• London’s pet population is being hit hard by the recession.
• How the all-new Heygate might look if they ever get around to starting work therein.
• Police are looking for some incredibly stupid teens who stabbed a pregnant woman in Kilburn.
• Interesting statistic of the day: 2/3 of London’s babies have a foreign parent.
• Huge Leyton cannabis factory ‘shut down’ following police raid.
• On how childcare costs are deterring London parents from working
• Finally, some more London Fashion Week footage. Just in case you needed it.

Passing fashion, by Analog Photos via the ever fashionable Londonist Flickr pool.

Bourgeois and Maurice

Zinger Of The Week: Bourgeois and Maurice @ National Portrait Gallery, Thursday

For some of us, pay day is some way away. Bridge those sighs and get thee to a gallery for some entertainment courtesy of LCA Award winners Bourgeois and Maurice and the National Portrait Gallery’s LGBT History Month. Host Timberlina will be taking the twisted siblings down memory lane as they explore childhood themes. FREE!

Wednesday’s Zingers

With a great blend of top burlesque performers and actors, Burlexe re-enacts the stories of the earliest practitioners of the art. And if you’re wondering what what goes through the head of modern burlesquers, one of the show’s stars (and winner of the LCA Best Burlesque Performer award) Kiki Kaboom reveals all about Swarovski, bubbly wine and “the vintage thing”. £20

Over 17,000 people voted for the LCA’s Time Out Audience Award and the deserved winner was the innovative Alp Haydar. His double bill of recent shows went down a storm last Thursday and he literally has a new opening tonight (and a closing tomorrow) at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. £7

Desmond O’Connor is one of the filthiest fiddlers of ukeleles around. His new night Under The Counter promises to fathom new depths of depravity at the Cellardoor, Zero Aldwych. FREE!

Thursday’s Zingers

Come dine with LCA nominee A Man To Pet in deepest, darkest HipstervilleDalston where guests at pop-up cabaret foodie experience The Pale Blue Door can explore Tony Hornecker’s “Tim Burton fantasy” of an abode between courses. £35

The 200th anniversary of Charles Dicken’s birth recently hit the headlines like Tiny Tim’s turkey and White Rabbit’s latest show – Are You Sitting Comfortably at Jackson’s Lane Theatre – attempts to shine up the fun side to the Victorian author. Host Miss Havisham (yes) will be leading the audience through a night of storytelling, games and nibbles. £12.95/£10.95

Over in the Queen Of The Suburbs, you can watch more than the time disappear at Conjuring at the Court, West Ealing’s long-running monthly magic night which this month welcomes Neil Henry, Wes Zaharuk, Terry Herbert and Dean Maudsley. £10

Friday’s Zingers

The famed drag-queen supergroup featuring LCA judge Lisa Lee, Ryan Styles, Richardette and Blanche du Bois will be “singing” more twisted songs at LCA-nominated Bistrotheque than in a pile of sun-melted vinyl. Go. Continues tomorrow. £12/£10 diners

No need to wait for the White Mischief hoe-down as Wotever World celebrate LGBT History Month with a full-on Steampunk Tango Ball at Islington Town Hall. Turn up early for a mini-class from 7:30 led by Ute Walter from Queer Tango Germany and stick around for some musical comedy c/o LCA-nominated Miss Hope Springs. FREE!

Recent winner of the Hackney Empire’s New Act Of The Year Award David Mills will be at private members joint The Hospital Club with Radio 4 favourite Helen Lederer. £15 or £40 including dinner

Saturday’s Zingers

Duckie received the loudest cheers at the London Cabaret Awards as they recieved their Outstanding Achievement Award and deservedly so. Turn up at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern to see just why this show has lasted sixteen years and can look forward to many more.

Our recent visit to the last episode of Die Freche Muse went down smoother than a gimlet so if you’re after the authentic vintage vibe, you could do much worse than dress up and turn up their latest soiree at N16′s Old Cholmeley Boys Club. Performers include the impudent Mr Pustra and blonde burlesquer Banbury Cross. £20, £15 advance

Lock up your daughters: coming on like a ferocious version of Tony Ferrino, Wilfredo is the singing Latin lothario your mother warned you about (yet can never seem to stop talking about). He will be breaking hearts at the Battersea Arts Centre tonight. £10/£8 concessions

Sunday’s Zinger

This week’s greatest tornado of tassels can be seen down at Proud Cabaret as Burlesque Siren have their graduation revue. £9

Monday’s Zingers

Ursula Martinez, one of the most important figures of modern cabaret, has her own show at Soho Theatre. My Stories, Your Emails continues until March 10. See one of her most famous routines here (NSFW).

Two recession-friendly options elsewhere: there be drag queens at the Cellardoor for a very round price or you can watch Timberlina publicly fondle his smooth balls at the RVT’s weekly bingo for £1 a round.

Tuesday’s Zingers

Check out LCA-nominated LaJoseph John’s gender-blending Boy In A Dress at the Ovalhouse. We loved his turn at last year’s Alternative Eurovision and this show is a compendium of his three solo memoir shows. Show continues until 3 March. £14. 

Here’s a taster of what to expect at tomorrow’s Bourgeois and Maurice show. Have fun.

Mix up Secret Cinema with TED Talks and you’d get something like the Lost Lectures — a regular event featuring quickfire talks from interesting people in a secret location.

The next events are set for 21 and 22 March, at a location only disclosed to ticket holders. The list of speakers sparkles:

21 March

• Prof. Anthony Dickenson: expert on pain and mind-altering substances
• Mark Forsyth: Author of The Etymologicon, and the man behind these ingenious photos
• Simon Singh: Well known author of popular science books, and champion of libel law reform
• Andrew Shoben: Creator of art in public places, including the recent sun installation in Trafalgar Square
• Kerstin Rodgers: Perhaps better known as @msmarmitelover, Kerstin was a pioneer of the underground restaurant movement
• Robin Norton-Hale: who brings opera to small, intimate venues with OperaUpClose

22 March

• Guido Fawkes (aka Paul Staines): probably the UK’s best-known political blogger
• Luke Jerram: the artist behind last year’s Sky Orchestra balloon spectacle and the glass viruses of 2009
• Shaun Usher: Blogger behind Letters of Note, which collects together unusual and interesting correspondence
• Steve Wheen: Guerilla gardener
• Dr Cath Mercer: A leading sex statistician who runs the National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles
• Shitfaced Shakespeare with Cpt. Chris Snelson: Shakespeare by drunk people

Tickets can be bought here for £10 (earlybird) or £12. Follow them on Facebook, from whence we borrowed this image of the last event.

Elektro Kif by Laurent Paillier

Blanca Li Company — Elektro Kif 
Parisian Blanca Li Company presents a fresh form: electro dance, which is an impressive mixture of hip-hop, breaking, street, disco and voguing born in Parisian nightclubs. In Elektro Kif this trendy style with its myriad influences is tightly wound into contemporary dance with a highly theatrical flavour — skip to the end for a video taster. On 2-3 March, Queen Elizabeth Hall at 7.30pm, tickets £10-£20.

Ballet Black
Ballet Black showcase an energetic mixed bill of premières, including a pas de deux by Jonathan Watkins (the Royal Ballet) and a new narrative ballet ‘Storyville’ set in 1900s New Orleans by Christopher Hamson (Scottish Ballet). From 29 Feb-7 March, Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House at 8pm, tickets £8.50-£20.

Sadhana Dance — Elixir
Sadhana Dance bring Elixir The Place, probing pressing issues around climate change. Combining elements of her scientific research from around the world and Bharata Natyam dance, choreographer Subathra Subramaniam explores the struggle of survival in a world where water is scarce. The Place, 3 March at 8pm, tickets £15.

