A rainy bank holiday really isn’t fair, is it? We feel very strongly that you should stay in for the rest of the week, in protest of nature’s unfairness. We’re sure nature will take the notice and reward our protest with better weather. That’s how it works, right? On TV, Londonist likes: Tuesday, 27 May Gordon Ramsay’s F Word (Channel 4, 21:00-22:00) McFly joins Gordon in the kitchen this week, along with Janet Street-Porter......

Prior to Mohamad al-Fayed's sensational appearance at the Royal Courts of Justice this week, with his sober critiques and totally non-insane, honest-to-Gawd guaranteed truthful claims of murder most foul, the hitherto dull proceedings of the Diana Inquiry have been enlivened by John Loughrey. Mr. Loughrey describes himself as "Diana's Number One fan", and in living proof of his dedication to what is clearly a hotly contested title, he has attended every single sodding day......

Hang on to your TLSs. Literary London is a lioness roaring in a few weeks ahead of her regularly scheduled appearance in March. With both the London Word Festival and Jewish Book Week launching this week, we’ve got enough events in our diary to keep us busy until spring. Keep an eye on this space as we highlight our favourites from these festivals over the next couple of weeks. Monday: You want poetry? RADA’s......

Our weekly roundup of film reviews returns, courtesy of James Bryan… After its Statue of Liberty beheading sensation of a trailer, the internet-hyped Cloverfield finally arrives. For the uninitiated, the film follows a group of young hip New Yorkers whose loft party is rudely interrupted when a big scary monster decides to munch his (her?) way through Manhattan. The big idea is that it’s all shot as if captured on one of the characters......

As we ease out of the austerity, self-denial and penny-pinching of January, so too the arts world comes even further out of its shell. This week sees a whole host of exciting openings. Take your pick; payday's passed and February's just round the corner! Be the first Gilbert and Sullivan's hilarious opera about love, corrupt local government, marriage, executions and heroics, The Mikado comes to the Gielgud Theatre from Wednesday. Alistair McGowan stars as......

Pigeons may be flying rats to Ken Livingstone and thousands of other Londoners - but to some, they are war heroes. And worth a pretty penny in portrait form. Oil paintings depicting the birds who flew back and forth during two world wars, acting as spies and messengers have been sold at auction for astonishing prices. Sold by Bonhams auction house, the eight oil paintings were purchased mostly by an unnamed buyer who placed......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 5th November 1605: Following a tip-off, a party of armed men led by a Justice of the Peace discover Guy Fawkes guarding a large amount of gunpowder and incendiary materials in the vaults under the House of Lords. Tuesday – 6th November 1869: Queen Victoria opens Blackfriars Bridge, and then Holborn Viaduct. Wednesday – 7th November 1783: John Austin, having been convicted for ‘cruel highway robbery’, becomes......

Welcome to Londonist, your premier source for sculpture news. Michael Moore's new film, Sicko, is now on general release. The flick's marketing campaign is as viral as some of the unfortunates from the healthcare system it depicts. Viz, a selection of London's statues have been bandaged up like so many wounded soldiers. Interesting idea, but we just hope the recent spate of Biggerm/2006/01/another_one_of.php#comments">sculpture theft isn't some marketing game for the next series of Lost.......

Attention, sufferers of controller-thumb and Wii-wrist: the London Games Festival is here to make your condition even worse. From the 22nd of October to the 2nd of November organisers will be laying on talks, music and exhibitions celebrating the culture of gaming. Many of the events are geared towards those in the industry, but there’s also plenty to please the civilian gamer, especially in the festival fringe. And we can’t help but approve of......

Just out the Van: Autumn is definitely upon us - time to start wrapping up at home with a good book. Or you could throw caution to the (nippy) wind and head to Book Slam next Thursday to bask in the warm glow of literati (gliterati?) including Sarfraz Manzoor (reading from his memoir "Greetings from Bury Park"), Zimbabwean singer-songwriter Netsayi, and poet Polar Bear... Next Thursday at Neighbourhood, £5/£6, 12 Acklam Road, W10 5QZ,......

As part of the ongoing campaign to stop music venue The Spitz closing down, everyone's favourite geeky toy last.fm are getting involved with a special support gig tonight at the venue. Last.fm founders Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel are ex-promoters at the venue so throwing a fundraiser with some high charting last.fm new talent seemed like a perfect idea. So tonight from 7 till midnight, The Spitz will be home to a veritable selection......

If you're a first-time buyer looking to get onto the property ladder, you may be interested to know that Witanhurst, the 94 year old Georgian-style Highgate mansion, and second largest private residence in London (the largest being the Queen's gaff), has been sold to Marcus Cooper for an estimated £32 million. His firm The Cooper Group plan to "restore and develop Witanhurst beyond its former glory", and transform it into the capital's first £150......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 2nd July 1865: One-time Methodist minister William Booth preaches to a large crowd at an open-air ‘mission’ in Whitechapel, founding the ‘East London Christian Mission’, which would later be renamed ‘The Salvation Army’. Tuesday – 3rd July 1981: A punk concert at the Hamborough Tavern in Southall, West London, leads to fighting between skinheads and Asian youths. The riot is just one of many violent ‘uprisings’ to......

The tenth anniversary of the Globe (what do you mean, you haven't been yet?!) is being celebrated with a series of plays grouped under the heading Renaissance and Revolution. The Merchant of Venice is the second of the Bard's pieces to open in the season, following the recent Othello, with Love Labour's Lost bringing up the rear when it starts on 1st July. This production of The Merchant of Venice easily surpasses the Othello;......

