Image courtesy of Shirokazan, under a creative commons licence

London’s place names have always been fluid. Old names are squeezed out by the new and, without fixed borders to work from, your views on where one place ends and another begins are as likely to be about age and class as they are about geography.

All the same, though, deliberate attempts at rebranding are, like most things to do with marketing, horrible, and whenever they start popping up in the papers, we tend to suspect someone enterprising hack is trying to sell their flat. What?s more, most of these efforts will come to naught: the only time London place names actually seem to change is when a station gets an odd name. There’s a reason why you may have never heard of Battlebridge, Newington or Hatcham*, even though you’ve very probably been to all of them. This is likely why a Tower Hamlets councilor has spent rather a lot of time trying to get Shoreditch High Street station rebranded as ?Banglatown?.

But Londonist is nothing if not dedicated to its city. So, in the name of science, we decided to track down these painful formulations, and come up with some sort of taxonomy. After some investigation, we’ve identified more than twenty, that seem to slot into four broad categories.

1) Property developer speak

? Portman Village ? an attempt by local businesses to get more people to venture north of Marble Arch
? Connaught Village ? the same, only the other side of Edgware road
? Seven Dials ? the posher bit of Covent Garden
? Midtown ? everything between the City and the West End, in what looks like a desperate attempt to attract Americans

2) AbbReVos.

? NoHo ? Fitzrovia
? SoBo ? the Bricklayer’s Arms roundabout (it?s south of Borough, y?see)
? SoSho ? south of Shoreditch
? NoDa and SoDa ? north and south Dalston
? NoGo ? our personal favourite, for a no-man?s-land somewhere north of Goldhawk Road

3) Attempts to make desolate bits of marsh and industrial estate sound more appealing than they actually are

? Barking Riverside
? Barking Reach
? Havering Riverside
? Dagenham Reach

4) Simple, shameless snobbery

? Blackheath Approach ? Lewisham
? Lower Chelsea ? Battersea
? Bowes and Bounds ? Wood Green
? Herne Hill Borders ? Brixton
? Steele’s Village ? Chalk Farm (the residents association has stuck up banners and everything)
? ?Highgate Slopes? and ?Archgate? ? ?It isn’t Archway, honest?

This isn’t a comprehensive list, we?re sure, so do let us know if you’ve spotted any others. There?s a prize for the greatest monstrosity: specifically, a sense of lingering shame.

*King’s Cross, Elephant & Castle and New Cross Gate respectively, since you wondered

Bob Dylan's "Two Sisters"

Locally owned Japanese restaurant chain, Tsuru, has launched a loyality card scheme. Cards can be picked up at any of the three branches (Canvey Street, Bishopsgate and Mansion House) to start collecting points and to take advantage of ?buy nine get one free? offers on all large sushi boxes, free range kara-age, potato korokke and more.

Plateau restaurant in Canary Wharf has teamed up with its neighbors, Artisan Fine Art gallery, to host the launch of an exclusive portfolio of signed, limited edition graphics by Bob Dylan. Taken from his Drawn Blank series, each print is hand signed by the artist himself and presented in an individual presentation wallet or deluxe boxed set. The event takes place tonight, Thursday 26 January, from 5pm ? 8pm. Places can be booked by calling 020 7715 7100.

The Dock Kitchen at Portobello Docks in Ladbroke Grove and Sipsmith distillery will host an evening of cocktail tasting to look for help coming up with the cocktail list for The Dock’s new Kitchenette bar. There will be six cocktails to taste, three vodka-based and three gin-based, some long and some short. Attendees will be expected to comment on the drinks, and the most popular cocktails will be put on the bar’s list. The tasting will be Tuesday 31 January with two sessions: one at 7pm and another at 9.30pm. Tickets cost £10 each and will be strictly limited to 35 per session. Call The Dock Kitchen on 020 8962 1610 to book your place.