DV8 — Can We Talk About This?
One that will no doubt cross the border from dance into theatre, and very political theatre at that, DV8’s Can We Talk About This? about Islamic fundamentalism, is provocative enough to have led to death threats for choreographer Lloyd Newson, so expect the philosophical and very physical. From 9- 28 March, Mon- Sat 8pm, Wed & Sat matinee 3pm, National Theatre, tickets £12- £35.

Shobana Jeyasingh Dance — Classic Cut
More Indian Dance with the iconic Shobana Jeyasingh Dance, celebrating their 25 year anniversary. The show pairs the fiendishly fast and intricate ‘Configurations’, Jeyasingh’s 1988 collaboration with composer Michael Nyman, with the dramatic ‘Dev Kahan Hai?/Where is Dev?’, a new work to a score by sound artist and DJ Niraj Chag. Between 13-17 March, at Linbury Studio Theatre, Royal Opera House at 7.45pm, tickets £8.50- £20.

Random Dance — FAR
If you missed him at British Dance Edition, fear not! Wayne McGregor brings FAR back to Sadler’s Wells on 19- 20 March at 7.30pm, tickets £12- £27.

Pet Shop boys and Javier De Frutos — The Most Incredible Thing
Finally, creeping into April, another chance to see The Most Incredible Thing at Sadler’s Wells. 25 March-7 April, Tue-Sun 7.30pm, 2.30pm Sat & Sun Matinee, tickets £10-£40.

Photo by Dusdin Condren

Sharon Van Etten’s debut album ‘Tramp” is possibly the album of this — admittedly young — year. Mixing Jeff Buckley’s ethereal hum with Warpaint’s psychedelic swirl this is as hypnotic as music comes. Van Etten, boasts a supremely handsome list of contributors (try The Walkmen, Beirut and The National on for size) but her live shows are a relatively unknown entity this side of the pond. If YouTube is anything to go by, however, expect quiet intensity beneath an early grunge aesthetic.

This free show on 29 February precedes what will certainly be a sold out show at Scala on 16 May.

Usual rules apply, drop into Rough Trade East during the day and pick up a free wristband for you and you’re fortunate other, then simply turn up at 7pm and remember to pick up a programme of upcoming events.

By Sam Frankl

Once you’ve bagged a wristband the free gig is at Rough Trade East, 91 Brick Lane E1 at 7pm, 29 February.

So, can someone explain exactly why has it taken so long for the first ever London Cabaret Awards to be held? This particular brand of entertainment has grown exponentially in recent years both in terms of quality and quantity, something recognised by the Edinburgh Fringe who gave cabaret its own category last year. Furthermore, outside New York, there is probably nowhere better than London to discover some of the kookiest and kinkiest acts on the planet.

Organised by Excess All Areas, the awards ceremony was held on the Battersea Barge, ensuring that the night rocked in more ways than one, as a crowd packed with performers and press quaffed bubbly wine and awaited the presentations. Of course, this wouldn’t be a proper awards ceremony without some controversy. The panel of judges were hardly an impartial collection – as recognised by the judges themselves – resulting in hokey cokey voting as judges abstained in categories they were professionally involved with. Amongst the finalists, we would have liked to have seen a distinct category for circus acts and/or emerging talent like Jackie Le, Lucky Franco and Stephen Williams, a firm nod to social media innovators like gentleman juggler Mat Ricardo and commie crooners EastEnd Cabaret and a vigorous headshake to Ophelia Bitz and Scottee for their unrelenting efforts to drag cabaret in new directions.

Having said that, the judges made sound choices across the board. Accepting the Speciality Act Of The Year Award, Mr Ricardo joked about his “75 years” on the circuit which started on the streets and has led to appearances on cruise ships, a TV ad, Jonathon Ross’ show last weekend plus his own productions. The Unsung Hero Award went to Zoe Charles who went from setting up theatre groups to setting up her own school of burlesque teaching hundreds of students in multiple countries. The only award voted for by the public (of whom over 17,000 members made their voices heard) went to Londonist favourite Alp Haydar who, quite literally, has a new opening tonight.

Duckie deservedly received some of the loudest cheers of the night. In 2011, they celebrated their 16th straight year in style, deliberately sent their audience to sleep and gleefully vivisected capitalism at the Barbican, all while running their popular Saturday show at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Some of the Duckie’s longstanding performers have gone beyond their cabaret roots and entered polite society, for example Christopher Green has recently been appointed the British Library’s Artist In Residence and Camdenites will recognise New Jersey-born Amy Lamé as their first openly gay Mayoress.

Our favourite quotes of the evening:

• “Cabaret is full of people who couldn’t make it into musical theatre.” We would like to see host Jamie Anderson repeat this quip to Le Gateaux Chocolat.
• “And the award goes to…ADELE!” Rotherham’s loss is London’s gain as award presenter Myra Dubois tried to throw us off the scent.
• “I want to thank my tits.”Best Burlesque Performer Kiki Kaboom accepted her award in typical style while fellow nominee Fancy Chance painted her face with mascara.
• “LOSER!” How the audience later gleefully commiserated Best Burlesque Performer nominee Audacity Chutzpah as she stood up to present an award.
• “People believe we are a cabaret act. It’s probably safer that way.” Ace ad-twisters and Best Music Based Act Bourgeois and Maurice found a way to get their own table.
• “I’m an alcoholic and amazing.” Dusty Limits gave us two possible reasons behind his Best Host win.
• “If we have caused one solitary nightmare, our work has not been in vain.” How the David Lynch-inspired Double R Club officially accepted their award via email for Best Ongoing Production.
• “Holy fuck!” How the David Lynch-inspired Double R Club actually greeted their award on stage for Best Ongoing Production when they found out moments later across town.

All photos (c) Claire Bilyard.

Londonist attended at the invitation of Excess All Areas and presented the award for Best Speciality Act.

For the zingiest cabaret recommendations in London, step this way.

Book, poetry and spoken word events in London this week

Wednesday: Lars Iyer launches his new novel, Dogma, at the Wapping Project (7pm). He’ll be chatting about it with Sam Jordison.

Poet and novelist John Fuller is in conversation with Adam Phillips at Lutyens & Rubinstein‘s beautiful bookshop in Notting Hill (7pm, £5).

Rachel Rose Reid tells stories about fashion at Selfridges (6pm, free).

Kat Francois hosts Jawdance at Rich Mix, with spoken word performances from Simon Mole, Uniq the Poet, Ronnie McGrath and Maria Slovakova (7.30pm, free).

Thursday: DJ Connell and Timothy Graves read from and talk about their respective books, Julian Corkle is a Filthy Liar and Homo Jihad, at Bethnal Green Library (6.30pm, free).

Shiv Malik, Deborah Grayson, Adam Ramsey and Clare Coatman tell Evan Davis how badly young people are getting screwed by politics, at Foyles (6.30pm, free but email to reserve a place).

If you have £40 to blow, why not spend it on a three course meal at the St Pancras Grand Brasserie and listen to Simon Callow wax lyrical about Charles Dickens? (6.30pm).

Slightly Foxed magazine hosts a party at Dulwich Books to celebrate publication of paperback editions of classic memoirs (6.30pm, free).

Nicola Streeten’s graphic novel details losing her two year old son; she’s talking about it at the Big Green Bookshop (7pm, free).

The Poetry Takeaway and Musa Okwonga take part in Selfridges’s Words Words Words season (6.45pm, £10).

