A troublingly regular series in which we highlight an important social issue that the mainstream media won't touch: the plight of London's increasingly neglected toy animals

Yeah, yeah, Toy Story 3 is a proper tear-jerker. But have you noticed the real tragedy unfolding on the streets of London? Untold numbers of cuddly toy animals are abandoned each week in our supposedly inclusive city. No species is immune. Londonist is the only web site to take their plight seriously.

We start this week with a forlorn equid, poised precariously on the edge of the canal. Seb Brennan of Kentish Town picks up the story:

I saw this poor, lost soul the other day - spurned by his owner, Rocking Pony has clearly decided to end it all in the murky waters of the Regent's Canal. He seems to have some sort of hearing aid as well - perhaps his horse whispering owner got tired of having to shout.

Andrew Barnett, meanwhile, has located a nexus of fake-animal cruelty: Ball's Pond Road. "Its like a mass dumping ground," he says. "You find one and then another within a few foot steps." He sends us the second and third images, of an abandoned sheep-like thing and what appears to be a distressed chick newly hatched from its heliotrope shell. Some kind of mistimed Easter cull?

Our next image was taken by Londonist contributor Suke Driver.

I arrived just in time to save this Leopard from a Victoria Park squirrel today. I dread to think how it would have ended. Maybe the leopard escaped back into the wild rather than being lost or abandoned?

Suke is clearly a glass-half-full lady. What she doesn't realise is that toy leopard baiting is a popular pastime in the East End. Dog fights and cockpit duels may have been outlawed, but we have yet to see legislation forbidding the vicious practice of setting squirrels onto helpless toy cats.

Finally, Pete Stean of the excellent The Londoneer sends us this sorrowful image of a destitute monkian. The caption was his own work, but the sentiment is real:

Because I live in a block we have those massive bins, and for some reason they didn't pick them up on the right day this week. When that happens all kinds of crap tends to find its way into them because they're pushed out onto the street to wait for the vans - this little fella was sitting on top of a box. Perhaps he really was waiting for me to come home... ?

Keep your eyes (and cameras) peeled for more examples, folks, and send images to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Comedy tourists

The cast are all graduates of Bird College's acting programme and there are some very funny parts of this performance. Restaging West Side Story as tramps vs suits in a bite size musical spoof works brilliantly and individuals steal bits of the show with great comic timing or with acts of great conviction.

However, two attempts to get serious using the 7/7 bombings as material sit very uneasily amongst scenes taking the piss out of tourists and foreigners and the least convincing vagrants since the school production of Oliver! Despite best efforts at a physical, imaginative journey through the bombed tube trains and their rescue workers and survivors it feels misguided and out of place. Either major on spoof musicals and skit Eastenders or give all your attention to the terrorist attack - there's plenty of scope with either choice. Just please don't do both.

London Wunderground is at The Roundhouse Studio Theatre tonight and tomorrow at 6pm. All tickets for The Camden Fringe are £7.50.

Read more of our Camden Fringe reviews.

Every week we select a photo from the Londonist Flickr pool, taken in the last seven days, that illustrates this season or time of year in London.

This week, a cloudy sunset behind HMS Belfast, as captured by mattavent.

As we pointed out last year, Adrian Poynton is one of the nicest people alive. The basis for his new show (and it is a new show, still going through the edit) is that recently, he's become a bit disillusioned with humanity - all the horrible things we do to each other, how nobody cares any more, how isolated we become when we don't make an effort to connect. So, after some preamble chat and a game of Guess Who using audience members, he tells us anecdotes of alienation and loneliness.

This could be depressing. However, Adrian Poynton being one of the nicest people alive, he often manages to twist these stories into self-deprecating tales of how brilliant people are and the excitement of experiencing new things. In fact, his enthusiasm seems like it's going to undermine the central tenet of the show - even disconnected, he can still locate a spark of joy - until he gets to the conclusion.

What he wants to do is draw everything together with a beautiful and poignant moment. He wants to read a little piece from Carl Sagan, astrophysicist beloved of Professor Brian Cox and Robin Ince, who said such things as "we are all made of star stuff" and, on describing civilisation, that "these are the things that hydrogen atoms do when given 13.7 billion years". Specifically, Poynton wants to read the beginning of Sagan's Pale Blue Dot speech, which places us all in perspective, and how it made him feel given what he's just been telling us.

It should be a beautiful and whimsical moment. Unfortunately, there are several people in the crowd who are determined to ruin the whole thing. Poynton has been good naturedly bantering with the front row all evening, it's part of what he does, but as he first mentions Sagan one of them declares, "ah mate, I've heard comedians talk some shit in my time but that's fucking dreadful".

Now. Were this his genuine opinion, we might say 'fair enough'. But he turns out to be so drunk he is physically incapable of answering the simple question 'what is your job?'. His mates are also determined to interrupt with comments that are neither funny nor insightful, and then refuse to follow up when Poynton decides to roll with it and chat to them in the hope they'll run out of steam and allow him to continue. Other people in the audience start to be just rude and imbecilic. Nobody is allowing him the breathing space to finish the set - and it's not because they think he's been bad. Everyone has been laughing. And it's not because he, or the room, has been hostile. For some reason, this section of the audience has decided to be dicks. Presumably, this section of the audience are shitfaced.