Kedem Europe, the biggest importer and distributor of kosher wine in the UK, will host its annual Kosher Wine Festival on Monday 6 February from 6pm at the Park Lane Hotel. The event will showcase new and established premium kosher wines from around the world paired with gourmet canapés. Guests will have the chance to sample wines and liquors from a range of countries and brands and to purchase wines at wholesale prices. Tickets cost £30 or £50 for two and can be book by emailing This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or visiting www.kedemeurope.com.

Hawksmoor Spitalfields will get a brand new 60 cover bar, to open in late February with interiors by regular Hawksmoor collaborators, interior architects Macaulay Sinclair. The new bar will have a regularly changing list of five exclusive drinks in addition to the full cocktail list. The food menu will include short-rib French dip, fried oyster roll, chilli cheese and other Hawksmoor hot dogs along with onion rings, chicken wings and other heart stopping morsels.

In anticipation of Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday 27 January, we went to visit the new home of the Wiener Library, the world’s oldest Holocaust Memorial Institution, in Russell Square.

The library first made a home in London in 1939. It lived in Manchester Square until the 1950 when it moved to Devonshire Street. The new building at 29 Russell Square opened to the public on 1 December 2011, with storage space in the basement, an elegant reading room on the first floor and — for the first time in its history — an exhibition space on the ground floor.

The library’s first public display, ‘A is for Adolf: Teaching German Children Nazi Values’ is fascinating and disturbing. It comprises a collection of children’s books, games and toys covered in swastikas, perpetuating the Aryan racial ideal, demonising Jews and celebrating the Führer. The board game, ‘Juden Raus’ (Jew?s Out), illustrated above, is a prime — and rare — example.

Once you’re seen the exhibition, you’ll want to visit the Wolfson Reading Room. Around 6,500 books are available to peruse from the shelf as well as the full library catalogue. The library is used a great deal by students, researchers and historians but also by people trying to trace members of their family.

The Wiener Library collection is extensive and still being added to. Treated to a tour of the basement stores, Development Director Bridget McGing showed us a copy of Mein Kampf signed in pencil by Hitler. A black and white snapshot above the autograph indicates ‘Hitler’ and ‘Karen’, an English tourist getting her book signed. A handwritten note explains that the event happened a day before Karen and her husband were evacuated from Germany as war broke out. From the periodicals we were gobsmacked by a glossy magazine for SS ‘old boys’, the latest edition from 2011.

In the document archive, the beautifully written notebooks of Philipp Manes (pictured) fill one box of hundreds, all stuffed with relics and memoirs of time spent in concentration camps or in exile. A dip into the photo archives reveal some beautiful images of the ‘Bulldogs Bank’ children – orphan survivors of the Holocaust brought to Britain after the war — used to raise funds for their care. Some still bear handwritten captions, carefully constructed to persuade you part with with your money.

There’s a real possibility that a brief, curious drop-in to the Wiener Library may lead you to spending many hours investigating these incredible, sobering, moving and important collections.

The library runs a programme of public events. These are coming up in the next few days:

Speak Up, Speak Out: The 1942 UN Declaration on the Persecution of the Jews – A Special Lecture by Dr Dan Plesch to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Thursday 26 January 2012 at 6.30pm (free).

The Unspeakable Past? West German Conversations about Nazi War Crimes since 1945 – A lunchtime talk by Dr Caroline Sharples to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2012 on Friday 27 January 2012 at 1pm (free).

Open Day: Welcome to the New Home of The Wiener Library on Sunday 29 January from 12-4pm (free but please reserve a place).

‘A is for Adolf’ is a free exhibition, open Monday to Friday, 10am to 5pm, Tuesday, 10am to 7.30pm until 6 March. Ring the buzzer for access – don’t be put off by the closed doors!

Access to the reading room is free and open to all (although on first visit ID is required) and the reading room is open on weekdays from 10am to 5pm, and till 7.30pm on Tuesdays. If you wish to borrow books you must become a member.

