It turns out that being a genius doesn't mean you're a nice person. That's a lesson that the Science Museum reinforced today as they cancelled a talk by scientist Dr James Watson, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize for his work in discovering the structure of DNA. Watson was scheudled to give a talk at the museum on Friday, but this was nixed after his controversial remarks in an interview with the Sunday Times.......

Almost time for the London Film Festival again! This year the event is opened by David Cronenberg's London-set Eastern Promises - Cronenberg and Viggo Mortensen following up A History of Violence with this violent tale of Russian organised crime, penned by Steve Dirty Pretty Things Knight. One to watch for sure. Closing the festival is the new Wes Anderson movie, The Darjeeling Limited. In between there are some 180+ feature films and 133 shorts,......

So ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Milan, deducted eight league points for their involvement in the Calciopoli scandal, provide Europe's club champions, sitting alongside the Italian nation's triumph at last summer's world cup. (Incidentally, anyone who still disbelieves Filippo Inzaghi that Milan practice free kicks such as the one they scored from should have a look at this.) Former Milan CEO Adriano Galliani, banned for five months for his part in Calciopoli, was prominent amongst......

As the morning of the 2007 Champions League final dawns and Liverpool fans throng the streets of Athens, desperate to acquire a seat for tonight's match from amongst tens of thousands of corporate matchgoers, it seems an appropriate moment for the launch of our new series of articles looking at where football is going, particularly regarding off-the-field issues which seem increasingly to dominate newspaper back pages. Liverpool's opponents tonight, Milan, are especially apposite for......

Italian goalscoring star Cristiano Lucarelli (left of picture) told a packed University College London lecture theatre last night that his country's footballing culture had something to learn from the English and that given a choice of where he could play, "If I had supernatural powers I would take Livorno and put it in England!". Lucarelli, a totem for both his home town and their football team as well as a passionate socialist, was speaking......

Next Monday evening you could join Londonist amongst the audience at the JZ Young Lecture Theatre on Gower Street as Cristiano Lucarelli, with 18 goals this season currently second top scorer in Serie A behind only Francesco Totti, joins his agent and biographer Carlo Pallavicino in presenting a seminar entitled "Money, Politics and Violence: Is there any more space for passion in Italian football?". For football fans who are not familiar with Lucarelli the......

Opening tonight at the Proud gallery in Camden is Shoot! A History of the World Cup in pictures. Yes, the name is almost unbearably predictable, but judging by the website it does look like they've lived up to their tagline, which reads "classic and unseen photography from all seventeen World Cup Finals 1930-2002". So there's a lot of atmospheric black and white shots of men who look far too old to be playing professional......

Renowned barrel of laughs Nick Cave is set to make his follow up to The Proposition right here in London. He's dumping the outback, but keeping Ray Winstone: His new movie tells the story of a travelling salesman who trawls the south coast of England hawking beauty products. The salesman, played by Ray Winstone, finds this the perfect way to meet lonely women and feed his need for sex. Sounds seedy. Maybe Naomi Watts......

Back in December of last year we reported on the nominations for the London Film Critic Awards and even went as far as to provide a few predictions as to who might win some of the gongs. Well last night the awards were handed out, so it's time to see just how we did (and gauge whether it's worth having a punt on Oscar night or just saving our money for an extra large......

Oh, top marks, Inwood. A new tome about the capital that (a) doesn’t have London in the title and (b) bears no sign of a foreword by Ackroyd/Sinclair. Something of a novelty. Inwood has tackled the capital before. His masterful 2000 work ‘A History of London’ was largely and sadly overlooked, thanks to the ill-fortune of publishing in the same year as Peter Ackroyd’s more sexy Biography. City of Cities covers the 30 years......

The nominations for the London Film Critic Awards (as voted for by the Critics Circle, who else?) were announced today. So here's a quick rundown of who's up for what. Pride and Prejudice (which we have to admit, we didn't go and see) has got the most nominations with eight, including best actor for Matthew MacFadyen, best director for Joe Wright, best actress for Keira Knightley, and best supporting actress for both Brenda Blethyn......

When Londonist heard that Chris Roberts, the man behind the excellent Heavy Words Lightly Thrown (the hidden meanings behind nursery rhymes), had written a book on London's Bridges we knew we had to get in touch and force him to complete the Londonist questionnaire. So we did, and here are the results. Age, occupation, where are you from, where are you now? Older than I look. It’s the restful library jobs I’ve had over......

There's only one film we could kick off with this week and that film is...Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Ok, not really. Although we will get to that eventually. No, the film we're most interested in this week is David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. It's arthouse meets Hollywood with Vigo Mortensen, so it really shouldn't work. But somehow Cronenberg seems to have pulled it off, that is if this week's broadsheet reviews are anything......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. It's a bit of a slow week in the world of literary London, but never mind that, because we have tracked down a list of books that is sure to keep any lover of London satisfied for at least the next week, if not the next decade (see "Other News")... Events Around London: The......