Autumn is a time for changes, and things are a bit odd in the world of cheap London fun this week. The audience is playing the music, our insides are on the outside, activists are stuck in the wrong century, and people are dancing where they shouldn't. Get your shallow pockets out there and enjoy the season of flux. Friday: Dance Umbrella remains as good as ever at providing something bonkers for your lunch......

Have we been giving you too many chances to win things of late? Seems no one - NOT A ONE OF YOU - was interested in getting a free copy of a 2 year old comedy DVD, even though it would be free, delivered to your door and make you look like you were interested in human rights as well as laughing. All you had to do was fill in a form and make......

Fear not the brief absence: London on the Cheap now comes to you on Thursdays, so you'll be freshly equipped for the weekend. Let's do this thing. Friday: The Little Angel Theatre, Islington's home of miniature performance with some strings attached, continues their run of Sleeping Beauty with 50-year-old marionettes and Tchaikovsky on the mini-harpsichord. If you can make it to the 5:00 performance on a Friday, tickets are only £5. Saturday: Do you......

Here’s a chance to win a free Moscow Mule Cocktail Kit courtesy of Smirnoff, who wants to celebrate the Moscow Mule with Londonist readers. Much like the average Londonist reader, the Moscow Mule is particularly stylish and refreshing, comprised of vodka, ginger ale and a wedge of fresh lime. Smirnoff’s cocktail kit contains a bottle of triple distilled Smirnoff vodka and two cans of Schweppes Canada Dry Ginger Ale plus a selection of stainless......

On Tuesday, artist Nils Norman will be giving a talk at London Transport Museum, discussing his public commissions and poster artworks, including 'Ideal City' and 'Fantasy Piccadilly Line' for Piccadilly Underground station and Piccadilly line trains. You and A.N.Other can be there for free by entering the no strings, no stress, no question, no problem giveaway below. We'll pick a winner on Monday lunchtime and notify them by email. You need to be able......

Cheers to Dave Hodgkinson, who after winning a pair tix from us for a gourmet food & wine tasting with Jimmy Doherty at Vinopolis was thoughtful enough to post a review of the event on his blog and to give us a heads up. Looks good, Dave. We’re glad you had a good time.......

As of tomorrow lunchtime - an wonderfully apt time to start - London's first slow food market will be installed outside the Royal Festival Hall and thus commences the Festival of Food long weekend on the South Bank. As well as opportunities to buy fresh, sustainable and traditionally prepared food there's also a plethora of foodie fun things too: cooking demonstrations, cookery book signings, talks on chickens and truffles, music to slow down to,......

Here’s a chance to win a copy of Charles Campion’s London Restaurant Guide 2009 (which we think is particularly useful for finding the right place to dine in London). Simply click here to take a quick survey . Complete the super quick 'n' easy survey by 5pm on Wednesday 24 September 2008. Then, we’ll randomly select a winner. Good Luck!......

To celebrate their UK launch, Allrecipes – the world’s largest social network of food and entertaining enthusiasts – is offering one lucky Londonist reader the chance to win a Waitrose voucher worth £200. They’ve rolled out other competitions as well but this one is for Londonist readers only. Check it! All ya gotta do is answer the following foodie questions and then crack the secret code by taking the first letter of each answer.......

Free gigs ahoy! The Pipettes have announced they're to play a date at Koko on September 2 and the best bit is it's free! Well, kind of. You do have to pay a £2.50 postage fee (!) but for that you can bagsy yourself four tickets to see the new Pipettes 3.0 line-up courtesy of AOL. There's two further acts playing that night that are yet to be announced but we're hoping one of......

Jimmy Doherty from the BBC2 show Jimmy's Farming Heroes will host a gourmet food and wine tasting event at Vinopolis … and Londonist wants you to be there. The event will take place on Sunday 14th September, with sessions at noon and 3pm. Known for his traditional farming methods and rearing rare breed pigs such as Gloucester Old Spots, Saddlebacks and Essex pigs, Jimmy will share his insight about traditional farming in the modern......

With their newly opened kitchen, N1 favourite, Edinburgh Cellars (125 Newington Green Road, N1 4RA) is offering a free bottle of house wine with their Sunday roasts when you book a table of four. They've got lamb, beef, chicken and veggie options. For more info, visit www.theedinburghcellars.co.uk.......

Daisy Durham, her sister Kitty and her brother Lewis have been hanging around on the periphery of the big-time for a good while now. Resembling the imaginary love-children of Elvis and Greta Garbo, the inordinately talented, precocious teen trio were signed to the Sunday Best label in 2005. A million live shows later, the bands are finally poised to release their debut album, which promises to be a joyous jumping bean of a record,......

We are very excited about this year's Nationwide Mercury Music Prize nominations. Not only did we personally manage to guess 9 out of 12 correctly, but some Londonist favourites are nicely sitting in the mix with the unnervingly young Laura Marling, the mighty Elbow, dazzling jazz stars Portico Quartet and dubstep hero Burial all on the list. What we're really excited about is the inclusion of Neon Neon - Gruff Rhys and Boom Bip's......

When we heard about the Battersea Power Station was to be open to the public (thanks Annie Mole!) over the past weekend, we rushed down with camera ready. And, yes indeed, the iconic landmark was there to be roamed around in all its massive glory. The folks putting on the show made us check out a presentation on the station’s future and sign a waiver before letting us but they were nice enough to......