We talked the other week about how comedy's rhythm and impact can be wrecked by ill-judged, continuous and pointless heckling. But this is something else altogether: this is a lack of respect. For the comedian they've paid to see, and the rest of the audience. And what's more, it shows they've completely missed the point of the show. After much provocation Poynton finally loses patience with the rudeness and makes the connection for them. What he was about to read was the thing that made him realise not everyone is awful, that there is something beautiful about humanity and the lives we lead. But when a show about feeling isolated and surrounded by wankers is ruined by wankers, it makes him - and us - wonder whether Sagan was wrong. Because what does it say about us if we can't treat one absolutely lovely comedian with courtesy and consideration for five minutes?

Hopefully the crowd won't be as drunk for the final show tonight, 8.45pm at the Camden Head, 100 Camden High Street. Adrian Poynton also hosts The Quiz That Ate My Brain at the Camden Head, 10.15pm tonight, 22nd and 29th August. All tickets £7.50. The Camden Fringe runs until 29th August. Read the rest of our Camden Fringe coverage.

With much of the local cabaret talent busy at one fringe or another, the Soho Theatre has drafted in renowned New York singer Lady J and her "Gospel for the Godless" for a fortnight.

She is back in London to make her headlining debut after playing at the South Bank's Purcell Room last year. The ad hoc choir formed last year by Leigh Thompson specifically for those performances is now called The London Show Choir and joins her again. For her shows, Lady J has cheekily rechristened them the Train-To-Kill Gospel Choir, a nod towards one of her songs which could be best described as Sister Act-meets-Heavy Metal Jacket.

Lady J, a tattooed transexual troubadour (or, more properly, a trobairitz) and Harry Potter fan, has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Cyndi Lauper and Debbie Harry. Her most famed celebrity connection, though, is with Dolly Parton who inspired her early musical education. Lady J repays the favour by covering Parton's Light Of A Clear Blue Morning, a song which doesn't actually say much but says what it does say very powerfully. This is in direct contrast to Lady J's own compositions, some of which come across as bizarre mawkish throwbacks to 1980s famine-relief charity singles and include titles like "Africa - will you teach us to walk again?" These songs jar especially when played alongside punchier numbers like Pink Prada Purse and Train To Kill.

Nice touches include Lady J calling out the names of each and every one of the 14-strong choir. The choir itself provided one of the highlights of the evening: while Lady J went off for a costume change, we were treated to a choral number which hypnotised and beguiled in equal measure.

Musically, Lady J veers between piano-led gospel which starts off with her alone and ends with the choir helping out - for example on her cover of the Rocky Horror Picture Show's I'm Going Home - or rip-roaring balls-out electro-pop. Singing a cover of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt in the latter style is a brave move. For those who consider Johnny Cash's version unbeatable, it may be worth coming to this show just to see how the song, Lady J's latest single, has been given a jump start.

Lady J will be at the Soho Theatre until August 21. More information and tickets here.

The London Show Choir (guest starring Lady J) will be appearing at the Gatehouse in Highgate on August 22. More information here.

Londonist attended the long awaited opening of the South African restaurant, Shaka Zulu in Camden back at the beginning of the month and to put it bluntly we weren't terribly impressed! There were far too many people invited - after queuing for 20 minutes to get in we were then faced with a monster queue for the bar.

The restaurant space below was closed off due to Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini and Amy Winehouse dining and the bar/club area was so full you couldn’t move. The ladies had no loo roll all night (too much information, sorry!) and only two cubicles. So, you can imagine the queue.

The canapés finally made an appearance at 10pm and by that time everyone had formed yet another queue to the kitchen. The chef couldn’t get the canapés out fast enough. People were queuing up to take a whole tray to their tables, it was like feeding time at the zoo.

Sadly, we didn’t get to try any food; we didn’t fancy our chances against the stampede and if we wanted to queue we'd have gone to the supermarket. Let’s hope Shaka Zulu can pull their reputation back with some great food as most of the people left the opening a more than a little disappointed.

Shaka Zulu is located at Stables Market in Camden, just below Gilgamesh restaurant. Visit www.shaka-zulu.com for more info.

By Julia Pearson

Voluntary and community organisations often do vital work with very little recognition, except from those who benefit. Hackney recognises its unsung heroes with the Adiaha Antigha Community Achievement Awards 2010. Any Hackney-based voluntary or community sector organisations can be nominated in 6 categories. The organisation to win "the most enterprising in adapting to current challenges" is the one to watch - as government cuts hit only the niftiest and thriftiest will thrive. Download the simple nomination form now and get it in by Tuesday 31st August. The awards will be presented at HCVS’ Hackney Futures Fair on Tuesday, 7 September. (Image / award winner 2009 Hackney Migrant Centre by Katherine Green)

The Londonist inbox swells to Jupiter-like proportions each day with inane requests for coverage. Much of it is guff of the most guffsome guffishness. And then, every once in a while, we get beautiful non-guff like this:

Over the course of a year I'm writing and releasing a song every week based on characters and events from London's East End during the Victorian era. For example I've covered Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Eastern saga, Mrs Basil Holmes who saved the graveyards, a crook called American Jack I discovered in a book by Henry Mayhew etc.

Songs From The Howling Sea - paraphrased from novelist Arthur Morrison, who described the East End as 'a howling sea of human wreckage' - is the work of talented troubadour Ruairidh Anderson. Each song is preceded by a short video in which Ruairidh gives some background to his next tale. He's now up to the 11th installment, a delicate, haunting ballad based on a tale of a cross-dressing highwayman's wife who shacked up in Poplar with another woman.

Cracking stuff. The campaign for a live performance starts here.