The Varsity Boat Race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge makes its annual return to the shores of the Thames between Putney and Mortlake today and this time around, if the Oxford cox grabbed an oar, the crews could stage an England v The Rest of the World race. Indeed both boat clubs have swung so far in this direction that the dark blues feature three oarsmen actually from Oxfordshire while Cambridge have an engine room comprised of a trio of our very own. Two of them live in prime Tideway territory, Peter Marsland in Chiswick and Tobias Garnett in Putney, while at Londonist's old position of bow side 3 we find Henry Pelly who was born in Bromley and will be a handy man to have at such a high profile event given his prize winning work on "Terrorism and Military in Politics", though these days he's reading environmental design.

This 154th meeting between the two old adversaries is scheduled to start at 17.15, with the toss taking place at 15.25. The reserve race between the Isis (Oxford) and Goldie (Cambridge) boats will take place at 16.45. Going into the main event, Oxford are strongly favoured to take their third victory in four years. They have the heavier crew and defending champions Cambridge have had to change the Stroke of their boat only days before the race. However, the forecast of twenty mile per hour winds and steady rainfall might once again make a mockery of conventional Boat Race wisdom and you can get some pretty low odds on the prospect of the first sinking since 1978, though Cambridge are sure to have learned the lessons of their surprise narrow defeat in rough conditions two years ago and will have a pump on board to deal with any unwanted aqueous ballast.

An estimated quarter of a million spectators regularly throng the banks along the 4 mile and 374 yards (6,779 m) course and many will be watching from a hostelry en route. However, be warned that there are only 14 of these and that they are all very well known and documented across popular sites such as the BBC, Fluid Foundation and the main race site itself, so if you're not taking your own refreshments make sure you bag a place early.

As last year, Londonist recommends viewing the proceedings via the big screen erected by the local council as part of the Hammersmith and Fulham festival in Furnival Gardens, or perhaps at the alternative set up in Bishops Park. Londonista Jo for one is likely to be found at Furnival once again:

There are toilets (VERY important when all the pubs have queues out of the door), a nice comfy wall to sit on, and a big screen for the pre-race interviews and for watching the race itself. We roll up at some point in the morning with crates of beer, bags of the best budget finger food Mr Tesco has to offer and a stack of trashy magazines to pass the time, and nab a spot with all-important wall access...as the banks of Old Father Thames fill up with spectators, there's a real party atmosphere.

(Check back later this morning for our exclusive interview with former Cambridge blue and Boat Race umpire Simon Harris on the role of the lead official in today's main event).

You might also like to take in another Oxford v Cambridge contest before the racing gets underway. The Varsity football match kicks off at 1:15pm at Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC and a well known landmark in the early stages of the Boat Race course. Unfortunately all the seats in the Riverside stand which give access to the club's balcony for watching the boating activities have already sold out, but you can pay £8 on the gate (£5 for over 65s and under 21s) to watch the match only from the Johnny Haynes Stand.

Picture of spectators at the 2006 race via mars-hill's Flickr stream.

Photography courtesy of D I C K S D A I L Y via the Londonist pool on Flickr.
Interested in your drink-related photos appearing on Londonist? Click here.

Turns out the Met were on their way to an all out rout of Blackstock Road. An incredible 600 officers in riot gear targetted 19 premises on the busy shopping street near Finsbury Park, apparently recovering "more than 350 stolen items including 120 laptops, 110 cameras, 32 iPods, 20 sat-navs and 47 fake passports and driving licences" and arresting "middle-tier criminals" involved in drug dealing and money laundering in this "hotbed" of crime.

Riot gear! Bet that was a shock. Watch the video here. It's pretty impressive.

The raids were the climax of a year long operation aimed at wiping the slate clean in the area and, no doubt, scaring the baggy pants off many wannabe gangstas. Around 70 individuals were arrested but only one Londonista's lunchtime was disturbed.

Image courtesy of Edz's Flickrstream.

A not-so-subtle hint in our recent post about The Good Food Guide publishing a London edition 40 years after putting out their last London guide led to an actual hardcopy of the book appearing at Londonist Central HQ a few days later. Appreciative of such concrete feedback, we took some time to peruse the guide and to consider our thoughts about it before ultimately coming to the conclusion that it?s a pretty good resource to consider.

We like the book?s tone. For example, referring to Flâneur as ?almost a foodie theme park? reads well and, in our opinion, accurately. The guide isn?t as eponymous as, say, the Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide or Zagat?s. But in a way, this pared down ?best of the best? is handier: why leaf through pages of questionable options when a selection of London?s best is available?

For the most part, we agree with their choices and find their Top 40 list as good as any (but to be honest, we?ve only been to a few on that list). Of course, we can?t say we approve of every inclusion or omission. How can they list Viet Grill as Best Budget Restaurant but fail even to mention Viet Hoa? Shocking (or are we just being nitpicky?).

