To round off this photo heavy day: James Nachtwey is planning to unveil his coverage of a "shocking and underreported global crisis" this evening. The photojournalist is projecting images from this top-secret story onto buildings across seven continents, and in London, the National Theatre's Lyttleton flytower is the venue. Could be interesting, or it could be an forgettable gimmick: in any case, if you're around the South Bank at 7.30 tonight, it may be worth......

The British Film Institute turns 75 this month, and they're throwing a big Birthday Weekender bash at their swank Southbank and IMAX locations to celebrate. Things kick off tonight with an audiovisual performance that aims to "glance into the future of cinema" and mix it with "club culture", an ominous pairing if ever we imagined one one. On Saturday and Sunday things settle into a more predictable groove, with free screenings of Mitchell and......

You know what’s better than an indulgent sampling of a range of organic chocolates? An indulgent sampling of a range of organic chocolates while checking out the panoramic view from the London Eye. Yep, from 6th October, London Eye will partner up with UK luxury organic chocolate makers, Green & Black’s, to offer folks a chance to eat some of Britain’s yummiest chocolates while enjoying one of London’s most commanding view … for a......

For those who stroll past the National Theatre on Sunday afternoons, wistfully gazing at the plays you're too busy to see, except on Sunday afternoons when the building is closed: good news! The National Theatre will be open for 3pm performances of War Horse and in-i in September then a few more specially selected shows for Sundays leading up to December. The Mezzanine restaurant is open for brunch (adding to your dining options along......

We were rather impressed by the Hayward's Psycho Buildings exhibition when it opened back in May, and Londoners appear to have shared our enthusiasm: the show has been packed out all summer. It closes on Bank Holiday Monday, meaning this weekend is your last chance to row a jerry-rigged boat across a flooded sculpture garden or see the London skyline from atop a giant inflatable bubble. The gallery is open till 10pm tonight, tickets are......

A 140 metre tower for a plot behind the National Theatre has received the stamp of approval from Hazel Blears, the less-than-lofty Secretary of State for Communities and Local Development. Doon Street Tower raised the hackles of English Heritage and others, who prefer their views from Somerset House and St James Park to be unsullied by highrises. Blears’ approval clears the way for the residential tower, which will stand considerably taller than the nearby......

This rainy, windy August is really making us yearn for a touch of Gallic charm to lift our summer mood. Of course, we're staying in London so news that the National Theatre is going francophile has got us all of a foux de fafa. If you remember, La Binoche is taking over this September with a headline-grabbing, highly anticipated original performance with contemporary dance superstar, Akram Khan, a retrospective of her prestigious film career......

London based record label Heavenly celebrate 18 years of being in the music biz this Autumn and today they've put on sale tickets to some very special gigs in celebration. Set up by Jeff Barrett in 1990, not only did they manage to sign some of our favourite bands, but they also managed to open some of our favourite eating and dancing venues in the form of The Social. For a weekend in September,......

These days, refer to Skylon on the Southbank and you're name checking the Royal Festival Hall's swish, new, panoramic outlook restaurant. But, of course, it was named for the cigar shaped monument that once poked up here, as part of the Festival of Britain. Seems 1950s nostalgia's catching. Last week, English National Ballet presented Festival Ballet at RFH remembering their own Festival of Britain nascence. Now, there's a campaign to garner public opinion on......

Akram Khan & Juliette Binoche by roll the dice We were fortunate to be in the company of the beautiful people on Friday when actress Juliette Binoche and dance star Akram Khan revealed their upcoming Franco-British collaboration for the National Theatre. The project - In-I - is under wraps in the sense that it's still being made but will see a dance theatre performance of some kind, vaguely based on personal experiences of love hit......

We’re not going to lie: It was the panda and its gratuitous cuteness that drew us in. The curators of Endangered Wildlife Exposed were no doubt banking on that reaction when choosing an image to promote the Roger Hooper exhibit at Oxo Gallery. With their large heads, big bellies, the appearance of wide eyes, and their tendency to toddle about, pandas are said to bear (heh) enough similarities to human babies that our nurturing......

Photography courtesy of a faz via the Londonist pool on Flickr Interested in your foodie photos appearing on Londonist? Click here.......

Arts Ahead is back with all the info you need to keep culturally up-to-date in the capital this week... Watch out for the start of London Sculpture Week on Friday. If bronze, limestone and marble are your things, pop along to galleries throughout the Mayfair area for a celebration of all things sculptured; from 14th-century Tibetan art to young London-based sculptor Piers Secunda, who creates sculptural works entirely out of paint. At school, it......

Sitting in a jerry-rigged boat, floating in a flooded sculpture park atop the Hayward as the sun bustles through the clouds and lights up the London Eye, the building's Brutalist architecture almost melts away and resolves itself into a dystopian reverie, one not entirely unpleasant: the capital has been lost, and the temples of culture abandoned to the damp elements. It's a daydream easy to believe in, until the wetsuit-wearing gallery aid comes and......

While strolling along the Southbank one afternoon, Londonist happened to notice a random museum-style plaque tacked low on the side of a building. The plaque read “The Moment A Thought Explains Itself,” crediting the work to Ben Dawson, dated 2008. Somewhere between bemused and amused, we took a snap of the plaque and put it on our Flickr account. Imagine our surprise when other people began contacting us with photos of other plaques and......