Despite the fact that Londonist’s favourite London tapas bar - Laxeiro - wasn’t vending, Tapas Fantasticas at the Old Truman Brewery presented a delicious opportunity to sample some of the best tapas in London as well as some especially gorgeous tapas from the Rioja region of Spain. To wash all those tasty tapas down, about 20 wineries from Rioja were kindly on hand with an impressive range of vino – from perky whites to......

As if you crazy kids required yet another reason to rub elbows on hipster row (aka Brick Lane), Tapas Fantasticas 2008 will be on this Saturday and Sunday at Ely’s Yard round the back of the Old Truman Brewery. Dubbed a celebration of Spanish food, wine and lifestyle, this free fiesta might be just the happening to get you in the mood for Sunday night’s Spain v Germany Euro final. From noon to six,......

If you're passing through Leicester Square station tomorrow lunchtime you could be forgiven for doing an aural double take when your usual guitar, accordion or didgeridoo busker is replaced by an immaculate viola quartet from the London Symphony Orchestra. Don't worry, they're not down on their luck. It's all part of the build up to the Proms and LSO musicians will be dispatched all over London to give impromptu free performances in unexpected places......

Thanks to a little weather system named Gale Naruporn the coming week of summer is looking less predictable than ever. As conditions could switch between sunny and nasty at the drop of a windsock, here's a special edition of London On The Cheap with both indoor and outdoor activities to assure you'll make the most of the week no matter what blows in. Monday: Outdoors, National Insect Week launches at the Chelsea Physic Garden......

When bands get hyped beyond normality they can become pretty annoying, particularly if like New Young Pony Club you don't really have anything to back it up. The Ting Tings are the latest example of mega hypedom. From Salford, they formed previously hyped but failed band Dear Eskiimo before deciding to start afresh and sign with Columbia Records. Catch us on a Friday night and there's no doubt we'll be jumping about to 'Great......

There's never enough time in London: never enough time to have a proper lunch during the day, never enough time to play with the kids, never enough time to stop and stare... Or is there? To buck the trend and show you that it is possible to fit in a bit of art appreciation between the end of work and falling asleep on the sofa in front of the 10 o'clock news, there is......

Londonist brings it on home. Karaam 71 New Broadway W5 5AL Delivery Area: Free delivery W5 and W13 0208 566 4433 12pm – 11.30pm Expect to Pay: £19 for 2 people – that's 3 small/ med starters and one main each. Minimum Delivery Spend: £15 Rating: 9 out of 10 Ok we heart this company. We loved their food, it was beautifully presented for a takeout, delivery was fast (for a Sat night) and......

Hooray for 4 day weeks! And hooray for many seasonal celebrations. If only it would stop raining we'd be radiant with joy. This week we definitely can't afford to see the glorious New York City Ballet at the Coliseum (up to £95 a ticket!) so we made do with the reviews. Neither can we cover the costs of a bank holiday break away from the city but, hell - why would we want to......

There are just too many good events around town this week for us to narrow our picks for certain nights. Thus we present you with multiple options and leave that difficult choice to you. In the meantime, we’ll be brushing up on our science fiction in an effort to figure out how to move quickly from event to event. The solution? Teleporting. Clearly. Monday: writLoud returns to RADA tonight. We like this event, as......

It's been a strange ol' week for Londonist music-wise. On Monday we got worried about a rise in nightclub violence, on Tuesday caught Goldfrapp at Union Chapel, on Wednesday caught Nick Cave at HMV and on Thursday got excited about a new-ish club night at Three Blind Mice. Looking ahead to this week however, Monday sees Panic At the Disco and Kate Nash play sold out shows at the Roundhouse and Hammersmith Apollo respectively, whilst......

A man rolls into a bar. Sounds like the start of a dumb joke? It’s not. Wheelchair-enabled people like going out in the evening as much as anybody. What does appear to be a joke is how difficult it can be to find info about wheelchair accessible pubs et al in London. We did a bit of online snooping and were dismayed by the lack of resources out there. What material we did come......

It's officially Spring and by Pisces it's lovely out there in the sunshine. Crocuses have been spotted in Highbury Fields so our biggest recommendation for expenditure light trips this week is get to the parks and into the gardens and witness the miracles of the changing seasons. If you're in need of more artificial stimulation, however, and are squirrelling all your spare cash into your ISA before the end of the tax year then......

Time was when getting into the Guinness Book of World Records really meant something. You had to walk 130 kilometres with a milk bottle balanced on your head. Or keep on teasing the ladies with your Hot Stuff routine well into your sixties in order to qualify as the world’s Oldest Male Stripper. Now, it seems, all you have to do is drink a cup of coffee. At least we know that we all......

Even on its quietest weeks, London is something of a happy haven for bibliophiles such as ourselves, though we may be doing nothing more than perusing one of the city’s many lovely bookshops. This week, however, we’re in a veritable book geek heaven, as the London literary scene goes all glittery, playing host to some major names and fantastic events, leaving us tongue-tied and weak at the knees. Do we gush? Very well then,......

Following the Oscars this weekend there are free film screenings all over town this week. Edify thyself and make new friends running across 5 different genres of movie for no expenditure whatsoever. Monday: The Duke Mitchell Film Club is holding heist night at the Cross Kings Bar on York Way with a long lost Italian heist movie "Seven Golden Men". The film starts at 8pm but there's also a "trailer trash" collection of vintage......