Hardly a bible of London?s dining scene, The Good Food Guide London is a welcome addition to our bookshelf and a fine item to keep in mind next time you want to try a new restaurant.

It's not rare for the enervating effects of the London stage to be used as a tonic for a fallen star's flagging career, and the coupling of Spears and Dubois has a certain logic. While the age difference between Britney and Williams' tragic heroine may be considerable, other parallels exist: both are Southern belles arguably past their prime, whose search for redemption in the public eye has led to mental breakdown. Or, as the Daily Star delicately puts it:

A wanton paramour like Britters will find she has much in common with Blanche. After all, one is a fading relic of the Old South ? and the other is Blanche.

Ba-dum! Yep, there's nothing like a bit of Brit-bashing to flog a few more copies.

If Spears is to come over here she might want to ignore the rantings of her former tonsil-tennis buddy Madonna, who has been fulminating about the rotten state of public transport, among other things. Come on, Madge, think of London's poor paparazzi - a Spears in town could really help them make ends meet.

Image of Britney at Madame Tussaud's from MuLaN's Flickrstream

Sadly the work on the ground floor didn't seem to be as exciting as the title. From the kitsch pictures of wildlife painted in a style that wouldn't have been out of place in a B&B to big abstracts using bits of product logos and the like, it was a bit underwhelming.

Upstairs, thankfully the artwork was better. The brightly coloured Lowry meets Soviet Realism of David Brightmore's paintings grew on us. We quite liked the rabbityness (if such a word exists, obvously) of Lucy Nicholson. The charmingly understated wire sculptures by Steph Rawkins were also good. The huge nude figures we liked less; mainly because if you looked closely at them, you could see the physical impossibilities of the poses.

We love exhibitions that enthuse you so much that you want to go away and create, or bore your friends with mentioning it all the time, or at the very least post something on Facebook about it. Unfortunately this show didn't have that effect. It wasn't rubbish; it just lacked the wow factor. We just weren't sufficiently attracted, repulsed, or even attractively repulsed by the artwork in it.

It is worth a visit if you're in the area. But we wouldn't make a special journey if we weren't.

Words & image by Oliver Gili

Attractive Repulsion is at Candid Arts Trust, Candid Arts Gallery, 3 Torrens Street, EC1V 4SN until 29 March. For more information click here

Despite all the test runs, T5's first day of operational use quickly turned into a farce. Early teething troubles with the baggage system meant the entire system was soon backed up worse than the lav at the Hawley Arms after a heavy Saturday night. By midday passengers on arriving flights were waiting several hours to be reunited with their luggage.

Worse was to come. BA were soon advising passengers arriving at the airport that they could only take hand luggage - a spooky re-occurrence of an issue that faced passengers at Terminal 4 in February. Meanwhile, some 34 flights were cancelled. Coining a cute euphemism, BA blamed "staff familiarisation" for the ongoing difficulties.

Sadly Friday has also been plagued by the same problems, with another 36 short-haul flights cancelled and further delays all but certain for the weekend. "Not BA's finest hour", was the verdict of airline boss Willie Walsh, getting in his entry for Understatement of the Year.

How all this will affect Heathrow's coveted title as the world's most hated airport is unclear, but we don't think the omens are positive.

A sliver of good news: the flash mob that gathered to protest against Heathrow's proposed third runway were lost in the melee and garnered minimal attention. There's a lesson here: why bother trying to disrupt operations with silly stunts when you can entrust the powers at be to cock it up all by themselves?

Image of T5 queues from diamond geezer's Flickrstream

Having failed to shed light on their disappearance, or recover the files, the Beeb have asked for the help of the rozzers, responding to increasing alarm over the reason for the thievery. Roger Mosey, director of BBC Sport, skirted speculation in a statement, but suggested there could be a sinister purpose behind the files vanishing:

We are still in a position where they could have genuinely gone missing, but increasingly our suspicions are that it was deliberate or malicious in some way

Whilst fraud is not suspected because no financial details were present in the files, the attention of the police, the launch of a full investigation, the initiation of a helpline to ease staff concerns, and the apparently stealthy nature of the job, have exacerbated anxiety over the motive for the pilfery.

Whether the work of a co-ordinated global terrorist movement with an axe to grind against the light-hearted sports quiz and Wimbledon host, or someone at the Beeb has just dropped the ball big-time, the breach of internal security is bound to leave the corporation further red-faced given recent misdeeds, as the news has highlighted the record number of workers being sent to the Games. In an attempt to get the first punch in, the BBC defended this use of resources, claiming the staff ? 33 more than the number who attended the Athens Olympics ? will provide more than twice as much output as four years ago.

By Noel Titheradge

Image courtesy of eyedropper.co.uk's Flickrstream.