Clubbers of London must be very excited about this weekend as Matter prepares to open it's doors over at The O2. The people behind the awesome Fabric have created this new bespoke space with three floors and a 2,600 capacity complete with body kinetic dancefloor and 360 degree visuals. The forthcoming line-ups are amazing and follow the Fabric model of more band-y, live stuff happening on Fridays and DJs on Saturdays. Coming up soon......

We've long been fascinated by our childhood memories of Monkey Magic (was the monk a boy or a girl?) and were morbidly curious about Albarn's hand in bringing Monkey: Journey to the West to the London stage earlier this year. But we never got round to getting togged up for the Opera House. Then along came the Olympics and the Beeb indoctrinated us with the specially commissioned song and an fabulous Hewlett animation featuring......

Sir Ian Blair concedes that crime figures don’t really figure. The East London Line work is proceeding apace. Good news for most of us: bad news if you live in New Cross Gate. The Masters Cup is moving to the 02 from next year. This is apparently good news for tennis fans. The cost of living in London is too high. And stressful, very very stressful. Several dodgy language colleges are busted. (That’s dodgy......

Here’s what we’ve learned whilst you were stuck in Bank Holiday traffic jams: In the weekend crime round-up, a promising young actor was killed in a street brawl in Sidcup whilst four other youths were stabbed…. And two teenagers have been shot and seriously wounded in separate incidents in North London. Police are ‘puzzled’ over the disappearance of a man accused of stealing some rare horticultural books. Tube cleaners are threatening to go on......

Thrill-seekers, take note: the once destitute, now awesome O2 arena wants to become even more awesome. Since the Dome’s rebirth nearly a year ago, its owners have no doubt managed to squeeze a pretty penny or two out of the O2’s interior – what with all the purple rain, wannabes, and whole lotta love seen within its walls. And although Michael Jackson’s month-long moonwalk has yet to be confirmed, you might someday have the......

Prince Caspian is to premiere for charity at the O2 arena. They’ll need a hell of a big screen. Police in West Drayton are hunting for a man who raped a jogger. In today's court round-up: the Leytonstone sword murderers, and the killers of Kodjo Yenga have all been banged up for life. Try not to get bitten by a bat this weekend: a rabid one was recently found in South West London A......

After last year's popular pre-season game between the Boston Celtics and the Minnesota Timberwolves at the O2 arena, the NBA are coming back and this time the Heat are on. They'll be practicing with some Nets as the teams from Miami and New Jersey face each other on October 12th in what will effectively be a second leg to their Paris friendly three days earlier. James Bidwell, chief executive of Visit London, commented: The......

This week saw Londonist get incredibly excited about a few live music events. First up, was French pop sensation Yelle, who played an intimate show at the Old Blue Last. Then, we had the Camden Crawl line up which, as ever, is pretty amazing for those of us who value music over sleep. Finally, Sally got (understandably) excited about The King Blues @ the 100 Club. Once we've come down from our excitement of last......

This week saw Londonist Get Scientific when we previewed We Are Scientists playing Soho Revue Bar this Tuesday, get excited about Eurovision and get cosy with Portico Quartet. A busy week all in all! Looking ahead to this week however, we have Eels playing Royal Festival Hall on Monday night. They've invited the Queen too, so it could be an amusing evening. Austin, Tx stars Spoon play a sold out show at Scala and rising......

Nu-metal stars Linkin Park are the main draw on Monday night, with support coming from the mighty Biffy Clyro as they play the first of two consecutive nights at the O2, and whilst tickets are all sold out, there are a few floating around on Scarlet Mist and such like. Stephen Fretwell plays a sold out show at The Troubadour, and reggae star Finley Quaye plays the first of a three night stay at the......

Be there first: After all the brouhaha over the From Russia paintings, this is surely the show to see in its opening week. Stunning, inspirational works by the likes of Renoir, Cézanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Kandinsky, Tatlin and Malevich come to the Royal Academy from Saturday. This is jaw-dropping art you'd normally only get to see with a deep, heavy, carbon-footprint inducing flight to Russia, we're lucky enough to have it on our doorsteps until......

Morrissey starts the first of a string of six dates at the Roundhouse on Monday night, playing every night except Thursday until next Sunday. As you'd expect, tickets are all gone, but you may be able to find a few last minute spares floating around. Londonist favourites Sons and Daughters play The End's first Birthday, and Stephen Fretwell plays his melodic melancholy at the Luminaire - a few tickets left at £12.50 from WeGotTickets......

The only music star to be his only Cockney rhyming slang, James Blunt is playing Hammersmith Apollo on Monday night and also Tuesday night, though unsurprisingly tickets are all gone for now. Meanwhile, if you like something a bit more country-fied and American, then Texan Ryan Bingham plays the Borderline. Tickets are £12.50 from See Tickets. Tuesday sees The Kills grace the Soho Revue Bar, though tickets are sold out. New Indie-pop scenesters The Voom......

It’s now over ten years since the Spice Girls entrenched themselves into the mindsets of teenyboppers around the world. Now all of those teenyboppers are in their early to mid-twenties and apparently desperate for a slice of retro-tastic cheese. Armed with plenty of alcohol in our system and a set of fuzzily fond memories we set off to the O2 to see the reunited Spice Girls in action. A quick glance round the audience......

When it comes to major American pop stars fetching up in our lovely city, Londonist sometimes thinks that the Eighties never ended. Following Madonna's permanent move here, and Prince's celebrated 21 shows last year, the third in the triumvirate of pop megastars from the Decade That Style Forgot is to join them - Michael Jackson is reportedly coming to town, and he'll be on a nice little earner if he does. Like Prince, Jackson......