Busy week for music as bands start to warm up for the massive festival known as Glastonbury next weekend. Monday night sees Pearl Jam grace Wembley Arena, with support coming more than ably from the brilliant Idlewild. Tickets are sold out; however as always check for a last minute allocation or Scarlet Mist for a fair deal. Doors are at 6pm. Everyone’s favourite Liverpudlians The Coral grace the Astoria as a warm up for Glastonbury,......

Go visit the newly reopened Potters Fields, beside Tower Bridge. The space itself is neatly landscaped (at a cost of £3 million) and offers impressive views. But the reason we commend it with all our heart(s) is the entertainment. Specifically, ‘Get Lost’ – a walk through comedy-theatre experience that ‘may scare young children’. It’s set in a maze, populated by bizarre characters. We’re not going to tell you anything more about it, other than......

We know people can love their pets a great deal and this morning, we have learned of how far a dog owner is willing to go to protect his puppy pal. About as far as the nearest police station, if you are Jose Mourinho. Mourinho, Chelsea Football manager, was arrested last night for obstructing police when two officials tried to remove his Yorkshire terrier dog from his home as it was suspected of entering......

Eurovision 2007 is on. Here's the first of Londonist's previews of this year's entries, and there's already some amazing songs. Bulgaria send an ethnic rave song with vocals that are mere sound effects built into the heavily drummed mix. It's quite amazing.Israel's controversial entry sounds like 5 songs in one. Sounding like a bargain bin Gogol Bordello, Push The Button by Teapacks mixes rap, rock, drum and bass, jaunty pop, klezmer with social messages......

London Underground’s lost property department is a perennial staple for magazine writers looking for a quirky feature. Time and again, we’ve read about the unlikely sundries handed in at the Baker Street office – from false teeth to surfboards. One of the more remarkable items in the collection is an urn, containing the ashes of a person unknown. The inscrutable vessel was featured on the Arena Tube special on BBC4 a couple of weeks......

So how many people did a double take when handed The London Paper on Friday? The headline read GIANT MONSTERS ON TUBE, but it was, alas, just an advert for the latest episode of Primeval. Anyone try and fool a gullible/drunk friend with tales of giant spiders on the underground? We have to admit that Primeval is a guilty pleasure. It's craptacular, but in a fun way. You never got anything as good as......

This is a tad bizarre: Former EastEnders star Michelle Ryan has landed the lead role in a remake of 1970s TV show The Bionic Woman. The 22-year-old, who played Zoe Slater in the BBC soap for five years, beat a host of Hollywood names to the role, according to industry paper Variety. She will play Jaime Sommers, a tennis professional whose body is rebuilt with electronic parts after an accident, giving her superhuman abilities.......

We're not afraid to say it. We still really really like Lily Allen and Alright Still is up there in our albums of the year list. Yesterday instead of posting about how much she hates The Kooks (you go girl), she posted this message on her blog I am beside myself with worry because someone has stolen my dog Maggie May this morning. I am in Jamacia, while i am here Maggie has been......

When secret agent James Bond is not busy neutralizing evil geniuses who live in really cool houses, he becomes sometimes concerned about the welfare of troubled children. Or at least his tux does. Or at least one of the prop tuxes that Daniel Craig wore when he portrayed James Bond in Casino Royale does. At a recent auction to raise money for the children's charity ChildLine, the tuxedo, worn during the shooting of the......

We have to admit that we don't sit around watching the information change on TFL's realtime travel news so we weren't aware that the service had been taken over by the General Oblation Board. Good job they're so on the ball otherwise commuters this morning would have been rolling around in original sin: WATERLOO & CITY LINE: Suspended due to excessive dust on platforms. Odd then that there's no general alert concerning armoured bears......

This week - Sofia Coppola tells the story of the French queen, (Marie Antoinette), a tale from British ASBO land (The Great Ecstasy of Robert Carmichael) and a family is torn apart by bigotted attitudes to immigration, (Gypo). When writing this column, reading all of the reviews side by side, it becomes clear to us that some homework copying goes on. Either that or great minds (and let's be straight about this this -......

Whenever we travel we try our best to forget about London - as much as we love the city it is nice from time to time to escape the daily grind, the Standard's doom & gloom and the unpredictable weather. But London is everywhere. Even moving left some 5,500 miles we still run into Routemasters and black cabs. There are two old doubledeckers here - the second actually adjoins the 'pub' and acts as......

Sincerest apologies, dear readers. The author of this column (Column? Post?) has had a particularly trying week, what with almost getting fired from his high-pressure media sales job and also being asked to vacate the sofa near Highbury Corner he had been staying on since July. Now, we know, this is no excuse. Two posts in a fortnight is almost unforgivable. How much more trouble can he get in, do you wonder? Well, two......

Following the success of Masters of Horror in which acclaimed horror movie directors were given a slice of TV to play with and the 'hey it wasn't so bad, but lacked any Soul' remake of Salem's Lot Americans have been treated to a new series with the rather long title of Nightmares and Dreamscapes: From the Stories of Stephen King. It sports a decent enough cast (William H Macy leads one episode) and films......

You know when you have something nicked in London that the chances of ever seeing it again are pretty slim, but it turns out you can help the police get your stuff back simply by ensuring all your belongings are monkeys: A squirrel monkey stolen from a zoo has been found playing with children in south London. Zoo keepers at Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey discovered he was missing from his enclosure on......

FrightFest is dead, long live The Zone Horror FrightFest 2006 - yeah it's a bit of a mouthful, but it's also business as usual and to paraphrase Jack Black the business is shocking your socks off: Over four days (Friday 25 Aug – Monday 28th Aug inclusive) the UK’s top event for horror fans exclusively previews over twenty new films from across the world. From unknown first-timers to the popcorn big-hitters, this year’s Zone......