Visit Trafalgar Square today until 7pm to sign the Speak Up, Speak Out Pledge for HMD 2012 on a series of newly created pledge pillars, you ? the general public ? will be committing to challenging the language of hatred.

Docklands Light Railway workers have been promised Olympics bonuses of £100 per week plus overtime shifts for working on the network during both sets of Games. Serco, who operate the DLR, say an employee could net around £1,132 extra but the RMT reckons it’ll be more like £2,500.

The DLR goes to four of the main Olympic venues ? the Olympic Park, ExCel, the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich and Greenwich Park ? and organisers are expecting 57% more passengers than usual. More trains will run, for longer, and 25 rather than four stations will be staffed.

This kind of deal makes it even more likely the RMT will hold out for a better deal than that offered to tube workers last week: they’ve called a flat, target-linked, rate of £100 “derisory“. Network Rail staff are getting a £500 bonus while London Overground workers can expect a £600 boost. Just don’t strike over it Bob, OK? Please?

Photo by Andy Wilkes from the Londonist Flickr pool

You might’ve given them up for January. You might be among the people who never liked them in the first place. Or perhaps you’re in the camp that wonders what was wrong with the simple fairy cake.

The Telegraph recently railed against them as “a tired trite London trend to remain in 2011.” (Which is odd, because we’re pretty sure being annoyed about them was fairly boring by at least 2008.)

Whatever your stance, cupcakes aren’t going away. Tomorrow, London welcomes its fifth Hummingbird Bakery to the city; the second to open in the last 12 months.

From tomorrow, you’ll be able to get your hit of sugary American baked goods in Islington. The new Hummingbird Bakery is setting up shop in the Stirling Prize-nominated Angel Building on St John Street, close to Angel Tube and Upper Street. Like the other branches (in Notting Hill, South Ken, Soho and Spitalfields), the Angel shop will continue The Hummingbird practice of baking all products on site the same day as they’re sold, “to ensure freshness and quality.”

The shop opens at 11am on 27 January, when they’ll be giving away free cupcakes to the first 1,000 visitors. If you’re a fan, make sure you get there early.

The new Hummingbird Bakery is in the Angel Building, 403-411 St John Street, London, EC1 4LD, and opens at 11am tomorrow. Visit www.hummingbirdbakery.com to find out more.

Quietly parked up at America Square today is a-slightly-out-of-place white van. Quite an impenetrable-looking vehicle with ?City of London? emblazoned across the side. No police. No camera crews. Certainly not the scene of any riot. An inquisitive climb inside reveals shelves of books. No ordinary van indeed; this is in fact a mobile library, the first of its kind ever used in the City, and it?s bustling with browsing and borrowing book-worms.

The service ? which is only three months old ? is a temporary stop-gap for those affected by the closure and on-going redevelopment of Camomile Street Library, which has been out of action since March 2011. Against the backdrop of so many closures, the City of London hit upon what has been hailed as ?a perfect solution?, according to Carol Boswarthack, Head of Barbican and Community Libraries. Instead of dying a bricky, dusty death, Camomile Street Library will be replaced with a community centre to offer “east of the City communities a one-stop-shop for facilities including libraries, adult education and much more? once it emerges in the autumn, reincarnated on the grounds of the underused Middlesex Street Estate car park.

In the meantime, visitor numbers are slowly rising at the book bus. It stops Monday-Friday in a different location each day (apart from Devonshire Square, which sees in both the moody Mondays and the jubilant Fridays):

Monday 10am – 4pm Devonshire Square
Tuesday 10am – 4.30pm Little Somerset Street
Wednesday 10am – 4pm Stoney Lane
Thursday 10am – 4pm America Square
Friday 10am – 4pm Devonshire Square (again)

Words and photos by Janan Jedrzejewski

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Walk London.

London is a wonderful city to explore on foot at all times of year. Winter is no exception. Indeed, the dim light and overcast skies can bring out the ancient character of the Square Mile and the slate-grey Thames.

Walk London has organised a weekend of winter wanders to tempt you into exploring this great city. All the walks are free and cover many corners of the capital.

