The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat  We do not know what to say. We want to say a lot of things but it seems that we do not have the words to say them. Depression, tension we do not know what we are suffering from? Is it just life? Is this the  price that we pay as humans to live on this earth. To be sad, to be discontented. Happiness is elusive. Very few fleeting moments of happiness and joy and endless list of problems. What is right and what is wrong, we have no idea. There are days when you feel happy, you feel on the top of the world, you feel that everything is going according to the plan, you feel that you can not be defeated, you cannot be conquered and you cannot be in a bad situation ever again. Then there are other days when you feel nothing goes right, when you feel there is no point in living, when you feel the world is against you, when you feel whatever plans you make are destined to fail, when you feel no matter what you do things will not get better. This is existence that we

Home - More than 20 British Muslim families have been denied entry to the US, it has been claimed, amid mounting claims of religious discrimination by border officials. The allegation was made after a British father whose family holiday to Disneyland in the US was cancelled at the last minute by border officials spoke of their “devastation”. Fitness instructor Mohammad Tariq Mahmood was among 11 members of his family hoping to fly from Gatwick to Los Angeles last week, but said they were taken from the queue to board the plane by a border control officer. Read the full story here. 

Home - Since the Gherkin pierced London's skyline in 2003, a number of architectural delicacies have popped up around the capital. Prince Charles once likened the capital to an "absurdist picnic table", but has it really started to resemble a giant's feast? "The Gherkin really started the trend," says Peter Rees, ex-chief planner of the City of London and professor at UCL's Bartlett School of Architecture. It is not the first building to earn a nickname inspired by items usually found in the kitchen pantry. Indeed, Prince Charles also dubbed the 309m-high Shard an "enormous salt cellar". With work having resumed on the Can of Ham in January and the Cucumber on its way, BBC News explores some of the capital's most high-profile morsels. Read the full story here. 

Home - The 13-year-old had been missing for almost two weeks after disappearing on 6 December . Detectives are still searching for two sisters, Abir and Ahlam Salah , aged 16 and 15 respectively, also from Wood Green . Abir was reported missing on 6 December, and Ahlam on 12 December. Police believe the pair have not left the country and may be sleeping on buses or elsewhere on the transport network. A Metropolitan police spokesman said: “The girls have been reported missing before. The last time was on 19 November, when they were missing for a week. They were found safe and well in the Wood Green area. Read the full story here. 

House prices in London are the most over-valued of any major city in the world and are in “ bubble-risk territory ”, a  report by economists at UBS  has found. Foreign investment , the help-to-buy scheme, “alluring” yields for buy-to-let landlords, and ongoing population growth have all led property prices in the city to decouple from local incomes , and there could be a “ substantial price correction ” if the conditions for investment deteriorated, the report said. The  UBS   Global Real Estate Bubble Index looked at 15 cities around the world, including Hong Kong, Sydney, New York, San Francisco and Geneva, examining prices against the economic backdrop in each country. Cost of average London home rises to £500,000 Read more It found  London  was less affordable for locals who wanted to buy than any city except Hong Kong, and that it was at most risk of prices falling. The city rated 1.88 on UBS’s bubble index, and the report said that between 19