Fed up of the froth, mirth and sentimentality of the Yuletide muzak yet? To bring you an antidote and alternative soundtrack for your Christmas holidays we caught up with the utterly charming Roi Robertson of Mechanical Cabaret over a sorbet and peppermint tea and ruminated on the band's latest single, pastoral London views and the fact that we've never seen him and Noel Fielding in the same room together... Who's in the band? I......

Maxwell's Fullmooners has been running for some time at London's Comedy Store - audiences can expect Irish comedian Andrew Maxwell dressed in a cloak, hip hop dancers, a creepy singer with a ukulele called Lady Carol of the Moon, the 'concierge' Tim Fitzhigham (who we interviewed earlier this year) and a lot of werewolf style howling. The shows start at midnight and have been something of a cult hit. On November 24th an extra......

Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot... We know that today is Halloween and Bonfire Night is not until next week, but the truth is, most of the fireworks displays in London will happen before the big day. We've already told you about the display on Clapham Common and we wouldn't want you to miss out on the rest of......

Paris thinks it can take us on as a financial hub. Quand les cochons volent. Rare Faberge egg up for sale. Now, don't know about you, but we've never been able to take such things seriously since Viz's Tony Hadley Faberge pineapple. Anyone else remember that? Prince Harry is dead! In bronze at least. Alexandra Palace: nobody's ever really known what to do with it, and the pattern continues. Image courtesy of Homemade via......

Swami Ramdev Shibir has sold-out venues across Britain prior to even touching down in the UK. He is loved and revered by millions across the globe and some have paid up to £250 for the privilege of seeing him in person. The Eastern Robbie Williams? A Bollywood crooner? No, he is a yoga Guru and he is about to host what is going to be the world’s biggest yoga camp in Alexandra Palace in......

A festival weekend wouldn’t be complete without the threat of rain, but while fans at Wireless in Hyde Park mostly got away dry, 500 geeks at Alexandra Palace couldn’t escape Saturday's storm. Hack Day is a 36-hour marathon of coding, pizza, beer and music sponsored by Yahoo! and the BBC. But the festival gods weren’t about to spare us just because we were indoors. Instead they sent two bolts of lightning sizzling down onto......

Busy week for presales with everyone announcing their autumn tours. All tickets are on sale on Friday at 9am, unless otherwise stated. Klaxons are finishing off a triumphant year with a date at Brixton Academy on Wednesday 5th December, though expect more dates to be added quickly. They sold out four nights at Brixton earlier this year, now those mad Canadians known as Arcade Fire have announced a date at Alexandra Palace on Saturday November......

Lots on sale tomorrow morning and today, so straight in we go. First up, Smashing Pumpkins have announced a one off date at Shepherds Bush Empire on Tuesday 19th June, ahead of their (sure to be) sensational return to Reading and Leeds Festivals. Tickets are sure to go quickly, so make sure you're there are 9:30 tomorrow morning to catch them. Londonist favourite Mika has announced two London shows as part of a full UK......

What with March coming in like a lion and blowing everyone all over the place it's the ideal time to take to the water under sail power. Although there's plenty on offer for the seasoned small boat owner in this weekend's Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace there's also a determined effort to get new blood interested. In case you have visions of a depressing afternoon mooching around clunky wooden toy boats and garish......

Lesser known areas of the capital may be in store for an influx of tourists. A report from the London Assembly is urging Visit London to promote attractions outside Central London, and the Chair of the Assembly’s Economic Development, Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee, Dee Doocey, fully supports the findings: "Outer London is home to a range of attractions that are less obvious but just as worth a visit as those that central London......

The London Assembly is pondering what's going on with London's allotments. The Environment Committee is apparently going to look into whether allotments are disappearing to make way for things such as the Olympic Village in Stratford. With luck, they might even suggest what to do about it, because it'll be a little disappointing if the outcome of their investigation was 'Yup, they're disappearing,' and they left it at that. The timing is fortuitous (ok,......

Londoners are beginning to get used to the Oyster card. It took some time to digest the idea of "topping up" your little slip of plastic with weekly or monthly travelcards and what the hell Pre-pay is supposed to be, but with not too much fuss, the Oyster card has been absorbed into the London Underground fare system and is as much part of the system as the zones, delays on the Northern Line,......

Weirdly enough there's two articles in today's papers about how Britain is "in the grip" of an ice skating craze. In the Independent Jonathan Brown and Lucy Phillips are reporting on the "ice phenomenon" by conjuring up images from literary masterpieces such as Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, ("the author uses the love-struck Levin's prowess as a skater as a metaphor for passion as he vainly attempts to woo Kitty at Moscow's Zoological Gardens,") and Tom's......

With the music dungionistas breaking out their finest band t-shirts ahead of tomorrow's party and arguments breaking out over whether to play Outkast's version of Hey Ya or download a bootleg of The Twilight Singer's, we're going to use this week's MWMN to mention a few shows just announced as we really don't think we're going to make it on Friday. First off fans of Kaiser Chiefs will be able to pay homage at......

Get your bids in. The ‘ailing’ Alexandra Palace is now up for grabs, and is looking for someone to take on a 125 year lease. The Grade II-listed complex sits high atop Muswell Hill and is the major landmark of the area. But like Battersea Power Station and the Dome, it’s one of the great buildings of London that misses its full potential. So who’s going to buy it? Well, restrictions stipulate that the......

I think we can officially say it's a crap day out there today with only tonight's Mudhoney show at Koko to lift the steadily encroaching autumn blues. Tickets are still available for tomorrow if you fancy a heavy dose of SuperFuzz BigMuff. There's some additional good news just brought to us by a man wearing a horse's head to say that there's a rare chance to catch mediaval mayhem merchants Circulus at Health and......

Gigs, gigs, gigs, pay money and see shows. Unless of course they're free. You should always go and see free shows, especially if its the Editors this evening at 7pm at the Truman Brewery Complex on Brick Lane. Friends of ours keep haranguanging us about how good they are live but as always you should make your own minds up. Which you can only do by going. There, said done, on to Elbow. Elbow......

So it was the week that the Crazy Frog beat Coldplay to the number one slot, and suddenly everyone cares about the singles chart again! Still at least Coldplay's X&Y was leaked on to file sharing networks (not free music sites as you might like to call them) before Froggy has even hit the studio, so kudos to the band there. Of course it will mean that EMI's share prices will fall through the......

OK, so hands up all those who are going to get tickets for Billy Corgan's solo show in June (15th) at the Forum. Yeah, thought so. Old razor bonce himself has never really been forgiven for burning his t-shirts and inventing the Morpheus look 5 years too early. The jury's still out on whether his new solo outing thefutureembrace is going to disappoint the old Pumpkins fans even further but Londonist really liked Zwan......