Poet Sam Riviere responds to austerity measures at Toynbee Studios (7.30pm, £5).

Hear Victorian tales with music, cake and parlour games at Jacksons Lane in Highgate (8pm, £12.95 / £10.95).

Mr Gee hosts Brixtongue at the Electric Social, with performances from Jazzman John Clarke, Gloria Thomas and more (7.30pm, £8).

Friday: Morris Gleitzman has done a take on the global economic crisis for children. Hear about it at the Southbank Centre (11.30am, £8 / £4).

There’s a Pere Lachaise theme at St Ethelburga‘s church – readings of Wilde, Proust and Gertrude Stein’s work, plus live music (8pm, £10 / £7).

Hylda Sims hosts Fourth Friday at the Poetry Cafe (8pm, £6 / £5), celebrating the posthumous publication of John Rety’s collection with Stephen Watts, David Floyd and Jacqueline Gabbitas.

Saturday: It’s Dickens Day at Foyles! Excellent themed panel discussions and a Dickens quiz, from 9.30am (£10 / £8).

To celebrate World Book Day on 1 March there are a ton of book swaps for children around town. The pick is probably from Booktrust at the Free Word Centre (from 11am, free), with The Gruffalo’s illustrator Axel Scheffler.

If you’re around Dulwich, local author Linda MacDonald is signing copies of her debut novel Meeting Lydia at Dulwich Books from 11am.

Children’s author Tom McLaughlin tells tales of the Diabolical Mr Tiddles at the Big Green Bookshop (11am, free).

Amy Key, Jacqui Saphra and Gale Burns host The Shuffle at the Poetry Cafe (7.30pm, £5 / £3) with Wayne Holloway Smith, Maggie Sawkins, Faye Lipson, Paul Stephenson, Ruth O’Callaghan, Amy Neilson Smith and more.

Sunday: Lip, Tongue & Toe storytelling collective (otherwise known as Alys Torrance and Alice Fernbank) plus guests are at Jam Circus in Brockley (7pm, £5).

Monday: Andrew Motion, Ann Thwaite and LOCOG celebrate the life and work of Alfred Lord Tennyson, at Kings Place (7pm, £9.50).

Surya Turner leads a craft-slash-storytelling event for under 5s at Rich Mix (1.30pm, £2).

Vince Laws and Trudy Howson host a night at the Poetry Cafe that’s part of LGBT month (8pm, £5 / £3).

Tuesday: Jon McGregor, excellent author and short story writer, appears at Book Slam at the Tabernacle, alongside Francesca Beard, Rachel Rose Reid and Heidi Vogel (7.30pm, £8).

Litro Live! hosts a free festival of Double Dutch in Kensington, with David Winner, Abdelkader Benali, Ramsey Nasr, Chika Unigwe, chocolate making and more (from 9am).

Niall O’Sullivan hosts the Poetry Cafe‘s open mic night (7.30pm, £5 / £4).

Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events

Welcome to the latest episode of Londonist Out Loud, a podcast about London. You can listen in-browser, or subscribe via iTunes or RSS.

This week’s episode is the last one in the special four-part series visiting some of London’s most famous and endearing institutions (previous episodes: London’s Air Ambulance, Thames environmental barges, and Battersea Dogs & Cats Home).

Host N Quentin Woolf finishes by visiting Harrods, where Len Brown, who takes care of the cleaning and repairing of Harrods’ vintage vehicles, takes him for a ride in a 1919 American Walker. Sebastian Wormell, Harrods’ archivist, who looks after the history of the famous store, accompanies them. They discuss the story of the vintage vehicle fleet and enjoy the ride at the breakneck 12 mph maximum speed.

Remember, you can subscribe to Londonist Out Loud via iTunes or RSS.

Interested in sponsoring this podcast? Contact us on hello@londonist.com for more details.

First two images by N Quentin Woolf, second image by M@, fourth image by david.bank in the Londonist Flickr Pool.

Ken Livingstone’s promise to cut fares by 7% if he’s re-elected and resign if he doesn’t might have helped the former mayor gain in the polls against Johnson. And not content with that, Ken has also pledged to make the Barclays Cycle Hire scheme free for older people. The mayor’s announcement that fares would increase at the start of this year probably haven’t done him a lot of favours in the popularity stakes, but Boris is insistent that higher fares are necessary to invest in the system and has committed to increasing them by 2% above inflation every year to fund that investment.

So where does Ken plan to find the money to cut fares in such a dramatic fashion? We’ve all heard his claim that TfL has a £729m surplus in its operating budget, a claim which TfL staunchly refute. TfL’s chief finance officer Stephen Critchley told C4′s FactCheck blog:

“The £729 figure from the 2010/11 accounts is the difference between the operating margin (the difference between operating income, mainly fares revenue, and operating expenditure) that was originally budgeted and the actual outturn for the year.

The reason for the big difference was that TfL had to change its plans to cope with the grant reduction of £108m and prepare for the impact of the October 2010 Spending Review, which reduced the grant by £2.2bn over 4 years. This underspend – which did result from higher operating income and lower operating expenditure than budgeted – was used to offset the loss of £2.2bn funding in an effort to balance the business plan.”

But 7% off our fares — that would be pretty helpful at a time when everything else is so expensive, right? But what could it actually mean for London? According to Boris Johnson’s answers from Mayor’s Question Time last December, a cut of 5% would mean:

…to meet the scale of the financial reduction outlined above, the following key projects which are not yet contractually committed would need to be looked at first to be cut:

• Delaying the Deep Tube Upgrade Programme (Piccadilly/Bakerloo Line upgrades) by at least four years
• Delaying Bank Congestion Relief by at least four years
• Cancel six Cycle Superhighway routes

The following projects already underway would also need to be looked at:

• Slowing the SSR (Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and District lines) upgrade so it takes much longer to complete.
• Slowing other major congestion relief projects(Victoria, Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street) so they take longer to complete.

It should also be noted that all the projects above (except Cycle Superhighways) have explicit agreed milestones in the Secretary of State’s Spending Review letter. Any change away from the milestones may result in a reduction in Government Grant, meaning further savings would be needed to fill the financial gap.

Professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics (LSE) also spelled out the impact on loss of revenue caused by fare cuts both to FactCheck and in the Evening Standard, stating that “every pound taken off fares is a pound not available for investment”.

The Green Party thinks we can have both investment and low fares though. In Mayor’s Question Time in January, Darren Johnson said:

“On this issue of fares we have had a fairly sterile debate over the past few months basically being about a choice between increasing fares or reducing fares and increasing investment or reducing investment. Would you accept that there is another way forward and that we could maintain investment in new public transport infrastructure and reduce fares if we were to look at a more sophisticated form of road pricing which academics have suggested could raise £1bn a year which could provide investment for new public transport and provide a significant reduction in fares to make life easier for Londoners?”

The road pricing in question, which Londonist will look at later this week, is the subject of a report commissioned by Darren Johnson which suggests that around £1.4bn could be raised from road pricing. Meanwhile, Brian Paddick also outlined his fares policy recently, which again concentrated on reducing fares.

Like Boris, Ken is also no stranger to increasing tube fares, even after making pre-election promises to hold them down which later turned out to be misleading. So while a short-term cut at the ticket gates would be good for our wallets, it may turn out to be something of a pyrrhic victory for the former mayor should he be successful in his re-election bid.

The long and short of it is that having low fares at the same time as maintaining and upgrading infrastructure seems pretty much impossible, especially if the transport system in question is ‘creaking and suffering from decades of under-investment’ (we note that Boris has picked up on Bob Crow’s favourite adjective for the tube). As an aside to this, Richard Trench and Ellis Hillman’s London Under London notes that in the 1970s, the Paris Métro received three times as much investment as the London Underground.

