While in London, I wrote for the popular city blog Londonist, part of the Gothamist blog network. I covered daily news stories about the city, mostly focusing on transportation, nature and news of the absurd. I wrote more than 50 posts for the blog between February and June 2008.

Below is a sampling of some of my earlier posts, but you can see all my blog entries on my profile on the Londonist site.

[Visit my Londonist profile]

Lessons Learned: Melt Chocolate Master Class

Wednesday night, Cookbook Cafe brought in master chocolatier Keith Hurdman from Notting Hill’s Melt chocolate shop to teach a small group about different chocolate varieties while getting a taste test of a whole table full of sweet treats.

[Read more at Londonist]

Dog Bites Double

Is London starting to look like an episode of “When Dogs Attack”? According to recent NHS statistics, the number of attack victims under 18 seeking emergency treatment has more than doubled in our city over the past four years.

[Read more at Londonist]

68-Year-Old Love Letter Returned to Writer

Though this story would have been more appropriate for Valentine’s Day, this love letter from long ago was returned a week late for that lovey-dovey deadline. Still, this sentimental stuff tugs at our little heartstrings, so we’re happy to report that a stolen love letter, dumped in a garden at an empty house in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, and picked up by police has been returned to its author, who is still alive at 98.

[Read more at Londonist]

New Chair to Curb Classroom Dangers/Class Clowns

Though Fat Joe is still telling us to “Lean Back” (or is he? that song is so 2004), 7,000 British students fall off their chairs and end up in the hospital each year by leaning back a bit too far.

[Read more at Londonist]

Harrow Council Knows When You’re Lying

Taking a cue from police investigators and reality TV shows looking to create a scandal, Harrow Council in northwest London has started to use voice risk analysis — a type of phone-based lie detector — to try and catch fraudsters claiming unneeded benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions.

[Read more at Londonist]

No Pole to Slide Down to Get to This Fire

Though we like to think of our firefighters as bulwarks of safety and sensibility, they burn down their kitchens sometimes, too. Saturday, while the Rickmansworth firefighters were off teaching fire safety lessons in South Oxley, a fire started in their dishwasher. Oh, the irony.

[Read more at Londonist]

Lessons Learned: Making a Seductive Martini

Last night, we learned to mix a good drink with a few shakes of the wrist as part of a Valentine’s Day dinner date at Cookbook Cafe in the Intercontinental Hotel and wanted to share the mixology secrets to making a romantic cocktail so you can impress your sweetheart by extending Valentine’s Day to the weekend, woo your stalking obsession or soothe your poor lonely heart as you watch The Notebook over and over again and weep yourself to sleep.

[Read more at Londonist]

Diggers, Sledgehammers and Angle Grinders, Oh My!

Whatever happened to knocking? Early Wednesday morning at a home in west London, police used a digger—yes, one of those big construction trucks—to smash through a perimeter wall, then proceeded to use sledgehammers and angle grinders to get into the house to search for drugs. They probably would’ve used a battering ram if they had one handy.

[Read more at Londonist]

Tube Scammer Complains His Way To Conviction

A former magistrate with a personality disorder and apparently plenty of time on his hands, scammed the London Underground out of £5,000. Between 2003 and 2006, 33-year-old Terrance Jolley made over 2,000 claims for refunds by saying his trains had been delayed.

[Read more at Londonist]