Thanks to a lousy US box office reception, Grindhouse – the adored bastard sprog double-feature of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez – was hacked in two when it finally came here. Film nerds agog at the prospect of a three-hour neo-exploitationfest had to cough for Planet Terror and Death Proof separately, and miss out entirely on the geekalicious treat of the fake trailers that accompanied them. O cruel fate/boringly cautious distributors. But at last......

Jermyn Street Theatre is a tiny space. And when we say tiny, we mean tiny. We'd guess at 80-100 seats. And if you're over 5ft 10, you can forget about leg room for the evening. Luckily, Opera on the Run's delightfully light-hearted show, The Perfect Picnic should be more than enough to divert your ears and eyes away from any cramp forming in your legs. Recently-redundant David doesn't want to go the opera; he's......

Londonist asks that most pressing of daily concerns: where to go on your lunch break. Coffee, Cake and Kink 61 Endell Street WC2H 9AJ Nearest Tube: Tottenham Court Road 0207 419 2996 11am-8pm for Lunch(Monday-Thursday) 11am-11pm (Friday-Saturday) Expect to Pay: around £7 for a huge cup of coffee and a sizable piece of cake Rating: 8 out of 10 Curiosity doesn’t always kill cats. In fact, when curiosity insisted we poke our lunchtime whiskers......

One of the most thrilling aspects of live comedy is surely its intimacy. When you watch a big act in a small room, a charming comic can make you believe that they are there just for you, as if the jokes they tell were being told exclusively for your pleasure. There's a new club in town that is trying to go one step further. Anthology is a night in Portabello Green W10 which does......

2007 is quickly slipping away, and with it the few remaining book events for the year. As most of us are busy buying books for the bibliophiles on our shopping lists rather than reading or going to signings this week, we thought we’d present you with an alternative Book Grocer today. For those of you already finished with your shopping (you overachievers you), the traditional listings follow. If, like Londonist, you go for the......

The provocative title is not simply a cheap trick like putting "SEX!!!!1!" across the top of a flyer to catch people's attention for carpet cleaning equipment. The One Night Stand With... series is quite literally one night with a specially commissioned artist at VINEspace, an inquisitive East London gallery in Bethnal Green Each month, an artist is invited to present an exhibition for one night only. It is taken down in the morning so......

The Olympic Park has received a lot of attention lately, unveiling its flagship stadium, promising to start work on it early and suffering fiery blazes which fortuitously destroyed a warehouse due for demolition. This Saturday though, an audaciously different kind of attention will be focused on the Stratford site: imagining the Olympics weren't happening. WE SELL BOXES WE BUY GOLD is an artistic collaboration exploring what the Olympic site means to people and endeavouring......

11. Spring Heeled Jack: A Chronicle of Chaos “But most of all did he dwell upon some mysterious blazing entity that shook and laughed and mocked at him.” Beyond The Wall Of Sleep – H. P. Lovecraft Supernatural? Invader from space? Prankster? Hysteria? Spring Heeled Jack’s notorious crimes that littered 19th Century London remain to this day one of the capital’s most bizarre series of crimes. Here is a brief catalogue of the weird......

Our first foray into the Camden Fringe was oddly reminiscent of our last Edinburgh experience. A rainy, busy street at 3pm in the afternoon, leading into a tiny, dark and terribly hot mini-theatre, beer in hand. If only there had been a street full of aspiring thesps flyering outside we could have sworn we'd been up there. But no. This is Camden and praise be, our first show was really very good. Room 110......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 23rd July 1986: Prince Andrew marries Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey. As a wedding present (of sorts), the Queen grants them the title of Duke and Duchess of York. Tuesday – 24th July 1987: At the High Court, Jeffrey Archer wins damages of £500,000 in his libel case against the Daily Star. 14 years later he would be convicted of perjury and perverting the course of justice......

First Take That did it. Then The Verve. Finally, the Spice Girls have announced that they’re doing it too. No, we’re not talking about kicking band members out. We’re talking about reforming and cashing in to do a massive tour. Now, one more great 90’s band has announced that they’re doing it too. Shed Seven. Yup, those York lads who were loved by everyone and chucked out some quality Britpop that was usually overlooked. Such......

The well-known darlings of the Young British Artist (YBA) scene are lined up to sell their wares from the back of a car this Sunday. For the 2007 Vauxhall Art Car Boot Fair, previous stall holders and YBAs Gavin Turk, Bob and Roberta Smith, Tracey Emin, Fiona Banner, Cedric Christie and Abigail Lane are back again to sell affordable and collectable artworks in this peculiarly English impromptu market style, on the grounds of the......

When the long arm of the law finally caught up to bike thief Daniel Westrop, it....slapped him gently on the wrist and said “You naughty boy! You’ve been very bad. Now go sit on that comfortable armchair and think about what you’ve done!” Westrop, 27, had been stealing scores of expensive mountain bikes from stations in the heart of commutersville, mainly targeting Walton on Thames, West Byfleet, Brookwood and Surbiton. Though only charged with......

The English National Opera are closing their season with what's advertised as a 'lavish new production of the legendary Broadway musical', Kismet. This strange, hybrid stage musical (heavy Russian score mixes with a book filled with light Edwardian exotic melodrama, harems, beggars and murderers from 1071 AD mixing with 1950s lyrics) hasn't been performed on the West End stage for nearly 30 years. With its setting in Baghdad, and an entire song dedicated to......

