Four weeks till Christmas! Argh. Funds are all focused on present buying and getting through the party season but we still want to go out and about because the heating isn't working properly at home. We can't afford to go and see Gandalf drop his trousers in King Lear but, thankfully, there's lots of cheap and interesting stuff about as usual. Monday: Start the week with an event truly in the spirit of London......

& BOO for the City. The former has just come top of the class for the least amount of waste sent to landfill (just 7% - the lowest in the country), whilst the latter has apparently buried a whopping 93% of its refuse (which is the highest in the country). Tower Hamlets is also featured in the league of shame as it is home to the smallest percentage of households who recycle (11.8%). Councils need......

Ever stop to wonder about the legacy of romantic comedy ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’? Every other minute of your work week? Well, you’re in luck, as today’s the day that Londonist tackles this very question. Sort of. Mild-mannered examination of love and marriage in the 1990s? Check. Perpetuator of the stereotype of the fumbling, floppy-haired English male? Check. Beyond that, though, the movie’s legacy becomes a bit more jumbled, as evidenced by recent......

Fans of pomp and circumstance will line the streets of the City tomorrow to watch one of London’s fine old traditions unfold. Each year, the City of London gets a new Lord Mayor (most certainly not to be confused with the more well-known mayor who inhabits the glass testicle near Tower Bridge). Indeed, the office of Lord Mayor is so tied up in the ceremonial that the official web site doesn’t even bother to......

Had TfL existed in his time, the great Samuel Johnson may well have amended his famous aphorism to read "a man who is bored of London needs to hop on the number 19 bus". In its perambulation from Battersea to Finsbury Park, the 19 cuts a swath across the capital's economic and cultural barriers, revealing the world within one city that modern London manifests. Vogue has certainly been impressed by the number 19. The......

Well Londonist has run two animal stories into one here, on account of not wanting to look like we’ve gone soft. And to keep all parties happy, there’s a doggy one, and a kitty one. Although the cat one is actually rather sad: the business of an abused and diseased kitten which was abandoned to die at a West London recycling depot gets us as full of passion and anger as the next daft, animal-mad......

He may be fond of lazy generalisations when it comes to Northern towns or foreign countries, but Boris Johnson can't be accused of being idle himself. Beneath that languid public persona lies a hard-working, sleeves-rolled-up, can-do kinda guy, as demonstrated by his vow yesterday that - despite his candidacy for mayor of London - he would not give up his seat in Parliament in the event of a snap election. Speaking about the good......

Months of research and workshops run by writer Justin Young and director Suzanne Gorman have created Moonwalking In Chinatown, an extraordinary walkabout performance which leads audiences through Chinatown in the dusk behind bobbing paper lanterns and a variety of actors and stewards. Four overlapping stories for four simultaneous groups, each led by a different coloured lantern, have to weave through the early evening Soho crowds. The range of characters and multiple storylines and also......

There was very little else for Londonist to be concerned with when the threat of a Tube strike became a very unpleasant reality. The inconvenience was extreme: there aren't many alternatives to the Tube in London despite the best efforts of the Londonist team to get everyone from A to B. Brighter news came in the form of the first ever female Yeoman Warder, or Beefeater as the position is more commonly known, and......

This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 14. Poll-itics Well, I did a quick little poll this week amongst group of 26 professional people aged 20 – 35. Just to ask them what they thought were the most and least important issues to the following parties: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, Socialist, BNP and UKIP. The results produced from this (admittedly tiny)......

Clouds were billowing over Park Royal yesterday afternoon when a blaze broke out in a warehouse. The fire took hold quickly and spread to two neighbouring companies, triggering the widespread evacuation of the area. It took 20 fire engines and over 100 firefighters to bring matters under control, and the area was still smouldering and pretty much sealed off this morning. The cause of the fire is still being investigated, but it is believed to......

Worrying news for one of our country’s top gourmet icons. Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant in Chelsea, called simply Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, has lost some of its brownie points, according to the latest edition of ‘Harden’s London Restaurants’. Love-him-or-hate-him-Ramsay has been undisputed king of the London restaurant scene for nearly ten years. Take a large measure of chefly talent, whisk it with lashings of colourful personality, and then cook up with a generous helping of......

Having seen and enjoyed Room 110 in the Camden Fringe Festival yesterday, we continue with our non-Scottish fringe theatre foray with some more new writing. Consisting of three consecutive monologues, Hostage/ Bleach / Burn has only half as many scripts as Room 110 but is equal in power and fringe theatre spirit. Canadian writer Heather Taylor, director Gareth Corke and the three cracking actors Peter Henderson (Hostage), Samantha Wright (Bleach) and Matthew Bulgo (Burn)......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th July 1966: England defeat West Germany in the FIFA World Cup Final at Wembley Stadium, claiming the Jules Rimet Trophy (and, of course, the status of Football World Champions for the next four years). Tuesday – 31st July 1962: Violence erupts at a rally of the Union Movement (formerly known as the British Union of Fascists) in Dalston, East London. Sir Oswald Mosely, leader of the......

Curated by Kevin Quigley, The Way I See It is a new festival of performance and live art which caught our eye as something a little different for the weekend. While the weather remains glum and grey, it's up to us to find the things that will bring a smile back to your faces - so how about this? The Way I See It is a series of performances and artworks that allow the......

