Barging through the throngs of camera-wielding tourists in Leicester square of a Saturday afternoon, it might not seem that London is in dire need of more visitors. But Visit London is aiming to do just that, by launching a £4m advertising campaign this weekend to attract more sightseers to the capital. The worldwide campaign launches as China hands over the Olympic cycle to Britain on Sunday, and will highlight London’s virtues as a holiday......

Love London as we do, we know that some of this city's tourist "attractions" don't exactly represent value for money. According to a survey by the Sunday Telegraph, London's fee-paying attractions are among the most expensive in the world. The newspaper compared the cost of visiting nine popular attractions in London and ten other cities across the world, and found that a sight-seeing trip here would trouble the family wallet by the sum of......

Tourist season in rain-soaked down-town London, and all the big museums are, shall we say, a tad busy. But Londonist always has something up its sleeve for a rainy day. And for those of you inclined towards higher aesthetic planes, we would strongly recommend the Design Museum in Shad Thames, more particularly their current exhibition featuring the works of ‘starchitect’ Zaha Hadid. It is hard to over-state the achievements of this prolific lady –......

Sitting outside the Queen Elizabeth Hall on a sunny weekend afternoon a month or so ago this Londonista was thrown into anxiety spasms sighting a man apparently about to leap off the roof of Shell Mex House and plunge to his death in the Thames. He stayed unnervingly still balanced up there on the edge with no clothes on. Clearly, I just don’t care enough because I had tickets to a show and put......

From the Beeb. The cast and creators of Monty Python musical Spamalot are hoping to set a new record for the world's largest coconut orchestra...The public will be given a pair of coconuts to "clip-clop" in time to the Python classic Always Look On The Bright Side of Life. Gallop over to Trafalgar Square (site of a former royal stables) on St George's Day (23 April) to take part, followed by a screening of......

Even though we are way way past school age, we still get a little melancholy at the close of summer. Fortunately, our friends across the -ist network know that the shenanigans don't need to end just because the big yellow buses are back on the roads. So, grab your sunscreen and your favorite hangover cure, as we take a tour of end of summer fun from -ist cities all over the damn place. SFist......

Londonist has been playing We Love Katamari all weekend. All weekend. This game is like crackburgers with extra cheese served up on a plate of M&Ms. While we did have perhaps a little too much fun rolling over Tower Bridge and Westminster before tackling Godzilla, by Tuesday morning we had decided that enough was enough. It was time to turn to serious matters and drop the joy pad in favour of something a little......

Well, here we go again. The release of another instalment of video game ‘The Getaway’ has been announced by Sony. And this time, it’s portable The Getaway: Gangs of London is to be launched later this year on the PSP format. Flawed but fun, the earlier PS2 titles offered excellent opportunities for London-based mayhem. Forget about the creaky storyline. We’d make up our own missions, like ‘You must steal the tank, and shell your......

A city’s affluence, and effluence, can be determined by the quality of its public conveniences. Later today, Londoners will get the chance to pass judgment on the state and availability of the town’s loos during a public meeting at City Hall news (whose own toilets, incidentally, are pristine). According to London Assembly’s website, ‘a panel of expert witnesses have been invited to speak’ at the meeting. Expert witnesses? On toilets? The mind boggles. Even......

Goldfinger. Bah-Bah BAH! He’s the man…who should have used thicker toilet paperrrrr. So went the iconic sixties Bond theme. (Or was that the man with the golden pun? No matter.) Goldfinger is that rare example of a man who left his mark on both the silver screen and the west London skyline. For those who are puzzled right now, the famous Bond villain was actually named after a real-life architect, one Ernő Goldfinger. Ian......

The ambitiously named Jubilee Gardens, or the Great Lawn of Yawn as we like to call it, is set for an exciting revamp. We reported on the original plans for the South Bank park back in June. Well, now they’ve been modified after input from a steering group. It’s fairly humdrum, as far as we can judge from the pictures, with curvy paths that call to mind the Diana Memorial Log flume - hopefully......

A girl I’ve been seeing is hosting a Halloween party with her flatmates. So of course this means fancy dress, right? The problem is I think Halloween is rubbish and I hate costumes. But I don’t want to be uptight about it. What should I wear that will impress the girl (and especially all her friends, whom I will be meeting for the first time) but won’t make me feel like a complete twat?......

It is a truth universally acknowledged that London loves tourists and tourists love London - despite the lamentations of some patrons of our city. A new exhibition at the Hayward Gallery is due to open on Thursday 6th October, and not only are you invited to view it but also contribute and become part of it yourself. Universal Experience: Art, Life and the Tourist's Eye brings together 50 international artists who will display their......

The National Theatre is bringing the Empire State Building to the South Bank, but reel-for-reel as opposed to brick-for-brick. Every Friday next month the theatre will be showing Andy Warhol's infamous film Empire, which consists of (and we're pretty sure you can't count this as a 'spoiler') one stationary eight hour shot of the Empire State Building, filmed overnight in June 1964. The film, which was originally shot from the 44th floor of the......