Photo by Matt from London

The free concert, which will be conducted by the LSO’s Russian Principal Conductor, Valery Gergiev, was made possible by a new sponsorship deal with BMW. Muscling in on pop territory, the orchestra will perform flanked by giant screens.

Perhaps surprisingly for an open-air concert that will need to attract an audience of many thousands to be judged a success, the LSO will perform full works by Igor Stravinsky rather than a Last Night of the Proms-style populist programme of shorter pieces.

The Russian composer’s masterpieces The Rite of Spring and the Firebird Suite make up the core of the performance, which will also feature 150 children as part of the orchestra’s ‘LSO Discovery’ education progamme.

The Trafalgar Square concert is slated for repeat in 2013 and 2014 with details for these future events still to be announced.

Image courtesy of leftbrokeneye3 via the Londonist Flickr pool.

London's orchards, circa 1890

Have you ever tasted a London Pippin, a Merton Joy or a Hounslow Wonder? Did you know that Heathrow used to host vast orchards all around?

London was once full of fruit, as this London Orchard Project map of the city’s orchards as late as the 1890s shows. The Project aims to rediscover and restore what remains of our orchard heritage and to work with local authorities, park users, schools and other groups to create new community orchards in London’s unused spaces to help, as they say:

“Address the city’s allotment shortfall, promote community production and ownership of fruit, and help us rediscover the pleasures of eating fruit grown close to home. Community orchards also green the urban environment and create habitats for wildlife.”

So far, the London Orchard Project has planted 23 community orchards of approximately 10 trees each (marked in green on the map of London’s current orchards).

London's orchards today

These have included apples, pears, plums of new and heritage varieties, and the odd experimental mirabelle, apricot and peach.  Some of these are in public parks,  such as Green Gate Common in Haringey, Caledonian Park in Islington, Archbishop’s Park in Lambeth or Nursery Row Park in Southwark and Haggerston Park in Hackney. Go along, they say, help out, perhaps, come harvest time, even help yourself to one of London’s heritage apples.

Explore the maps here.

• Boris, Ken and Brian take questions from London’s elderly: read the lowdown here.
• The Met will be ‘exercising’ in the City this week.
• Victim of crime? Now you can register it online.
• On how London’s parks are being threatened by staffing issues.
• Different chemicals, same problem: drug-taking in the City is still rife, it seems.
• Hmm. The DfE remove, replace an anti-academy board of governors. Very Nineteen Eighty Four.

Abstract, by Scarycrow via the Londonist Flickr pool

Liverpool's Outfit play the Royal Albert Hall

Spectacular leftfield record label Double Denim take over the Elgar Room in The Royal Albert Hall, for a stunning night of electro soul and hazy psychedelia, from three cutting-edge artists topping 2012’s Ones to Watch lists, including our own.

Estonian post-punk disco chanteuse, Maria Minerva headlines the night along with Liverpudlian gloom-funk disco-janglers Outfit, and Londonist’s Ones to Watch NZCA/Lines. It will be a night of ethereal  DIY and pounding sophistication which perfectly encompasses 2012′s musical obsession of digitised analogue chic.

Although this Double Denim curated night is as far from the Proms as you can get, the Elagr room’s elegance is a fitting setting for the unique musical craftsmanship oozing from all three acts. Minerva’s voice alone is worthy of a royal box, but supported by NZCA/Lines’ precision synth beats and Outfit’s perfect melodicism, we have a night of rare excellence.

At only £7.50 it’s a great chance to see cutting-edge music in London’s most iconic venue, and in the Elgar Room you can actually get to see them on stage without opera glasses. Bonus.

Double Denim and Hush at The Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, Wednesday 22 February £7.50 + bf.

There aren’t many guided tours that range from Waterloo to the back streets of Wapping and Shadwell; that visit major tourist sites like the Tower of London, but then lead you into a charming local’s pub off Brick Lane. A cycling tour of the capital can give you all this, and will appeal to visitors and Londoners alike. We took to the saddle with BrakeAway Bike Tours, one of several companies who offer a two-wheeled view of the capital.

We joined tour guide Chris Abbott, a Barking lad with an Aussie lilt, for a three-hour pedal round town last Sunday. The Secret London tour begins as it means to go on, with a descent into Leake Street, the graffiti park beneath Waterloo’s train tracks where Chris stores his bikes in a hidden lock-up.

After mounting our wide-handled bikes, the route weaves through Southwark, down roads major and minor, finally crossing Southwark Bridge and on into the City. Here, Chris stops regularly to point out the rich architecture and 2000-year history, most strikingly personified by Leadenhall Market — a Victorian jewell built on Roman remains, with modern-day Harry Potter connections.

From there we head on into Brick Lane, stopping for refreshments at traditional pub The Pride of Spitalfields, before meandering round the near-East End. This is where the itinerary really goes off-guidebook, passing through mazy council estates and along the Wapping canals on our way through to St Katharine Docks. Some Londoners might seek out the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and the Cable Street mural, we suppose, but not many. And certainly very few tourists pass this way. We finish by crossing Tower Bridge and riding off into the sunset back to Waterloo.

There are many, many books, tours and apps out there offering a guide to ‘secret London’, but few can rival the variation you get on a cycling tour, where the added mobility can take you to places too far from the centre for most guides. Tour groups are small, with only five in our party, growing to about 20 in the summer. This allows for a more personalised experience, with everyone able to ask questions of the guide.

Visitors wanting to see different sides of the city will love it. Londoners, too, will learn much — and a bike tour is a safe way for those intimidated by London’s roads to build the self-confidence needed to take to two wheels.

BrakeAway Bike Tours offer three themed tours (secret London, grand London, and a spooky tour) and can also be hired for private events. Scheduled tours are £18 for adults or £15 concessions, which gets you three and a half hours of cycling (with a break).

It should be noted that several other companies offer cycling tours of London. Fat Tire are perhaps the biggest, and generally stick to central London. Other companies include Cycle Tours of London, the London Bicycle Tour Company, Tally Ho Cycle Tours (on a vintage bike) and Spoke N’ Motion. We’d encourage you to visit all these sites and decide which is best for you. You can, of course, always grab one of Transport for London’s hire bikes for £1 a day and work your own way around London.

Other reviewed tours:

• Abbey Road Studios
• Art tours
• Deptford, in the footsteps of Charles Booth
• Old Coffee Houses of London
• St Pancras Renaissance Hotel
• Street art of Shoreditch

THEATRE: Cheek By Jowl’s Tis Pity She’s a Whore at the Barbican from tonight (see video below). The Trial, Steven Berkoff’s adaptation of Kafka’s unsettling masterpiece at the Greenwich Theatre also opens tonight.

Epic family drama In Basildon opens at the Royal Court Theatre’s Jerwood Theatre Downstairs from tomorrow. You can see Patrick Stewart play an ageing Shakespeare in Bingo at the Young Vic from Thursday. The West End welcomes a US import from Friday: Zach Braff’s comedy, All New People opens at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Finally, Saturday is the opening night of the star-studded comedy of bad manners, Hay Fever (Lindsay Duncan, Jeremy Northam, Kevin McNally and Olivia Colman) at the Noël Coward Theatre.

