Here's a novel idea for a film festival: instead of just showing a director's oeuvre straight, why not throw in a handful of films that complement, or contradict, or just plain go nicely with the main work? Ciné Lumière is doing just that with a "retrospective in context" of the work of Michael Haneke, the Austrian director who has made a career out of cracking apart the complaisant, cosseted world of the continental middle......

This week, Londonist caught two bands at either end of the musical scale - American metal stars Wolves in the Throne Room @ Underworld and the ever great Elbow at an intimate Porchester Hall show. We also started offering you the chance to win tickets to see Late of the Pier on February 28th. We also previewed the forthcoming second iTunes festival, which starts this coming Thursday. Looking forward to this week however, Monday night......

One of the bands breaking through this year that we are most excited about is Late of the Pier. They're from Castle Donnington and make music that sounds like a bit like a revved up, beefily produced 8-bit soundtrack. Yup, we know that sounds a bit contradictory but seriously, check out the video for the excellently titled new single 'The Bears Are Coming'. They're playing London tonight, supporting Justice at the Astoria, for what will......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 3rd September 1878: Passenger steamer Princess Alice collides with cargo ship Bywell Castle on the Thames near Woolwich Pier. All of the 700 passengers of the Princess Alice are either thrown into the heavily polluted river or trapped below the decks of the sinking vessel. Fewer than 100 passengers survive. Tuesday – 4th September 1899: Moorfields Eye Hospital (known at the time as the Royal London Ophthalmic......

Next Friday the Royal Festival Hall will open its doors after two years of hefty refurbishments. We're a bit excited about the return of this jewel of the South Bank, and more specifically the launch weekend itself, which features water and candles.Will the £100m price-tag attached to the work make the modernist building the world's best concert venue? Almost every single surface has been ripped out and then either adapted, restored or replaced. Splendid......

We have to admit when we first saw this advertised we didn't have much of an idea what to expect. Henry VIII certainly knew how to cut it with the ladies, but we reckoned that a re-enactment of His Majesty's finest chat-up lines was unlikely, particularly in the middle of a river. It turns out that the Tudor Pull is run by the Thames Traditional Rowing Association and features crews of six oarsmen rowing......

Busy week as ever in the capital for music, so straight in we go: Monday night sees Fountains of Wayne grace the Astoria with their power-pop melodies. Tickets are still available from the usual places, however are going quickly. However if power pop isn't your sort of thing, you can seethe avant-garde guitar experimentalists Wilco play Shepherds Bush Empire on Monday night, which is well and truly sold out. If you like your Joy Division......

Every year the Londonist team hits Camden for one mad night of dashing from venue to venue necking pints for Camden Crawl. This year, in all their money-spinning wisdom, the crawl has been expanded to two nights. We're not quite sure how much this is going to work (and with tickets at £26 a day, makes it a much more expensive proposition) but we'll no doubt give it ago. Today the first line-up has......

Friday, Friday Fabric Live: Tonight dear old Fabbers is taken over by riotous Liverpool club Chibuku programming all three rooms. If the likes of Pendulum, London Elektricity and the Scratch Perverts isn't enough, then prepare to join a very long queue of people, upon realising producer-god Mark Ronson is playing live. Having recently worked on Lily Allen, Christina Aguilera and Amy Winehouse's new albums, you never know who could show up as a guest......

We’re going to have to start a new category soon. Stupidly expensive stuff goes on sale at Harrods. This week, it’s whisky (or ‘whiskey’ as the source article sacrilegiously spells it). The Islay distillery of Ardbeg is offering its rare 1965 single-malt for £2000. That’s, like, nearly £3 a millilitre. Or, put a more familiar way, £150 for a double. Frankly, we'd expect thrice-distilled unicorn piss for that price. A Harrods’ spokesperson explained: There......

It's another packed weekend for those of you not already booked up for Architecture Week or otherwise engaged for the football. The schedule for this weekend's sunny Culture Crawl involves a lot of outdoor entertainment, some indoor events and as always, not a lot of money. Thursday 22 June Opening night of the Greenwich and Docklands Festival - all events are free and open air. For this event, you have to go to Woolwich......

London Architecture Biennale and Architecture Week got off to a fine if sweaty start this weekend. We’d particularly recommend ‘Transit’, an Iain Sinclair-narrated short film by Emily Richardson, in catacombs beneath Smithfield Market - spooky, thought provoking and surprisingly deserted when we visited. Here’s our pick of the many events happening over the next couple of days. And don’t worry about missing the football. They’ve thought of that… Monday Blueprint Big Breakfasts: The chance......

Greek police are in town today talking to Scotland Yard about London's role as a hub for antique traffickers. The restored Lifeboat Pier station on Victoria Embankment will be officially opened today to mark the start of London Lifeboat Week. The Saturday late start for the Tube will have a detrimental effect on Heathrow airport claims a group representing UK airlines. Wigmore hall has been saved from closure. A new 300-year lease has been......

Raleigh's blood flows through our veins. Summer's on it's way and that means a return to our heritage as thousands of us hurl ourselves into the nearest available sailing vessel for floating frolics ahoy. Most will do little more than get a little drunk, drive too fast and scare a few ducks or frighten the fish. But some will come a serious cropper. The RNLI reported an 8% increase in call outs last year,......

The barge which once bore the coffin of Sir Winston Churchill is up for grabs. The Havengore can be yours for as little as £1.3 million. That’s roughly the same as four Notting Hill garages, or 86 000 Winston Churchill action figures. Havengore carried Churchill’s body between Tower Pier and Festival Pier on 20 January 1965. Since being restored in the 1990s, the small craft has been used, in true Churchillian style, to promote......

In the early hours of this morning a refuelling pontoon containing 50 tonnes of diesel sank on the Thames. The pontoon, which is used by City Cruises to refuel their boats, went down near Cherry Garden Pier in Bermondsey taking two light tug boats down with it. No one was hurt. The accident occured at around 1 in the morning and fire crews and environmental teams are having to wait until low tide to......