There's masses going on for us culture vultures to choose from this week. First Thursdays As it's the start of March, it's First Thursdays this week. More than 80 galleries and museums will be open til 9pm across East London. We recommend John Squire's (yes, him from the Stone Roses) Re-engineered Garments; alternatively, pretend you're an alien at the Barbican. The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art opens this Thursday. East is East East London's......

Fancy a trip to Israel? But don't fancy lining up at LHR to pile onto a tedious flight? This might be what you're looking for: a car rally from London to Jerusalem - in vintage vehicles, no less! As part of the State of Israel's 60th Independence Day, the Jewish National Fund is aiming to raise some £250,000 for residents of the Negev desert. Hence this 18 day rally, during which drivers will meander......

Lee Jackson of Victorianlondon.org fame recently got in touch about an old web site he'd unearthed. Half a decade ago, Lee recorded random voices from the South Bank and built a page for them. It's a bit like The Man Who Fell Asleep's Overheard on the Underground Column for Time Out, but more hypnotic. Lee picks up the tale... I tried the same thing again on the north bank of the Thames, but didn't get......

We here in the Ist-A-Verse know that we're sensational, but it's very rare that we get a chance to be sensationalistic. This week, we've decided to have ourselves a little fun and try our hand at tacky tabloid headlines, using nothing more than our favorite posts from this week. Torontoist Special Report: Rosie to Trump: "Fire 300 Bicyclists for Fraud!" On DCist: Students Go Wild for Slogans, Secrets and Sexual Harassment The action was thick......

Tessa Jowell, like any avid gambler, feverishly hedged her bets with the House of Lords on Wednesday in efforts to push through her plans for a series of ‘supercasinos’ in Britain. Peers voted 123-120 against the measure that evening, despite Jowell’s last-ditch attempts at swaying on-the-fence Lords in her favour. One wonders what sort of things Jowell was promising the Lords she was trying to influence -- extra chips at the blackjack tables? A......

He might have seen off Goldfinger, but James Bond was yesterday defeated by the cold shoulder. A first edition copy of Casino Royale failed to reach its undisclosed reserve price at a London auction. "It's very disappointing. But the fact that it's an auction means you never know what's going to happen," said Richard Caton, a spokesperson for Bloomsbury Auctions. Surely they should have offered it as a prize in a game of Texas......

The snow may have brought London to a halt, but the blogorash just keeps spreading. Here are a few of the things that caught our eye out there this week... Thankfully Onionbagblogger's new darts (yes, darts) didn't literally catch our eye, but we did it think it was nice in an age of game consoles that at least one Londoner was enjoying himself the old fashioned way: Ah yes - the darts... 23g of......

The war over intellectual property rights has opened up a new front as London scientists kick off the new year with a shot across the bow of Big Pharma: Two UK-based academics have devised a way to invent new medicines and get them to market at a fraction of the cost charged by big drug companies, enabling millions in poor countries to be cured of infectious diseases and potentially slashing the NHS drugs bill.......

Alan Crompton-Batt: 23rd March 1954 - 21st September 2004 Londonist raises a glass in memory of a bon viveur and rock'n'roll restaurant PR great. Alan Crompton-Batt was the public relations consultant credited with creating the notion of the celebrity chef. He also used to manage the Psychedelic Furs in the late 1970s and was known in some circles as The Man Who Turned Down Dire Straits Before They Were Famous. The son of an......

A portrait by Pablo Picasso has gone on display at Christie's ahead of an auction which, if it goes as expected, will make it one of the top 10 most expensive paintings ever sold. We've spotted the first 'London Fashion Week isn't as good as it used to be' article - do we get a prize? Paul Gasgoigne went on a seven hour 'alcohol fuelled gambling binge' in London this week. London is facing......

I am the man from below. Current location: 15 feet below the forest surface, busy digging a tunnel...And so begins the blog from, suprisingly enough, The Man From Below. Since the new year, TMFB, real identity currently unknown, has been digging away under the Thames Valley Gateway somewhere close to City Airport in an attempt to create a new community underground, and a new way of living for Londoners. Ye Gods, it's David Essex......

Is it just us or is London getting smaller? Explanation via Valgeir in the comments: For those of you who still don't speak Icelandic, this is one of several ads for an Icelandic airline (disclosure: I work there) featuring a character known as The Man of the World, who has travelled so much that he confuses Reykjavik with London, thinks everything in Iceland is soooo small and, amongst other things, mistakes the entrance to an......

Last week, we brought you the tale of The Man Who Collects Shopping Lists. Raynes Park resident Scott Allsop (pictured here, with lists literally coming out of his ears) has amassed hundreds of the things. Londonist caught up with him recently to find out…why? Perhaps you could start by telling us a bit about yourself I’m a 25-year old history teacher from Raynes Park. I’m originally from Buxton in Derbyshire, but moved here after......

Channel 4 is going mad for the cock this week - more so than usual, even. We hope Armin Meiwes is tuning in from his prison cell - in between trying to sue Rammstein, that is. Es ist mein Teil, but a man's relationship with his dick isn't as straightforward as all that, or so TV Troll understands. 4's willy strand will explore the conflicting emotions that arise (aha ha ha) from this tricky......

Entertainment titans Sony have been keeping buskers in payola as part of a marketing plan. We would normally be shocked and horrified by this revelation; however, if you think back to November of last year, we told you about the Johnny Cash tribute day when the buskers that grace London Underground were being paid to play Johnny Cash songs to mark a Greatest Hits release. Well, it's happening again, this time as part of......

Opinions at Londonist are divided about "street artist" Banksy. Many contributors here have a very high opinion of the man and his work. This Londonista does not. However, considering the views of my colleagues and the fact that the publisher of this website is behind Streetsy.com, so we know what he likes, I'll tread as delicately as possible. Here's the short version for everyone who thinks that Banksy is, without question, fab and cool......

It's so easy to drift through life accepting the status quo (not the kind appearing in Coronation Street and beating up Les Battersby, silly, the other things-as-they-are-now kind) and never bothering to think about who takes care of the little details. Who picks up the discarded copies of Metro after the morning rush hour? Who cuts the grass in the communal garden? When you arrive at your desk at 9am - give or take......

We here at the Londonist are never averse to a bit of guerrilla marketing, provided it's done cleverly and unobtrusively. It warms our hipster hearts to see giant, faceless advertising firms reaching out to Da Kidz through subversive (and occasionally subliminal) means. However, we find that, in general, it helps if your target audience has not seen you go through the entire agonising creative process you used to gin up your campaign. It tends......

Another week, another erratically-timed gig post from us and yet another award ceremony sponsored by 'The Man'. Those of you who labour under the impression that the NME is somehow alternative and still worth taking notice of will be interested in the results of the hair-product-sponsored NME Awards. The rest of us who prefer not to build up bands just to knock them down when they get popular will concentrate on getting on with......