Saturday 28 January

VIEWS: Forget the cliched vantage points of Primrose and Parliament Hill. The best views of the capital come from the south-east. This afternoon walk takes in the ancient forests of Shooters Hill and the riverside views near Plumstead. 12.30pm, 7 miles, from Charlton rail station.

COMMONS AND PARKS: Take a stroll through Wimbledon Common and Richmond Park along the Capital Ring, a stretch dubbed ‘the finest walk in London’. 12.30pm, 7.5 miles, from Wimbledon Park Tube station.

REFINED LONDON: Wander round the streets and parks of Kensington admiring the Royal palace, the cobbled lanes and homes of the rich and famous. 2pm, under 5 miles, from High Street Kensington Tube.

RIVER: Learn the amazing history of the banks of the Thames, including eight iconic bridges, two world-famous theatres, an infamous prison, a palace, and a buzzing open-air market. All human life is here!  2pm, 1.5 miles, from Waterloo station.

CANAL LONDON: Little Venice is one of the prettiest corners of London. Explore the Victorian terraces and pleasant stretches of canal that make up this special part of town. 2pm, under 5 miles, from Warwick Avenue Tube.

NIGHTMARE LONDON: Welcome to the dark side of the city, with blood-curdling tales of murder, mayhem and machinations. 6.30pm, under 5 miles, from Embankment Tube.

SPOOKY LONDON: The ancient and narrow alleys of the Square Mile are the perfect setting for chilling ghost tales. Look out for she-wolves, spectral prisoners and the black nun in this creepy conclusion to the day. 7.30pm, under 5 miles, from St Paul’s Tube station.

Sunday 29 January

SUBTERRANEAN LONDON: The world beneath London’s streets is endlessly fascinating. Learn about secret tunnels, creepy crypts, abandoned Tube stations, underground rivers and more. 10.30am, under 5 miles, from Embankment Tube station.

STATELY LONDON: After a boat ride from along the Thames, take in the many historic sights of Greenwich, birthplace of Henry VIII, centre of the world’s time zones and home to some of Christopher Wren’s finest buildings. 10.30am, under 5 miles, from Tower Hill Tube.

WOODY LONDON: Explore the ancient Epping Forest, taking in the Queen Elizabeth Hunting Lodge and the River Roding. 11.30am, under 5 miles, from Chingford rail station.

ANCIENT LONDON: Knights, nuns and notoriety form the heart of this medieval jaunt around central London, with bloody tales of derring-do and ‘the most spectacular statue in London’. 11.30am, under 5 miles, from Tower Hill Tube.

OLYMPIC LONDON: Let a Blue Badge guide lead you round the edges of the London 2012 Olympic park, while learning the history of the Olympics in the capital, and the surprising industrial past of the Stratford Olympic site. This is one of several Olympic walks in the weekend’s schedule. 1.45pm, under 5 miles, from West Ham Tube station.

LITERARY LONDON: Learn how Shakespeare and Dickens drew inspiration from London, and how London in turn was shaped by these two literary giants. 2pm, under 5 miles, from St Paul’s Tube.

How the statue might look, a non-artist's impression. Image by M@

A giant statue of Christ the Redeemer, styled after the famous symbol of Rio De Janeiro, could be erected on the summit of Primrose Hill, reports Camden New Journal. The Messianic adornment would be installed after the Olympics, to mark the handover of the games from London to Rio, who will host the 2016 event.

The 9-metre-high statue would be funded by the Brazilian government. Further details, including the exact location and the longevity of the installation have not yet been revealed. A planning application will be submitted to Camden Council in February, and is likely to provoke keen interest from truculant locals.

Coincidentally, the scheme comes to light at exactly the same time as Alain de Botton’s proposed tower of atheism, notionally to be built in the City of London. It’s also not the first giant monument proposal for the hill. This 1830′s scheme would have seen a titanic pyramid erected in the area to house 5 million bodies.