While enjoying an ever-growing following in his native land, David Cross isn't the household name he deserves to be on our side of the Atlantic. This may change in a few weeks, however, as tonight marks the first performance in a ten-day residency for the American comedian at Oxford Street's 100 Club entitled "A Really Lovely Night Out With David Cross And Friends". Supporting his stand-up routine and earning their "and friends" title will......

In our minds, we don't normally associate museums with bouts of laughter. That is, with the exception of school trips where we desperately tried to keep ourselves amused/awake/alive as some old and dull man in tweed tried to educate us something similarly old and dull. We were particularly pleased to hear what they're up to at the Museum of London. They've embarked on a hefty two-year gazillion-pound refurbishment of the place and to keep......

This Londonista’s grows wild and unkempt, every now and then receiving token, uncommitted weeding and perhaps a going over with a blunt flymo. Sarah Eberle takes things horticultural a little more seriously, having spent the last 8 years researching and designing her gold award winning show garden for the Chelsea Flower Show 2007. Less a garden and more an astronaut fantasy made flesh in flora, "600 days with Bradstone" is a terrestrial space garden,......

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. Bostonist was happy they finally found an Anna Nicole Smith connection to their fair city and that an Apple Store was opening up. They were less happy that new rules have been established limiting underage shows and that their Governor spending a......

A couple of weeks ago on Friday, the perfect antidote to a certain, unmentionable reality TV showdown was a gig at Swiss Cottage Library, of all places. For one night only, the aptly named Mr Hudson and the Library, graced the award-winning building as part of a larger tour of book lending institutions. Their hard work is in aid of the "Get it Loud in Libraries"campaign, promoting the ever growing catalogue of CDs available......

What's the skinny? This isn't so much an introduction to a new band, as the first time we've talked about them on Londonist. If you know your electroclash, you'll know Client. After all, they have been about since 2003. Client are Sarah Blackwood, Kate Holmes and Emily Mann - all familar names. Sarah was the vocalist in morose 90s band Dubstar, Kate is poptones boss Alan McGee's wife and Emily is a former contestant......

Down in the midst of the Londonist music dungeon we've got our fair share of ideas as to which bands are going to be high up in our last.fm chart at the end of 2007. That said, we've not afraid to see what other people are saying and steal their ideas. So when Poptones boss and all round legend Alan McGee told The Guardian that he thought uplifting pop group The Revelations were going......

There's another video for Sarah Nixey's blossoming solo career doing the rounds and this time it's for the previously unheard Utopia-esque When I'm Here With You and set in the very lovely Bush Hall. It's released on January 29th as the 3rd single from the forthcoming February album Sing, Memory. And if you the sound of intelligent pop meeting twisted electro basslines, then this should be an album you're very much looking forward to.......

l Chris Corner, formerly of nineties legends Sneaker Pimps, abandoned London several years ago for a more arty, not to mention frugal existence in Berlin. Whilst over there he has had lots of fun, presumably at warehouse parties and trendy gallery openings, but also found the time to embark on a musical project known asIAMX, famed for electro-goth anthems. Think Muse, but more out there, and sounding both stadium sized rock and seedy Berlin......

This Day in London's History 1485: Henry VII opens batting for the Tudor dynasty, taking the crown at Westminster Abbey. Attending the new king that day were the Yeomen of the Guard - the monarch's bodyguard - on their first official duty. The Yeomen of the Guard are not to be confused with the Yeoman Warders, or Beefeaters, who patrol the Tower of London... 1841: The Tower nearly falls. Beefeaters and policemen scrambled to......

For four nights only, starting from tonight, the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn is presenting a series of short plays exploring the current situation in Darfur. How Long Is Never? Darfur - a Response features new work by Michael Bhim, Amy Evans, Jennifer Farmer, Carlo Gebler, Juliet Gilkes, Lynn Nottage, Winsome Pinnock. All seven are writers from the Tricycle Bloomberg Writers Group and each have a short play in this special event; each piece is......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you'd like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. Tonight Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award way back in 2003, discusses his writing and latest book A Spot of Bother. £8.50 at the Royal Festival Hall, 7:45 pm in the Purcell Room, find out more. Kevin McCloud......

If you were wondering why a certain Timelord's recent travels through time and space didn't clock up much mileage, its all down to cash flow : Budget constraints mean the new series of Doctor Who is largely earthbound, says writer Russell T Davies. What bollocks. Part of the charm of the last twenty odd years of Doctor Who was the wobbly sets and cardboard monsters. Of course back in the day the emphasis was......

The yoof of today. They’re just too brainy for their own good. Take Peter and Paula Imafidon, a pair of twins from Waltham Forest. They both just passed a GCSE in statistics. Age six. Jesus. When we were six, the closest we got to statistical expertise was assessing the likelihood of getting caught taking a leak in the park. Actually, that’s still about the extent of it. Meanwhile, at the other end of town,......

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......

Our favourite indie girl gone pop Sarah Nixey recently released her 2nd solo single, Strangelove, and we just realised we completely forgot to tell you about it. Fiercer than her inital single, it's more than reminiscent of SEB and bites and jolts along with a rather huge fun chorus. This is a proper pop song but as ever with Nixey has a sour edge to it. Of course you can hear it on her myspace......