Twice Mayor of London!
Turn again, Whittington,
Thrice Mayor of London!

So back he goes to give it another try. He starts selling costly textiles and everything starts going well. This was around the time Richard 2nd was King and things for Londoners were tough. It was under him that Dick become Mayor of London and he did indeed become mayor three times.

So, where did the cat (most often called Tommy) come into all of this? Well, depsite the fact that you can see statues of Puss all over the city - there's one on Highgate Hill and the statue of Dick outside Guildhall has a cat by his feet - he really didn't exist. We would love it if one of you could prove us wrong but there isn't anything that says Dick's pussy was part of the real story.

He's Londonist's favourite bit of the tale and could have come from many sources. One idea is that the French word achat means to purchase. There are some versions of the story that says Dick travelled to Morroco and Tommy the cat killed lots of rats whch made him famous. It could also be linked to the plague as Londoners were terrified of rats after the 'Black Death'. The 'King of Rats' would have been a very popular ending to the story at the time.

Londonist has another theory which may or may not be true. Cats are spooky. They know stuff and have excellent senses. Cats don't like people they don't trust. It's possible that to make Dick Whittington appear more likeable a cat was implemented into the story. Thus making him seem trustworthy and a much nicer guy. This is just a Londonist theory which could either be rubbish or genius.

Even if it isn't true, we like the cat in the story. It makes for more interesting banter and silliness for Bobby Davro in the Panto season.

Flickr image of a kitty from ieatstars' photostream. Guildhall image from M@.

Following reports late on Wednesday night, Chelsea Football Club have confirmed at 1:45am this morning that manager José Mourinho has left the club. The statement on the club's official website simply reads:

Chelsea Football Club and José Mourinho have agreed to part company today (Thursday) by mutual consent.

Despite bringing the English championship to Stamford Bridge for the first time in fifty years, winning other domestic honours and never losing a home league game in his three year tenure it has been clear for some time that Mourinho has not enjoyed the full support of Chelsea's multi-millionaire owner Roman Abramovich. The most potent symbol of that discord was misfiring Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko who was said to have been acquired at enormous expense over the Portuguese manager's head and who has struggled for form and Mourinho's favour since arriving as one of the world's most reliable goalscorers.

It is not immediately clear what the news will do for sales of the new DVD, "Blue Revolution - The Inside Story", which Mourinho was helping to promote at Fulham Broadway last evening before he adjourned to the club's adjacent stadium for the talks which have seen an end to his, by any measure, stunningly successful time in charge of the team. Failure to get past Liverpool in the semi-finals of the Champions League despite phenomenal spending on players has doubtless contributed to Abramovich's willingness to look for a new coach, but there is no obvious candidate to step into José's immaculately polished shoes and unless the Blues grab Claudio Ranieri back from Juventus the press conferences are likely to be a lot less interesting, though some Chelsea fans might welcome a lower profile appointment.

The Amazon page for "Blue Revolution" features a promotional snippet entitled "José Training In The Winter" in which one talking head says of last year's first failure to win the Premiership title:

Our downfall has been the littler clubs who've nicked points off us.

Mourinho's last game in charge was, perhaps fittingly then, Tuesday night's equally unexpected tame home draw with Rosenborg of Norway in the opening match of this year's Champions League campaign, where the point was only rescued by a second-half header from a certain Mr Shevchenko. At least José will now be able to spend lots of time watching himself star in Chelsea's new film, although we suspect his copy will not be complimentary. If he has managed to bag one as a souvenir he should hang on to it. With the projected release still a few days away he might find himself in possession of one of the few copies not to be recalled to the warehouse and that could make it worth a few bob which could be a handy nest egg to have when you're unemployed.

Cracking picture from the carnival at Torres Vedras, another Portuguese icon that understood the value of stout English defenders, via NunoCardoso's Flickr stream.

Film maker extraordinaire Quentin Tarantino has arrived in the UK to promote the DVD release of his latest film, Death Proof. Nothing newsworthy in that per se. But the whens, whos and wherefores of this publicity event are nothing short of astonishing.
Londonist has learnt that the movie icon snucked (or was dragged) along to Wimbledon Dog Stadium on Monday evening where he watched the likes of Shayne Ward, Charlie Simpson (from Busted) and a band called the Pigeon Detectives (great name for a band, actually) vroom around in a ?celebrity? banger match (which this Londonista would hope was for charity). The former X factor winner won and was accorded the honour of spraying the great one with champagne before receiving a prize. Something to do with Sky TV as well.

Er, why?

Nothing wrong with visiting the tracks (even if it is to watch cars). Nowt wrong with Wimbledon either - it is always good to see these Hollywood types venturing out of the West End. But the combination of C list celebs, and Monday evening and SW17 is slightly surreal.

We can see no sign of the director?s career going to the proverbial dogs, whether racing or reservoir, although he is a tad precious at times and apparently needs a year between each film to recover:

"I am a writer-director. With the exception of Jackie Brown I write all my own stuff. I write it from scratch. That is hard f**king work".

"You have to wait for my movies, but they are worth the wait," he added

Perhaps Mr. Tarantino asked for something quirky and uniquely British to celebrate the launch. But if not this has to be the most bizarre celebrity non-event of which Londonist has heard for a while. Sack the PR people.

Image courtesy of sir mildred pierce?s flickr stream.