If you're stumbling around department stores, going red and sweating with embarrassment as you try to choose the perfect piece of lingerie for your other girlfriend, then this Thursday help may be at hand. Both this week and next Thurs (20th Dec), John Lewis on Oxford Street are hosting a Lingerie Buying Academy for Men. With detailed instructions on how to gather the necessary information you need beforehand (check for size, colours, brands etc),......

Dusting off the snow from last year, every day this month the Londonist team will be pointing you in the direction of a Christmas present that (with a bit of luck) you won't already have on your list. Climb up onto our collective lap and we'll see what we can move from our sack to your stockings.. Heat things up in the bedroom of your metrosexual love with saucy, designer duvets from London based......

We're a little fed up of worthy awareness-raising 'days'. National Tuberous Sclerosis Awareness Week might be really important, but it doesn't really turn us on. National Ammo Day in the US sounds particularly unsavoury too - not just for the subject matter, but also, for some reason, because of the abbreviation. Over here, however, the rather wondrous Chocolate Week 2007 is almost upon us! Woo-hoo! Our excitement has been uncontainable. In fact, the only......

Well, ish. Don't get too excited. On Saturday night ITV went to film PRIMEVAL (the sci-fi series) in Kingson's branch of John Lewis - and paid them £5,000 for the privilege. We're not sure how many actual real live dinosaur models were used (if indeed any, in fact). These days the best dinosaur sequences are sadly worked out in some clever dick's imagination and then straight to CGI - so having a man run......

Naming babies after where they were conceived or where they born is slightly embarrassing. If the former, then it's rather too much information to present strangers with your child Pizza Hut Fire Escape. If it's the latter then there is the risk of bringing up a child called Minicab or Somewhere Between Car Park and Maternity Ward. Risky though it is, sometimes it can just about work in the child's favour. 32 year old......

The first ever London Games Festival will take place 2 - 7 October, bringing gamers out of their darkened bedrooms and forcing them to interact with one another in real life. This "celebration of interactive entertainment" not only hopes to draw the dedicated, unblinking gamer away from their consoles and into the real world, but also promises to cater for those working in the industry, parents who are baffled and bemused by what their......

There's the rest of today, all of tomorrow and all of Saturday. That's a little over two days to brace yourself and exercise your mental defences. When the clock strikes midnight and it officially becomes Sunday 26th March... that's it. It's going to be Mother's Day. Aren't mums lovely? That special lady who brought you into the world and looked after you, stayed up all night worrying and watching over you when you were......

With a huge Glastonbury shaped hole in the calendar this year and the faint promise of warm weather lingering on the horizon, it's time for Festival Season to slip into Wacky Races mode. With T In The Park and V 2006 neck and neck out in front, and Download and Monsters of Rock, rapidly rolling out the big guns (Guns 'n' Roses at Download anyone?) in second place, the others are trailing far behind.......

The body which represents West End retailers has made public its plans to improve the area by cutting traffic and creating more pedestrian areas. The New West End Company unveiled its 'stretegic study' called Choices for a Better West End (PDF) at the end of last week at an exhibition in John Lewis on Oxford Street. The exhibition (which is free and runs until the 18th) outlines "innovative and exciting ideas on how the......

Londonist was saddened to hear the news of the death of Sir John Mills over the weekend. It's difficult to think about the importance of British cinema without conjuring up an image of John Mills - as Captain of a submarine in We Dive at Dawn, Pip in Great Expectations, Pat Reid in The Colditz Story, taking that drink in Ice Cold in Alex... the list goes on. Over a hundred films as well......

Valentine's Day. What a nightmare. A nightmare for lonely singletons (and let's be honest, if you're new to London with no roots here, it can be a very lonely place): with the Post Office getting rid of the second post delivery, there's not even that tiny glimmer of hope to last you another few hours when cupid's failed to shoot his arrow through the letterbox in the morning delivery. And a nightmare for couples......