OPERA: London’s two opera offerings couldn’t be more different this week. On the one hand, you’ve got The Death of Klinghoffer, John Adams’s controversial docu-opera about the killing of a Jewish-American tourist during the hijacking of a Mediterranean cruise liner by Palestinian militants. It’s at the London Coliseum from Saturday. And from Monday, you can see Dvorák’s Rusalka at the Royal Opera House: the story’s a Czech myth about a water nymph, with echoes of the Little Mermaid.

COMEDY: Josh Widdicombe is at the Soho Theatre for four nights from tomorrow. Then from Friday, you can see The Oh Fuck Moment at the same venue: poet Hannah Jane Walker and Fringe First winner Chris Thorpe explore the feeling you get when you realise you’ve made a horrible mistake.

DANCE: You can see Alexander Whitley and aerialist Ilona in Exposure: Dance at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio from Thursday.

CLASSICAL: Tired of London’s big classical venues? A group called the London Festival Orchestra is based at lovely recording and rehearsal venue, the Warehouse, in the back streets of Waterloo. The orchestra performs a concert there tomorrow night where they are joined by leading clarinettist, Emma Johnson. Music includes pieces by Bach, Finzi and Haydn. Classical fans should also look out for Reverb from Friday this week: an exciting festival of classical, alt, folk, jazz and electronica at the mighty Roundhouse.

JAZZ: Jazz in the Round is a new jazz promotion at the The Cockpit in Marylebone. The night, on the last Monday of every month, is curated and presented by Jez Nelson, who presents BBC Radio 3′s Jazz on 3, the home of cutting edge jazz on the Beeb. Monday’s gig includes Sons of Kemet, a new quartet featuring two drum kits and some of London’s hottest jazz talent: clarinettist and sax player Shabaka Hutchings, drummer Seb Rochford, tuba player Oren Marshall and drummer Tom Skinner.

ART: From tomorrow, Jeremy Deller’s new show, Joy in People opens at the Hayward Gallery. It features installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, sound pieces and more from this political and socially engaged artist. Also opening tomorrow is Eric Rimmington’s exhibition, Going Underground at the Millinery Works in Angel, featuring 40 paintings of the London Underground completed between 2006 and 2011.

On Thursday, the next sculpture is being unveiled on the Fourth Plinth: Elmgreen & Dragset’s Powerless Structures Fig 101, or “the boy on the rockinghorse”, as he’ll probably become known. A free show opens at Rich Mix on Friday called The Curry Chefs of Brick Lane: an exhibition of photographic portraits by Jeremy Freedman.

Anything we’ve missed that you’re really looking forward to seeing this week? Let us know in the comments below.

We have listings for ongoing shows at London’s top museums on our Museums and Galleries page

On the final day of London Fashion Week proper — i.e. the menswear is tomorrow — here are some candid shots of faces around Somerset House.

For a frugal fashion fix head to Designer Jumble at Church of the Annunciation, Marble Arch (Old Quebec St entrance), W1H 7AH from 4pm today and more dedicated (and cash rich) followers of fashion might want to fulfil their designer desires at London Fashion Weekend starting from Thursday.

Photos taken at Somerset House by Gary Cohen.

A polished chrome bar offers contemporary cocktails made with local spirits such as Sipsmith gin alongside Georgian wines from some of the earth’s oldest and most precious vines.

If uneasy pronunciation can be seen as a sign of authenticity, then Colchis’ menu is painstakingly historic, with the likes of mtsvadi and khachapuri available to tantalise the taste buds as they twist the tongue. The former will be familiar to you as shashlik kebabs, and these are particularly tender, juicy and well seasoned ones, with a hit of smoky charcoal from the grill upgrading the eating experience. Khachapuri could better be described as cheese stuffed bread, and isn’t a million miles away from that late night Anglo-Indian classic of cheesy naan. What’s not to like about that?

It wouldn’t be Georgian food without some dumpling action, and there’s no shortage of variations available. Top scores for ingenuity goes to a dish which features gnocchi-like dumplings in a plethora of vegetable flavours including spinach, leek, beetroot and pumpkin; though pleasant enough, they can’t compete with the more macho carnivorous version. Large khinkali dumplings contain the essence of a beef casserole within their fragile skin, wobbling seductively on the fork and bursting in the mouth like a warm cherry tomato on steroids. Or something to that effect. Read: we like them.

We didn’t get offered dessert on our visit as we spent too long scoffing mains that it became quite late, but we’ll take that as a good excuse to return. Perhaps for a mountain load of those dumplings and a glass or two of vino. With 150 bottles on the list, there’s plenty of choice, though given the quality of what we tried and the quietly ongoing renaissance of Georgian wine, it’s a shame the selection isn’t a bit more patriotic. There’s Georgian choices which we’d recommend you plump for (as did our waiter), but why hide them amongst so many less exciting French and Italian offerings?

Ask them that question when you head there and maybe we can make an impact

Colchis is at 39 Chepstow Place, W2 4TS. Visit their website at www.colchisrestaurant.co.uk.

The plans will see two prime viewing areas flagged for charging. The first is along 2km of Box Hill, comprising the tough zigzag road component of the race. The second is at the summit on Donkey’s Road, likely to be a good place to see breakaways, attacking manoeuvres and potential pile-ups.

LOGOC had been applauded for negotiating with the National Trust and increasing capacity at Box Hill from 3,500 to 15,000 after protests from spectators and cyclists, the current Sports Personality of the Year Mark Cavendish among them. Yet there is much anger at the proposal to charge spectators for the first time to view the critical hilly sections. It’s particularly disappointing that the event was offered as a consolation for those who missed out on tickets in the ballot last year. When the race route was launched, cyclist Bradley Wiggins himself said of the summer’s course: “It’s free for spectators so they can come along and poke their heads over the barriers.” Such head pokers can now look forward to being escorted away by security.

LOGOC stresses that 120km of the 140km of the race is still free to view for spectators. British Cycling President Brian Cookson said that while he understood “You can’t have an unrestricted free-for-all like the Tour de France”, he lamented LOGOC’s plans, musing: “It would be absolutely better if it was free of charge because cycling is a sport that is traditionally free to watch.” London Assembly Chair of the economic, culture and sport committee Dee Doocey called the proposals “Dreadful and most regrettable”, adding, “it is totally against what LOGOC has been saying all along.”

LOGOC has yet to announce prices for tickets, but claim they will reflect the cost of erecting grandstand seating, toilets and the all important refreshment areas. The announcement follows reports this week that tickets will be required for those entering the Olympic Park without  a specific event ticket. Those thinking of avoiding the hassle entirely and watching it at home should be warned that they’ll incur the company of celebrity crisp merchant Gary Lineker.

Photo from David Merrigan in the Londonist Flickr Pool.

Fitzroy Place hoardings - Image by Olivia Spooner

The Fitzrovia Photography Prize — carrying the tagline “Where Creativity Lives” for its open air instalment — is run and judged by Diemar/Noble Photography.

The competition was open to anyone with a camera, amateur or professional, and hundreds of submissions were received. Original photos had to be taken within a one mile radius of the gallery. The best results are now displayed on the hoardings round the newly named “Fitzroy Place“ development on the former Middlesex Hospital site.

The quality of the images is at times exemplary, with many colourful and quirky scenes from around the neighbourhood. The exhibition certainly brightens up an otherwise non-space, but with slick presentation that some might liken more to an advertising billboard than a street gallery.

Not everyone has rejoiced in the venture, however, with one local blog raising concerns about the demise of local photographic studios and a shift in creativity to more commercial outlets.

Note: This article has been substantially altered following corrections from the gallery. Due to a confusion over the press release, the original article incorrectly stated that many of the artists are represented by Diemer/Noble. We apologise for any aggrievement this might have caused to the artists or gallery.