The first full week back at work, and with that we start to get a few decent gigs happening. The Spice Girls continue their record-breaking run of nights at the O2 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Tickets are still available from See Tickets and Ticketmaster for all three nights, and for the rest of their shows this month in London. If you like your music a lot heavier than some camp pop, then you might......

Well, here it is. New Year’s Eve. We’ve told you where to go for fireworks, and where to go dancing, but you may not be feeling up for the whole NYE hullabaloo. If that’s the case, or if you’re feeling very ambitious and hosting your own celebration at home and are in need of background telly, here are a few things you might want to take a peek at. On TV, Londonist likes: New......

We already knew London was capital of the world, but 2007 has firmly cemented us as the best city by far musically. The Millennium Dome reopened as the O2 Arena, hosting not only 21 nights of Prince, the Rolling Stones, Take That, and the Spice Girls first UK dates for 10 years, but also the most anticipated gig for a good decade or so: Led Zeppelin’s reformation. Unfortunately this Londonista had to settle for some......

Talia has already covered the more common places to go dancing tomorrow night, but for a more alternative music New Years Eve, then wander over to Kings Cross’ Monto Water Rats to catch Brighton rockers Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster play a special New Years gig with support from Gingerbread Men, The Foxes and a few others. Alternatively, there are still a few tickets available for Super Fury Animals at Royal Festival Hall. The fun starts......

Lasers, screens, explosions, giant mutant zombie mummies (hmm, we may have inadvertently made a cruel pun there), apparently the latest gig gizmo is to parade your offspring, as opposed to The Offspring, which in this case might actually have been better. Brooklyn, Romeo, and Cruz Posh, Baby Beau, Barbabelle, and Scary Phoenix and Angel Scary Murphy all joined their famous Mums onstage at the O2 this week, during the track Mama. Surely these people......

The Rainbow is long gone, the Hammersmith Palais now lingers only in the memory and even that good old grubby beer stained shit-hole that is the loveable Astoria is under threat. Gigs are selling out in minutes, replacing restaurants and cinemas as the preferred venue for gormless gobblers to converse after work, and yet the property developers keep their beady eyes focused on every venue lease going. How are we going to find the......

It's been a bad few weeks for the Spice Girls: they released the worst selling Children In Need single ever (to put this into perspective, let's remember that Martine McCutcheon once had a Children In Need single. Martine McCutcheon), appeared in terrible Tesco adverts, played to half full shows in America and Baby Spice sprained her little baby ankle on stage. However, little Emma Bunton ingested her weight in painkillers, soldiered on and appeared......

After a quick break travelling the US, this Londonista is back to normality bringing the weekly roundup of whats happening in London. Monday night sees Oakland metal stars High on Fire grace UL. Tickets are available for £12 each on the door or from See tickets. Reformed 90's Brit rockers Shed Seven grace Shepherds Bush Empire, with a few tickets left at £17.50 each, if you really must indulge your nostalgia. Finally, Scritti Politti plays......

To be honest the rain and coldness is kind of making us not want to go to gigs at the moment, preferring instead to wrap ourselves up warmly at home. But if we did, this is what we'd be bouncing at. Monday: The biggie tomorrow is of course Led Zep at the O2, but you've more chance of meeting Santa than getting tickets for that. So instead, forget the dinosaurs and try something new......

It's tempting to bask in the success of the re-branded O2 and write off the building's seven year existence as useless white elephant de nos jours as a bad dream. Unfortunately, that was no nightmare, and it seems that financially the Millennium Dome never stood a chance. The assembled politicians and VIPs had barely clunked their awkward way through Auld Lang Syne on December 31st, 1999, before the whole project was skint. Newly released......

O2, it seems, are cornering the market in progressive mobile gadegtry, already having the monopoly on the shiny smart iPhone and now the pilot phase OyPhone. Sorry, "Oyster Wallet" is the much more sensible and meaningless name for TfL's latest technology wheeze which puts your travelcard in your mobile phone and today, 500 Oyster users begin trialling the Nokia 6131 handsets with Oyster embedded. Barclaycard are also in on the trial, charging up the......

It’s probably fair to say that the couple of hundred people who wandered up to the Union Chapel in Islington last Friday were expecting a fairly low-key affair. Arguably the biggest name at the Little Noise Sessions gig in aid of Mencap was to be the compere, Radio 1’s Jo Whiley, although we accept that a few of the audience may have been a bit excited about US indie rockers We Are Scientists. Not......

Shh! We don’t want to jinx things, but apparently the O2 is set to become the busiest and bestest venue in the world. (Well, bestest is perhaps subject to opinion: the Shepherd’s Bush Empire is pretty hard to beat if you ask us.) Anyway, all things being equal, by the end of 2007 its ticket sales will have exceeded those of Madison Square Gardens for the whole year, even though our pet bubble only opened......

For many of us ice-skating is a terrifying experience, bringing back memories of clinging to the edge of the rink, cold feet and humiliating wipeouts. We all know it's never as serene an experience as the Christmas cards make out, but there’s a veritable plethora of skating experiences to be had across London this snowy (hopefully) season. There are rinks with a touch of class at Somerset House (21 Nov - 17 Jan) or......

Well, it's certainly less controversial than the logo. The design for the new Olympic Stadium is something of a zoetrope in the aspirational design launch video which follows bits of the stadium as they fly and crawl through London to Stratford, witnessed by a jogging girl with a coldsore. The bits all spin together excitingly to settle into a massive, goldfish bowl. Or sunken, oval cupcake. After the Games, 25,000 temporary Olympic seats will......