A preview of Londonist’s dance moves? A secret tunnel runs deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. In May 2008, more than a century after it was begun, the tunnel will finally be completed. Immediately afterwards, an extraordinary optical device called a Telectroscope will be installed at both ends which will miraculously allow people to see right through the Earth from London to New York and vice versa. Ding ding ding ding ding – that’s Londonist’s bullshitter......

Come spring, come 1st May, come rough music and the Jack-in-the-Green: a leaf wearing London folk custom, with entourage, on a pub crawl. The Jack-in-the-Green evolved in the seventeenth century from milk maids in huge hats and garlands parading the street for money to a man dressed as a giant hedge, the Jack, roaming the street on May Day on the scrounge for beer money. Fowlers Troop revived the Deptford Jack-in-the-Green tradition in the......

Londonist likes chocolate. And children. (Especially other people's). And good charitable causes. So we were more than happy to hop on the London Eye last night to see the premier of Lindt's Easter Light Show, in aid of ChildLine. And to take part in the demolishing of a couple of gold Lindt bunnies. (Hey, we didn’t say anything about liking bunnies...) Renowned Swiss light artist, Gerry Hofstetter (you might remember he projected a polar......

There’s a new, rather large, kid on the block. Today, London’s new movie museum, The Movieum (geddit?), has opened its door to the public, catering to the interest of those, who were left wanting, when the Museum of Moving Image (MOMI) was closed in 1999. The Movieum, situated in County Hall on the South Bank, claims to be both tactile and academic, displaying props and sets from a variety of British films, as well......

It's easy to laugh at mime - the performers can't say anything back. But in the case of the London International Mime Festival, they could well leap off the stage on bungee ropes and encase you in a massive block of clay then make you a key part of an adult puppet show. This isn't a two week lovefest for tall chaps in stripy tops and white make up trapped in invisible glass boxes:......

The Christmas turkey is cold and in sandwiches. A few of us have struggled back to work, carrying surplus chocolate to the office in a desperate attempt to stop our expanding waistlines. Which must mean it's about time to start panicking about what to do on New Year's Eve. Aside from rammed pubs, pricey nightclubs and awkward parties in someone's frontroom, the main focus for London will be squarely on the London Eye. Since......

Well, it’s over for another year. Time to settle down, relax, and get ready for another batch of shopping in the January sales. On TV, Londonist likes: Carmen (BBC2, 13:45-16:25) This just might be the world’s most famous opera, and even if you’re not an opera fan, you’ll definitely recognise some of the songs. From the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, this production features an international cast, impressive sets and live animals. My......

With this season’s frenetic pace quickening with the passing of each day till the Twenty-fifth, Londonist genuinely appreciates Slow Food London’s mellowed and delicious approach to “good and clean and fair” Christmas shopping. Located immediately outside South Bank’s Royal Festival Hall (on the non-riverside Belvedere Road bit), the Slow Food London Christmas Market commenced yesterday and continues through Sunday, from 11am to 8pm each day. We were pleased to have a roam around the......

If you’re having a stroll along the South Bank tonight, be on the lookout for friendly hawkers trying to push books into your hands. We’re told that Canongate Books will be handing out 1,000 free copies – that’s free, folks – of Lewis Hyde’s 1983 classic, The Gift, along the South Bank at 6.00pm this evening. If you’re not familiar with the book, expect some heavy but worthwhile questions about the role of creativity......

Every day this month the Londonist team will be pointing you in the direction of a Christmas present that (with a bit of luck) you won't already have on your list. Climb up onto our collective lap and we'll see what we can move from our sack to your stockings... For the friends and family members who seem to always be busy with art exhibitions, arthouse films, dance, theatre and music of a more......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 22nd October 1809: The Croydon Canal, linking Croydon to Deptford via Forest Hill, is opened. Requiring 28 locks to overcome the gradients of the route, it would never become a commercial success, and would be closed just 37 years later. Tuesday – 23rd October 1731: A fire breaks out in Ashburnham House in Westminster, damaging much of the Cotton Library – a renowned collection of Middle English......

This year is Jalal al-Din Rumi’s 800th birthday (it was on 30th September, to be as precise as we can be about these things) – and there’s an impressive range of exciting stuff going on in London to celebrate. Rumi – the original dude poet, truly one of Iran’s greatest exports, and one of the creators of ecstatic dance. From which you will surmise that Londonist is quite fond of him. I mean, what’s......

Sometimes, you've got to wonder how they do it. The ballet dancers, the orchestras, the actors, singers, directors and conductors - what does it take to get them into the state we see them in for the final product? Are there hissy fits, tiaras and tantrums or lots of tea breaks and group hugs after each scene is rehearsed? Open Rehearsal is the weekend to find out and be as nosey as you like......

London has as many hotel projects underway as the whole of Spain and five times as many as the second busiest city in Europe in terms of hotel development, Moscow. Surprising, innit? This is the opening message of the latest temporary exhibition at New London Architecture, that wonderful and free gallery on Store Street. By focusing on just one building type, Away From Home - New Hotels in London reminds us of the huge......

Naomi Klein, in conversation with Madeleine Bunting Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 13th September 2007 "I am not a conspiracy theorist", insists Naomi Klein. Twice, in quick succession. Followed each time by a nervous laugh; a telling laugh. We are in the spacious surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank, where Canadian journalist and activist Klein, whose 2000 book No Logo became a minor phenomenon in the halcyon days between the Seattle riots......