Streetviolence.org lets victims or witnesses of a street crime to map the incident and give more details than are available on the police crime maps, like whether the victim knew their attacker and the time. The idea is to provide context to crime – if most of the muggings in an area are happening at, say 3am by people the victims know, there’s little point in pensioners getting frightened about nipping to the shop at lunchtime.

Sadly, that’s as far as we think its use goes. The charity behind the site, Witness Confident, says that it can be used by anyone who doesn’t want to formally report a crime to the police. Putting aside that sound of a can of worms opening, part of the terms and conditions of adding a crime to the map is that you allow the police to contact you. There’s the option to contact Crimestoppers if you want to report something anonymously, but the police crime maps also have that option. No wonder the Met, who worked alongside Witness Confident during streetviolence.org’s creation, are withholding their endorsement for the time being.

First Aid Kit: Klara (left) and Johanna Söderberg

You’re not very likely to witness any sibling rivalry when Swedish sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg, a.k.a First Aid Kit, bring their world tour to London on Thursday night. Harmony is the watchword,  as is evident from their justifiably much-hyped second album, The Lion’s Roar.

The record, which came out last month on London-based label, Wichita, is a country-folk set with a heavy nod to the likes of Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, who were also the inspiration for current single, Emmylou.

Originally scheduled to perform at King’s College Students’ Union, First Aid Kit’s only London show proved so popular that the promoters resorted to moving it to King’s Cross’ Scala.

Below, we talk to the sisters about their big break, the new album and working with their musical heroes.

You started making music in 2007 when you were still teenagers. Was it difficult getting your first record deal?
Klara: Well, we weren’t really looking…
Johanna: we just uploaded a couple of songs on Myspace a week after they were written and a month later we had a record deal.
Klara: It all happened very fast.
Johanna: It just happened. And then we started touring and we quit school and… we’ve been doing it ever since.

How long was the new album in the making?
Klara: We spent about two years writing the songs and it took about a month to record. We wrote a lot of the songs whilst we were on the road, touring the previous record. You see a lot of things that you can put into songs whilst you’re touring.
Johanna: You don’t write fully-formed songs when you’re touring but it’s more small ideas that you can write down and record – we had six months at home afterwards so we we got to finish off writing the songs then.

Where was the album recorded?
Klara: In Omaha, Nebraska.

What’s your first memory of coming to London?
Johanna: First time was to play a show -
Klara: Well, you came here before that-
Johanna: Yes! I was here with my dad and grandmother…
Klara: It was for the christening of our cousin -
Johanna: I was 12. I remember going to see Mamma Mia and to Tower Records at Piccadilly Circus. I didn’t think I’d be coming back here a couple of years later to play a show.
Klara: Before I came here for our first live performance, I never really traveled. We only traveled to Denmark in my family, really. So it was a pretty big deal for us when we started touring. We played our first show in London.

Do you remember the venue?
Klara: Yeah. 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street.
Johanna: And now we’ll be playing our 14th show here.

Any hints on what can we expect from this tour?
Johanna: We’re mostly doing songs from our new album.
Klara: Yes. Maybe a couple of covers too.

Which Emmylou Harris song would you record if you had the opportunity?
Both: “Boulder To Birmingham”.
Klara: Yeah, we sing it all the time. It’s very special to us because it’s a song about Gram Parsons.
Johanna: We love Gram and Emmylou so much, it’s a very special song. But people say we sound a lot like Emmylou so there probably wouldn’t be much point in recording it.

How did your cover version of Fever Ray’s “When I Grow Up” come about?
Johanna: We were on this radio show, Triple J, and part of the show was called “Like A Version”, where we had to do a cover. We thought about Fever Ray because she [Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife and Fever Ray] obviously meant a lot to us in our career [Dreijer Andersson first signed First Aid Kit to her and brother Olof Dreijer's label, Rabid Records]. We always wanted to cover one of her songs and we thought something by Fever Ray would be perfect. That song has a tribal feel to it. It works perfectly in guitar and vocal form.

Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst joins you on the album’s closer, King Of The World. What was he like to work with?
Klara: Working with him and singing with him has been our dream -
Johanna: It’s been my dream to work with him for a very long time. And so, obviously, to get to do that was very very big for us.
Klara: The first time we met him was when he was playing in Stockholm and we gave him our record. We kind of just stood there and didn’t say much. It was awkward. We pretty much thought that was our last chance to ever meet him. Make an impression. And then a year later he came to our show in Austin, Texas and said he loved the record and we also met Mike [Mogis, long-time Bright Eyes collaborator] that night and then ended up working with them. It felt amazing to get to collaborate with him on King Of The World and actually write something together with him. Very special.

What’s more enjoyable to you: writing and recording music or performing live when you’re on tour?
Johanna: The two things are difficult to compare because they are so different. I think I prefer being in the studio, working on the songs. That’s probably my favourite part of the process because it’s so creative. There’s something about hearing a song that is finished, for the first time. And seeing where it’s gone. It just brings out something in me. What would you say, Klara, do you agree?
Klara: Yes. I do. That’s not to say we don’t enjoy touring. You get a connection with the audience. You can see it in their eyes when a song really means something to someone. And they know the lyrics. There’s a special connection you get.
Johanna: The thing about touring is that, like, 5% is the shows and the rest is traveling. I love the shows but some of the other aspects of touring aren’t as great.
Klara: But at the same time, I kind of like the fact that it can be very relaxing. You’re stuck in this van and you know you’re going to be there for the next ten hours so you know that the only thing you can do is just sit there and relax and it’s nice. A contrast to always being busy and having to run around.

And presumably you also miss your family back in Sweden when you’re on tour.
Johanna: Well, our dad is on tour with us. He’s our sound engineer.
Klara: But our mum and our 8 year-old brother are back home. We hope that in a couple of years our brother can join our band.
Johanna: Yes and our mum can come on the road with us too. I think she would like to be our stylist.

Do you get recognised when you’re in public back in Stockholm?
Johanna: Yeah we do sometimes but I think Swedes in general are a bit more shy so we would get tweets about it afterwards saying things like ‘I saw them at Burger King but I was too shy…’ -
Klara: Burger King?!
Johanna: Well, once we got that [laughs]. But, like, in America people will come up to you instantly. In the UK people whisper more.
Klara: We’d rather people came up to us and started a conversation rather than just staring…

Are you doing any UK festivals this summer?
Johanna: Yes we are doing End of the Road, which we love. We were there in 2009 and a lot of our favourite artists played there so we really wanted to do that this summer.

Tickets to First Aid Kit’s London show at Scala are available HERE. The album, The Lion’s Roar, is out now.

Sometimes, for us mere mortals, London Fashion Week can feel a bit meh. While we love reading tweets about Alexa Chung and Elizabeth Olsen’s exciting LFW exploits, the rest of us are still deskbound, feeling distinctly unglamorous and untouched by all the sparkly LWF fairy dust.

Which is why it’s nice when a little piece of LFW spills down into our world. From Thursday this week, you can “pop” into a special pop-up shop in Seven Dials, and get a little bit of that LFW flavour. Melanie Porter is a Central Saint Martin’s College graduate with a bit of a thing for wool, and she’s set up a studio / boutique to show off her wares during LFW on Monmouth Street.

After working as a knitwear designer for 10 years, in 2008 Melanie turned her expertise to furniture. She now lovingly repurposes antique furniture with her signature contemporary designs, knitting new life into old chairs, tables, lamps and more. She uses all traditional techniques, stripping pre-loved items back to basics before restoring and reupholstering with her unique, hand-knitted panels.

