The Dark Lord of Musical Theatre, funny faced "genius", Andrew Lloyd Webber, last night scooped a Classical Brit for Outstanding Achievement in Music. Andrew (as he likes to be called on his website), who was 60 this March, has been ubiquitous in the West End for 30 odd years. He was recently reinvented himself at Graham Norton's hands as 'The Lord' in his 3 BBC reality TV shows casting lead roles in revivals of......

It's that time of year again. Time for Christmas shopping, panto and end-of-year pub quizzes. Ah, December. In their last film pub quiz spectacular or the year, the You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat team has pulled out all the stops, and you'd best brush up on your film trivia. If you've not been to one of these amazingly fun nights before, and have an otherwise boring Wednesday night lying in front of you,......

A special two-for-one offer on gig reviews this time. Londonist saw the slightly odd combination of Gorgoroth (old-school Norwegian black metal) at Scala on Wednesday, and former System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian the next night at the Astoria. Musically they were worlds apart, despite a shared taste for heavy riffs.Gorgoroth are not a band for the faint-hearted. Once arrested in Poland for a "blasphemous" stage show that included naked women on crucifixes and......

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......

Violent crime is on the rise in London and you can’t pick up a paper or turn on the news without the latest report of stabbings, beatings, muggings and even murder. It’s disturbing that the Justice system, crippled by overcrowded jails and soft sentencing guidelines, often punishes inequitably to the crime. However, we have it good in comparison to Ye Olde London Town who suffered waves of crime with such alarming titles as "Assault......

Westminster is running out of room for statues. 'The London Gateway container port and business park' has got the go-ahead. It's a 'superport' and will cost £1.5bn. Heathrow Terminals 1 and 2 will be replaced by 'Heathrow East' terminal. Apparently this is "great news for passengers". Londonist HQ still hasn't stopped celebrating. The Lord Of The Rings musical had to cancel a performance mid show after one of the cast got their leg trapped......

BBC: Police are investigating the death of a baby boy who suffered a cardiac arrest shortly after he was circumcised. The boy began having breathing problems at Golders Green United Synagogue, in north London, on 1 February. He was taken to a hospital nearby but was transferred to University College Hospital where he died on 9 February. Scotland Yard are treating the death as unexplained while the the circumstances that led to the child......

The Londonist weekly Culture Crawl is crawling with things to see, do and enjoy: this week, we have dogs, more fireworks (but not dogs AND fireworks combined because that would be unpleasant) and the first mention of Christmas shopping. Let's start with some wagging tails... Saturday and Sunday Described by the Kennel Club as "best fun dog event this year," Discover Dogs is a two-day event at Earls Court for dog lovers, dog owners,......

Frightfest have teamed up with the ICA to put on a bit of a Halloween bash: It’s time to put on make-up, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to get things started on The Feebles show tonight! Yes, Peter Jackson’s grotesque Muppet-style marvel Meet The Feebles returns to shock and offend again. Before Team America and Avenue Q, and in a gore guffaw galaxy far, far before The Lord of the Rings,......

Tomorrow and Saturday the BFI IMAX is hosting a couple of all-nighters dedicated to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. These are the original theatrical 35mm versions meaning that they're still way too long, but not quite as way too long as the extended DVD versions: Boasting the biggest screen in Britain - the height of five double-decker buses - and a 12,000 watt digital surround sound system, the BFI IMAX is the......

If our drought gets any worse they might have to ship water in (actually it's just one suggestion right now). The cost of the Olympics just went up, from £1.5 billion to £2 billion (it's a good job we're still crazy for scratchcards isn't it?). The Lord Mayor of The City of London, Alderman David Brewer, is over in Bangkok right now. He's discussing town planning though, not enjoying ladyboys. London's beat bobbies have......

A misleading title really, as there is very little happening at Westminster for the next couple of weeks. The reason being that it is the Easter recess - M.P.s have all gone back to their constituencies for two weeks, so there is nothing happening in the Commons. Nevertheless, if a week is a long time in politics, the ensuing two week recess will still be eventful: Blair Plays Down Rift With Brown Shock news!......

Secret Loans To Be Banned The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has outlined plans to ban secret loans to political parties, after the Labour Party has become embroiled in accusations of sleaze, as rich businessmen who have loaned the party money have been offered peerages. The row over how parties should be funded has re-opened, with the Tories saying that the number of M.P.s should be cut to raise funds for state funding of parties,......

Falconer Rejects English Parliament The Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, has rejected the idea of an English parliament to run alongside Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish equivalents. He also rebuffed the idea of a solution to the much-discussed West Lothian Question (the fact that Scottish, Northern Irish, and Welsh M.P.s have a say in purely English affairs, whereas English M.P.s have no say in matters that just affect the other nations. On the Today Programme,......

Londonist aims to give you a concise yet informative idea of the daily goings on at Westminster (and the rest of London's political sphere) with this, the Westminster Daily post. Speaker Martin has Heart Op The first big story so far this week is the absence of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin. Mr. Martin was admitted to hospital in his native Glasgow during last week's parliamentary recess after suffering chest......

There's only one film we could kick off with this week and that film is...Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. Ok, not really. Although we will get to that eventually. No, the film we're most interested in this week is David Cronenberg's A History of Violence. It's arthouse meets Hollywood with Vigo Mortensen, so it really shouldn't work. But somehow Cronenberg seems to have pulled it off, that is if this week's broadsheet reviews are anything......

Two years in development, three hours in length and entering stage right at a mere £11.5 million, The Lord Of The Rings the musical will finally raise curtain in February 2006. In Toronto. Producer Kevin Wallace has announced that none of the three London theatres that could physically accomodate the show were able to deal with the 11 month production period necessary to bring the fellowship and co to all singing, all dancing, all......

Hard to know whether to put this story in the 'cinema' or 'music' category, as Abbey Road studios hosts a film season to take place 19th March to 3rd April. The studio will temporarily become a fully-functioning cinema and will screen a selection of films scored at Abbey Road studios in the past 25 years. The Beatles connection is represented through A Hard Day's Night, Yellow Submarine and Backbeat. Other highlights are Raiders of the......