If you're currently on a quiet holiday, suffering from a non-debilitating but house-binding condition or idling away your notice period doing as little work as possible, here's a challenge: you have until Saturday to design a flying machine to launch off a 6m high platform and plunge into the Serpentine for those wacky chaps at E4 who've been given a place in this year's Red Bull Flugtag. As the current UK champ Tim Simpson......

It was somehow appropriate that Bill Oddie should be in attendance to witness the final display of England's finest young songbird on the eve of her maiden migration to the winter warmth of Texas and California. Laura Marling closed her brief national tour on Sunday night playing to an audience entirely composed of purchasers of the lavish Songbox version of her debut album, "Alas, I Cannot Swim" in a performance at the Union Chapel......

An African Big Cat In London This weekend dear readers you are being offered a double dose of weirdness from the capital due to last week's mysterious missing episode... Today, we're back to strange exotic felids prowling the capital, after a report appeared on a cryptozoology-based website regarding an incident from 1995 pertaining to a very close encounter with a large, black leopard. Californian college student Matt Beloof was only twelve-years old at the......

We fell in love with Black Cab Sessions the moment we first heard of them. How could we not? Taking a drive around the best city in the world (okay, we're biased, yes) in a design classic with some of our favourite bands rockin' out in the back seat: it's exactly how we'd like to spend a lazy afternoon. Since we generally are unable to scrape together enough coins to even steal sideways glances......

The year was 1959, and in an often overlooked corner of Hackney, one of the world's most recognisable Hollywood beauties was bringing just a touch of Californian colour to a peculiarly English affair: a budgie show. Jayne Mansfield, living in London while making the film Too Hot To Handle, was invited to the All Saints church in Haggerston in September 1959 to help judge the East London Budgerigar and Foreign Birds Society show. Michael......

And we’re not just talking about the hills of the Chankly Bore. Londoners are being advised to batten down the hatches on Monday morning, when a rather ferocious weather front is predicted to romp across the UK. The Met Office has gotten all serious on us. After that weather forecast, they have of course been awfully careful, but this seems to be more than the normal, jovial ‘wrap-up-a-bit-warmer’ banter. And even our favourite meteorological website......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, royal bodice-ripper The Other Boleyn Girl, zombies ahoy in Diary of the Dead, multiple viewpoint assassination thriller Vantage Point and The Rock doing one for the kids in The Game Plan. Don’t expect to learn much history in The Other Boleyn Girl, a film James Christopher in the Times describes as a “ravishing piece of trash” in his 2-star review. The......

The Royal British Society of Sculptors? No, we hadn't heard of its existence either. Well, if there exists a Royal Society of Holographers, there must be a Royal Society for this slightly more ancient artistic medium. With its headquarters tucked away in on Old Brompton Road in West London, it has existed for just over 100 years and currently has over 500 members. They are working sculptors, from all over the world (they removed......

Our environmentally sustainable Mayor is taking on the IOC bigwigs who are demanding VIP fast lanes for a fleet of up to 3000 cars "to take officials, politicians and corporate sponsors to venues" at the 2012 Games. No fool he, cunningly waiting until they'd finished their progress inspection and given a favourable verdict earlier this week. He's not diving headlong into a fight though, preferring to wait until the Beijing Olympics are over this......

As part of a multi-billion pound investment programme, the cross-city Thameslink line is to get a brand new fleet of trains. Southern Railway, who will be operating the new stock when it comes into service next spring, will deploy 44 carriages to run northwards to Bedford instead of terminating in Blackfriars as they presently do. Good news for commuters who do the daily yo-yo up and down Thameslink's fifty-odd station route. However, we were......

It’s a common myth that Londoners get the best of everything: we don’t. Only 65% of the capital’s parents are getting their first choice of school for their sprogs. As opposed to 87% elsewhere. Neasden’s glorious Hindu temple wins the inaugural Pride of Place award. Rada best look to its laurels as a new acting school is coming to town. A Bollywood academy is to open in Ealing. Padded lamp-posts are being trialed in......

The Met’s Olympic security chief has plans and he’s been outlining them. In Abu Dhabi. The Chocolate Wrapper Killers have been put away. As has the First Date Murderer. The first sign of a financial hiccough, and and the non-doms will be off. Apparently. A man with an over-friendly doggy has been stabbed. Mesdames et Messieurs, le Tour de France est de retour. Well, maybe. Mostly sobering news this evening. Try not to let......

Seems like Monday was a good day for album launch shows. Whilst Londonista Dave was experiencing the fragile ether-eality of Goldfrapp in Union Chapel, we were in the slightly less salubrious surroundings of HMV Oxford Street, where a reed thin moustachioed man is hopping up and down preaching hell and damnation, or at least something about scissors and prolix, next to some guru-esque sixties serial killer lookalike who's doing strange things to strange things.......

As we mentioned briefly before, Thursday brings the East 2008 Festival. For six days, a cornucopia of performances, exhibitions, workshops, food and other events ensures entertainment with emphasis on promotion of the best of East London. Here’s our pick of the mix: 6th March: F-EAST - artists Wiebke and Nicholas Morgan cook a meal from 12 recipes from a Nigel Slater cookbook, and serve it for visitors as an exploration into ownership and the......

There's masses going on for us culture vultures to choose from this week. First Thursdays As it's the start of March, it's First Thursdays this week. More than 80 galleries and museums will be open til 9pm across East London. We recommend John Squire's (yes, him from the Stone Roses) Re-engineered Garments; alternatively, pretend you're an alien at the Barbican. The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art opens this Thursday. East is East East London's......