Everything, crocheted buttons included, is done by Melanie herself, by hand. Forget Top Shop’s latest colour palette, here’s something from LFW that shows off a bit of London’s true creativity, skill and talent. We reckon it’ll last a bit longer than the catwalk looks being celebrated this week too.

Melanie Porter’s Pop-Up Shop is at 38 Monmouth Street, Seven Dials, London, WC2H from 23 February until 5 March. The shop’s open from 10am til 6pm. Visit melanieporter.co.uk to find out more.

Italian mozzarella champion Obikà launched its premiere London restaurant in Canary Wharf back in November. Purportedly Italy’s favourite restaurant group, Obikà’s focus is to offer premium Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP served alongside a typical assortment of Italian artisan products, such as Prosciutto Crudo di Parma DOP, Bresaola della Valtellina (cured beef) and Isle of Ewe smoked salmon along with a mouthwatering list of antipasti, hot dishes, freshly baked pizza and aperitifs.

If you love proper mozzarella and down to earth southern Italian cooking then you’re very much in luck (especially if you live or work round Canary Wharf). And if you’re wondering how such a cheesy concept can result in a franchise spanning six countries in three continents, you should head over to the Wharf and see what the hubbub’s all about.

The open and airy Obikà benefits from its location within the large-windowed winter garden interior. But, honestly, the place could be a real dump and still be worth a visit. The mozzarella (whether delicate classica, naturally smoked affumicata or creamy burrata) is indeed a delicious draw. The £12.50 lunch menu (choose from three main courses plus a “mini dessert”, mineral water or soft drink and a coffee) presents an efficient and reasonably priced way to savour the simple beauty of one of Italy’s most delicious exports.

Obikà is located at Unit 1 West Wintergarden, 35 Bank Street, E14 5NW (but don’t be surprised if more outlets start springing up all over town).

Photo/Chris Osburn

Disclaimer: Londonist visited Obikà upon invitation of the restaurant.

If you don’t know who Piet Mondrian is you will undoubtedly be familiar with his compositions using bold black lines and primary colours. They are among the most famous pieces of abstract art, and many of them are displayed at the Courtauld gallery.

This exhibition explores the relationship between Mondrian and the British artist Ben Nicholson by examining the work of both artists side by side. It’s clear that Nicholson was inspired by Mondrian and the similarities in their artworks are evident.

Most people look at Mondrian’s paintings and think ‘I could do that’ but the brilliance of his art is that though it is quite spartan in nature, the bold blocks of colour always run to the edge of the canvas suggesting that this isn’t the entire picture and that we are only seeing a glimpse of something greater.

In contrast, Nicholson’s works can seem cluttered and yet somehow contained. Though he experiments with depth, his art is never as engaging or as mysterious as Mondrian’s. You have to feel some sympathy for Nicholson as many will find him wanting when compared to Mondrian and Picasso in two separate exhibitions that are currently on display.

Mondrian’s may not be everyone’s idea of great art, but if you’re a fan of his work then this exhibition is one you’ll want to see.

Mondrian || Nicholson: In Parallel is on at the Courtauld Gallery until 20 May. Admission is £6, concessions £4.50.

Joining the Britpop elder statesmen will be Manchester’s New Order  and The Specials from Coventry, under the banner Best Of British, reflecting Britain’s musical heritage not just London’s – although ours is better.

The concert, from BT London Live, takes place on Sunday 12 August as part of a series of shows throughout the Olympics. Tickets for the closing ceremony concert will be £55, although all other music events will be free, except the opening ceremony still to be announced.

Blur said on their Facebook page:

We’re rowing in.. going for gold.. grabbing the baton.. for the high jump.. No, hang on, is that right? Fact is, Blur have accepted the invite to headline the Olympics’ Closing Ceremony Celebration Concert in Hyde Park on 12th August.

As previously reported, sound levels for Hyde Park remain at 75 decibels  with a max capacity of 80,000

Tickets are £55  on sale 9am Friday 24 February.

Tokyo

The notoriously-crowded metro system has a PASMO card which appears pretty similar to London’s Oyster card. We especially like the FAQ page for PASMO, which is illustrated with a nifty pink robot, something TfL’s website is sadly lacking. A ¥500 (£4) deposit is required upon purchase of the card and it can be topped up at ticket machines or station offices.

Fares are calculated by distance rather than zoned and range between ¥160 (£1.30) for a short trip of 1-6km to ¥300 (£2.40) for 28-40km. A Metro All-line Pass appears to work like a travelcard allowing unlimited travel on any line and costs ¥16,820 (£133.55) for one month.

Courtesy of a Japanese colleague, we can advise that travelling from Ikebukuro to Ginza on the Marunouchi Line (which is apparently like going from Shoreditch to Liverpool Street) costs ¥190 (£1.50) whereas travelling from Wakoshi to Ginza (more like Ealing to Liverpool Street) costs ¥270 (£2.15).

Paris

Paris uses a zonal system similar to London’s with six circular zones radiating out from the centre. A single adult ticket which allows you to travel on the Metro, the bus or the RER (Réseau Express Régional) costs €1.70 (£1.40) but if you buy a carnet (a book of 10 tickets) the cost drops to €1.25 (£1.00). A Carte Mobilis is a day ticket again like a travelcard giving unlimited travel within certain zones. Zone 1-2 is €6.30 (£5.20) and zone 1-5 is €14.00 (£11.60).

The Paris Métro also has a pre-pay system, the Navigo, which covers weekly and monthly travel. It requires a €5.00 deposit and a zone 1-2 fare is €62.00 (£51.50) for a month while zone 1-5 is €109.90 (£91.20).

A former Paris resident tells us that people live everywhere and commute in all directions but travelling from La Motte-Picquet Grenelle to La Défense is roughly equal to Wood Green to the City in London.

New York

The New York subway equivalent of Oyster is MetroCard which travellers appear to be strongly encouraged to use. In fact, a single ticket is only available from a vending machine and costs $2.50 (£1.55). An adult single using the MetroCard is $2.25 (£1.42). There are no fare zones as with many other systems so the amount you top your MetroCard up by gives you a fixed number of rides on the subway. Using express buses costs more, as does the dedicated train service to JFK airport though the latter is only $5.00 as opposed to the woundingly large £18.00 charged by the Heathrow Express. A 30 day unlimited ride card costs $104.00 (£65.00).

They also have a version of auto top-up; the hideously concatenated EasyPayXpress MetroCard, which requires $30.00 to open the account but you get a 7% bonus every time you top up over $10.00, which is nice. Oh, and there are no child fares on the subway if your offspring are shorter than 44 inches. Any taller and they pay the adult fare.

Berlin

The Berlin U-Bahn (from ‘Untergrundbahn’, which means ‘underground railway’, fact fans) has three fare zones, known as A, B, and C, with zone A being the centre of the city. A single fare is valid across buses, trams and rail across the relevant zone and costs €3.00 (£2.50) for zones A-C. Interestingly, unlike London, dogs don’t travel for free unless you have a day ticket and the fares even specify differences between large and small dogs. A day ticket in zones A-B is €6.30 (£5.20) and one for zones A-C is €6.80 (£5.65).

The monthly equivalent is a VBB Eco Ticket which can be valid for either a calendar month or for a month from the date of purchase. One of these for zone A-B is €74.00 (£61.00) and for zone A-C it’s €91.00 (£75.50). On the prepay front, Berlin is apparently being introduced to the Metrocard but we struggled to find any reliable information on this. If any Londonist readers can shed some light on it, do let us know in the comments. There’s a kind of short-term version of one called the WelcomeCard but this is aimed at tourists rather than commuters.

