The Big Smoke

Check out this new site, which plots any route you want on Google Maps. Very handy for those of us who have, in a moment of madness, elected to catch every bus in London in numerical order.

As far as hard copy goes, you still can't beat Quick Map .

1The London Boys accompany TV-am's lycra queen Mad Lizzie. How 80s is that?

2 Telling lies to tourists, the noble tradition lives on. (For the celebrity version, involving Madness, head here.)

3 The London Underground recreated in Lego. As ever, it's the dedication that impresses.

4 Suspiciously pristine footage of crossing Westminster Bridge in the 1930s (which halts more or less directly outside my old flat.)

5 Our Muppets fetish continues. Here are Kermit and Fozzie singing the London music hall classic, 'Any Old Iron'.

For last week's films of early London hip-hop and Mick Jagger, click here.

Richard Reynolds, London's foremost proponent of Guerilla Gardening, has been bringing joy and Argyranthemum frutescens to Londoners for a number of years with his targeted, if unsanctioned, horticultural improvements to otherwise neglected public spaces. The Elephant and Castle roundabout is just one of his many projects, and he's also planted a lovely crop of lavender on Westminster Bridge Road.

But this comes at a cost. Southwark Council have introduced a charge for 'Grounds Maintenance' on Richard's estate, even though all the work is done by his own band of unpaid volunteers. He writes:

'My optimistic conclusion is that it’s a clerical error, further evidence of Southwark Council’s institutional incompetence and terrible internal communications. They have pressed the red button unaware of the significance of the damage it will inflict on everyone, including their reputation. The pessimistic conclusion is that this marks a return to their insistence that the gardens of Perronet House are theirs to maintain and not for me or any other volunteer to take on.'

Read the whole sorry saga here.