Oh god. Make it stop. Please. Just. Make. It. Stop. Hundreds of misguided youths have been giving it everything they've got in recent auditions, in order to land a part in a new musical following the adventures of a fictional Take That band. Young men have been dancing and singing their hearts out in the hope that they will be chosen as "The One Who Looks A Bit Like Howard" and "The One Who......

Imagine the sights and the smells of the world’s largest and most expanding city. A city full of promise, the streets paved with the fragments of young men and women’s dreams. And other people's filth. This is Dickensian London during the serialisation of Oliver Twist, 1837-1839. See Fagin and his band of merry child thieves cheerily skipping though the streets, picking pockets and singing away as if they knew that Anti Social Behaviour Orders......

A tribute to the capital’s alleys, ginnels and snickleways. 34. West End Lane to Dresden Close Where? Off the beaten track this week, to the railway hinterland beside the O2 Centre, NW6. What? Could this be London's grimmest passage? The tiled chute - last seen in the finalé to Star Wars - has purpose built kinks to conceal knifey hood-yoofs. Each brick is artfully decorated with the tag of some local scally. To the south......

Quick! Where‘s your Oyster card? Haven’t got one? Not for long. London's mayor is to give away 100,000 free Oyster cards, which offer cheaper travel on public transport. Ken Livingstone said the cards had revolutionised travel in London, speeding up buses and Tubes and reducing queues. Since the financial merits of having an Oyster card aren’t really debatable anymore, the only thing left to ask is: are you for an increase in the widespread......

Recently, Robert Mugabe hasn't done much to live up to his British knighthood. He did provide us with one of our very favourite websites (loving the clipart animated flag, keep up the good work) but even that can't make up for the 3000% inflation, the beatings, the collapse of agriculture, land confiscation and mass starvation. In short, the man is a gigantic knob. Of course, Robert likes to blame all these things (the dire......

We pride ourselves at Londonist in being able to bring you, sometimes before anyone else jumps on the bandwagon, the more exciting stuff to see in unexpected parts of London. Promenade performances in abandoned warehouses, improvised Eastern European theatre in old abbatoirs. Robots, dancers and wired up sci-fi violins in St Bart's Great Hall. Um... well, how about this? Glassbody: A performance installation in the atrium of Guy's Hospital that involves obstetrics ultrasound technology.......

A tribute to the capital’s alleys, ginnels and snickleways 20. Faulkner's Alley Where? Runs parallel to Turnmill Street, between Cowcross Street and Benjamin Street. What? Wooooo! Spooky, eh? And so it should be. This little shortcut is 350 years old, predating the Great Fire. This part of Cowcross Street would have then overlooked the River Fleet, which today lies buried beneath the Metropolitan Line tracks. Back then, herds of cattle would have been herded daily......

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 Londonist Literary List appears (almost) every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. STOP THE PRESS: We have a late edition to the list, "Golden Handcuffs - Scandals, Drugs & Lies" by Polly Courtney is being launched on Thursday 12 - 2pm and promises "A cynical, gritty look at what it really means to sell your soul to the city." D202, St. Clements Building, London School......

This week - Borat visits the USA (Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan) and British rom-com set on Hampstead Heath, (Scenes of a Sexual Nature). When we saw the posters for this on the tube, with five star reviews from the News of the World and the Mirror, we were ready for this to be shit. Turns out it's ok though, who'd have thought? All of the reviewers......

Londonist went to see Caroline, or Change at the National Theatre -- Happy 30th N.T.! -- on Monday night and was slightly less entranced than the rest of the London critics. If it's a rave you seek, you can find plenty over at What's On Stage's round-up. While we appreciated the human elements of Tony Kushner's tale of Caroline, an African-American maid to a Jewish family in 1963 Louisiana, and Jeanine Tesori's inventive motown/gospel/klesmer......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Is it Booker Longlist season again? Drum roll please... Peter Carey Theft: A Love Story Kiran Desai The Inheritance of Loss Robert Edric Gathering the Water Nadine Gordimer Get a Life Kate Grenville The Secret River MJ Hyland Carry Me Down Howard Jacobson Kalooki Nights James Lasdun Seven Lies Mary Lawson The Other Side......

Time Out have announced the details of their 'London on Screen' season designed to celebrate "the very best of filmmaking in London from across the decades": The streets, buildings and monuments of our city appear regularly in films from around the world, from big-budget Hollywood movies seeking a European interlude to Bollywood films looking for a dose of European 'exoticism'. But it's much rarer to see a film in which a filmmaker, British or......

These listings appear every Wednesday. If you want to let us know about any upcoming science or technology events, you can contact us on LondonistSciTech@Gmail.com Avast! Could this be the shortest Cogito ever? Just three events this week. Probably a good thing as lecture theatres are the last place to be in a heatwave. If you do want some science action this week, the Dana Centre is your only hope. (No, there is another…we’ll......

Big Brother (Fri 8.30pm/10pm C4): Just when we were starting to tire of Lea's monotone Black Country whine and Nikki's helium hyperenunciation ... As everyone and her pet terrapin knows, there will be FIVE - count 'em, FIVE - new housemates unveiled to the viewing public tonight, with either Susie or Aisleyne joining the new House in the mythic land that lies On The Other Side Of The Diary Room. It's probably going to......