Fancy a trip to Israel? But don't fancy lining up at LHR to pile onto a tedious flight? This might be what you're looking for: a car rally from London to Jerusalem - in vintage vehicles, no less! As part of the State of Israel's 60th Independence Day, the Jewish National Fund is aiming to raise some £250,000 for residents of the Negev desert. Hence this 18 day rally, during which drivers will meander......

As a parochial and unglamorous antidote to the Hollywood Oscars that took place last weekend, London Underground was crowned Public Transport Operator of the Year at what LUL are desperately trying to sex up as the "transport Oscars" but are actually more prosaically known as the London Transport Awards. The MD of LUL explained they had scooped the gong for: delivering a record volume of service, carrying more passengers than ever before, while at......

For those of you with a penchant for furniture with an artistic flair or pretty but undeniably useless knick-knacks, your mecca is open for this weekend only. FORM: London - which takes over Olympia National Hall until 2 March - falls somewhere between massive gallery experience and fantasy shopping excursion. Featuring items from understated hand-carved furniture to large-scale paintings to surreal centre pieces. And everything can be taken home if the contents of your......

Sorry, sorry, sorry. We just can't help it. Tox spotting is our annual hobby. As usual, the moronic tag is plastered all along the Regents Canal, and we spotted it on the side of a Tube train the other day. This plucky yet monotonous scamp (or perhaps a one-trick phoney) just doesn't know when to quit.......

All I do each night is pray...hoping that I'll be electable again some day. The highlight of the mayoral election week came at the Evening Standard’s Influentials Debate at the RSA on Monday, when Ken Livingstone told LBC breakfast host Nick Ferrari why he doesn’t drive. He revealed that he’d tried cars when a young man because he’d thought it would help him to get girls, but in the end had decided to “concentrate on......

Ah, the transformative powers of education. Last week, we saw the kiddies philosophizing. This week, we learn of prison inmates dramatizing. And this isn’t just any kind of dramatizing, nor is this just any prison: This is Shakespeare as performed by the inmates of the California State Correctional System, in collaboration with the London Shakespeare Workout Prison Project. Forgive us our naiveté if upon spotting this photo we weren’t immediately reminded of a scene......

Fortunately, there are as yet no news reports of the sky tumbling down. No, it wasn’t a case of a bad couple of pints you got at the pub yesterday evening, nor was it the magnitude of the moment you were sharing with that special someone – the earth literally did move last night. Registering in at a 5.3, according to the British Geological Survey, it is the largest earthquake the UK has experienced......

As much-loved venues like the Spitz and Hammersmith Palais closed their doors forever last year, we began to worry that the small gig would one day become an endangered species. One of our favourite things to do in this great city is to pack into a tiny, sweaty club and damage our hearing as much as possible before last orders. Without that in our lives... well, we'd probably be loads more productive with our......

A night of beatboxing sponsored by Becks Vier is unfolding this Thursday at the Vibe Bar's new upstairs lounge. Human beatbox Shlomo will be performing with his awesome sounding Vocal Orchestra, in what should be the largest group of beatboxers ever assembled on one stage in Britain. This is an invite-only affair, but the organisers have kindly sorted us with a spare few tickets for Londonist readers. To get your hands on one of......

As winter's days grow increasingly numbered, it's the time of year when our thoughts must turn toward formulating a survival plan for the most gig-loaded two days we know: the Camden Crawl. Back for its 7th year from 18 - 19 April, Camden Crawl 2008 will see 130 artists playing across the festival's 25 venues along with, for the first time, the addition of an outdoor stage. A variety of daytime activities are planned......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. M Manzes 87 Tower Bridge Road SE1 4TW 020 7407 2985 Nearest Tube: Borough Mon: 11am - 2pm Tue-Thurs: 10.30am - 2pm Fri: 10am - 2.30pm Sat: 10am - 2.45pm Expect to Pay: Between £2.70 and £4.90 for pie and mash, £3.20 for eels and mash. Rating: 9 out of 10 Ahh traditional London fare. Food born out of......

This Londonista popped to Terminal 5 at Heathrow - due to open in a month's time - and live-blogged about it: It's 7.35am on a grey Saturday morning, and I'm on the piccadilly line. Sure - there are better things to do with my time, but I'm off to be a fake passenger and so to have a nosey around a new iconic building that swishly calls itself 'T5'. It's almost an airport in......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… This week, Stallone takes us back to a simpler age in Rambo, Jack Black goes pretend low budget in Be Kind Rewind, Bono gets his ego blasted out in 3D in U2-3D and Norah Jones stops singing to make her acting debut in My Blueberry Nights. What option does a faded Eighties action hero really have other than one last trip to his......

It's a lovely Saturday afternoon, but if you're sitting in front of your computer, wondering what to do with your day, never fear! Londonist is here, and we've found a most entertaining online game for you. Channel 4 has created Bow Street Runner, a game to accompany the City of Vice series, and it's almost as fun as the programme. As with any online game, your experience is going to be limited by the......

East is the new West. You read it here second. The battle begins. To save our post offices that is. Londonist is certainly not going to walk further or queue longer. Porsche versus Ken. This should be interesting. As another youth dies by the knife in Woolwich, gang members are consulted in Lambeth. Somethinng’s gotta give, that’s for sure. Pint in Peckham courtesy of Mot the Hoople’s flickr photo stream.......