Newcastle

Consisting of three zones and just two lines it’s the baby of our list but as one of only four underground networks in the UK and one of two outside London we thought we’d include the Tyne & Wear Metro for comparison’s sake. It has a dizzying array of ticketing options but a single fare in one zone is £1.60 while travelling across zones A-C is £3.10. A DaySaver ticket, which allows unlimited travel on the Metro, rail and ferry is £2.70 for single zone and £5.00 for all three. As with the London underground, travelling after 9am is cheaper but we’ve gone for a commuting angle across all our comparisons.

A Network One Travel Ticket, which gives access to local buses too, costs £58.80 for a month (single zone) and £80.90 for all zones. There’s also a special ticket for the Toon Army to travel to matches which costs £10 but it’s limited to Newcastle United season ticket holders only. The Tyne & Wear Metro doesn’t have a pre-pay card option.

So, here’s a handy table showing the above transport networks all in GBP. We’ve shown Oyster single fares for London because the walk-up cash fares are so insanely overpriced that it would ruin any decent comparison.

*Disclaimer: if anyone has better information on fares on these underground networks, please feel free to tell us in the comments. Likewise, we’d be interested to hear about your experiences on them.

Photo by P. Pearson

Somerset House, in less droughty times.

• Much of the region is already in drought, says panel.
• Armed forces reservists will get the call-up for the Olympics. (For security purposes, before anyone makes gags about the rifle competition.)
• Oxford Street advert can tell if you’re a man or a woman. It’s a slippery slope from here to Minority Report.
• The Tottenham unemployed will get training in firefighting.
• Top Shop boss has a five-point plan to cement London as the world’s fashion capital.
• Eton in the East End: posh school helps launch sixth form college in Newham.
• Twickenham Film Studios to close.
• (A pared-down) Blur debut new song ‘Under the Westway‘.
• Transport sponsorship needs more clarity, says Assembly.

Image by Mark Ramsay in the Londonist Flickr pool.

It’s National Chip Week. Whoopee. A whole week to celebrate potatoes? Marketing ploys ahoy!

Now, before rolling your eyes all the way back in your skull, it may be worth noting that Shepherd’s Bush chippy, Kerbisher & Malt, are planing to commemorate fried spud week by offering complimentary chips to the first ten folk who fumble through their doors each day. K&M aren’t open on Monday though. So look for the freebie fries from Tuesday the 21st through Sunday the 26th. Doors open at noon.

Kerbisher & Malt, 164 Shepherd’s Bush Road, W6 7PB.

The previous Blackfriars Protest ride.

On Thursday MPs will debate measures to improve the uptake and safety of cycling in the UK after the Times’ Cycle Safe campaign brought the issue to national attention.

The London Cycling Campaign (LCC) and prominent bloggers Danny and Mark are calling for a flash protest, as held at Blackfriars last year, in order to focus the minds of the members — many of whom won’t have cycled on London’s roads. In the LCC’s words: “The purpose of this ride is to remind MPs of the important changes that are needed to street and junction design all over Greater London, not least at Parliament Square, which is only meters from their workplace.”

The ride is part of the LCC’s Love London, Go Dutch campaign, which we’ll be covering in more detail as part of our mayoral election transport week.

The ride meets at 6.15pm, Wednesday 22 February at the Duke of York steps, The Mall.

Photo by ibikelondon.com

From tomorrow until late March, London will be home to the biggest Easter Egg hunt in history. 200 fibreglass ova will be secreted around the capital, each one decorated by a well-known artisan. If you’re the sort of person who gets annoyed by eggstremely weak egg-based puns, it might be eggspedient to leave town now (scramble, if you will).

Big names decorating the eggs include the Chapman Brothers, Marc Quinn, Zaha Hadid, Zandra Rhodes, Vivienne Westwood, Sir Peter Blake, Sir Ridley Scott and, inevitably, food frolickers Bompas & Parr.

Following the month-long eggshibition, the shelly baubles will be auctioned for charities Action for Children and Elephant Family. The egg hunt is reminiscent of 2010′s Elephant Parade, Cow Parade a decade ago, and the upcoming BT ArtBox in which London will be bekiosked with painted phone boxes.

The project will launch tomorrow in Trafalgar Square at 7.30am. A map and app will then be available to help you track down the eggs, each of which will contain a special code that could help you win a £100,000 Fabergé egg.

Follow on Facebook, where you can find further photos of the furtive funballs. Given the number of statues that have gone missing lately, we hope none of these eggs get poached.

Neighbours say the man has built a microlight aeroplane, complete with cockpit, in the flat and is now putting the finishing touches to a 12ft by 10ft motor boat.

How the unnamed resident hoped to disgorge his creations is not discussed, but he’s since been warned not to use his flat as a workshop. The Ham & High has more.

Song Dong is a Chinese conceptual artist whose latest exhibition consists of over 10,000 household items laid out in the Curve Gallery in the Barbican Centre.

Waste Not is the external representation of his mother’s depression, brought about by her husband’s death, which resulted in her becoming a serial hoarder. Over seven years she amassed many items ranging from hundreds of plastic bottles through to dozens of empty cardboard boxes. The fact that these are everyday items will make you question your own possessions. Will those boutique bags or childhood toys really come in useful one day?

The Curve is the perfect gallery to host this exhibition. Its unique layout makes the collection appear to extend without end.

Though Waste Not hints at the wider issue of  the impact of one person on the environment, it’s the personal element to Song Dong’s work that provides its poignancy.

Song Dong: Waste Not is on at the Curve, Barbican Centre until 12 June. Admission is free.

Stan Lee: at ExCel next weekend.

London events for people with curious minds.

Monday 20 February

BRAIN STUFF: Novelist Matthew De Abaitua, Alok Jha from the Guardian’s science desk and Will Self from…Will Self’s house are at the Monday Club (The Assembly, Elder Street) to enquire as to how London affects your brain. A bit of oddness with food is also expected. The Assembly’s website isn’t working, and Time Out’s description lacks a link or ticket price…maybe it’s a test of your brain power. 7pm

POLICE NINJAS: Stevyn Colgan founded an experimental Scotland Yard unit that used creative thinking to solve crimes. He now writes for QI. That makes him doubly interesting, and you can hear more from the former sleuth at Skeptics in the Pub, tonight in the Monarch, Camden Town. £2, 7.30pm

Tuesday 21 February

CLIMATE CHANGE: Could Earth’s rising temperatures lead to a more geologically active planet? Bill McGuire is on hand at the Royal Institution to monger some doom. £10, 7pm

ENERGY: If the RI’s event sounds too gloomy, perhaps try the Dana Centre, where a panel will tonight discuss how engineering could help solve future energy problems. FREE, 7pm

Wednesday 22 February

DR SALTER: A few months ago, a much-loved sculpture of Dr Alfred Salter was stolen from Bermondsey riverside. But the theft can’t diminish the achievements of Salter and his wife Ada, who championed public health improvements in Bermondsey from the 1920s. A new exhibition, called Here Comes Good Health, about his work opens at Wellcome Collection today. FREE, until 3 June

TUBE: A double-feature event at the Canal Museum, where Christopher Wolmar ponders “How the Tube Created London“, followed by Transport Secretary Theresa Villiers who’ll field a Q&A session about the future of the Underground. £10, 7pm

Thursday 23 February

SPACE: Londonist’s M@ and comedian Helen Keen enthuse about space travel in Spacetacular! at the Roxy, with help from Gareth Jones (formerly known as Gaz Top), Kevin Fong and others. Expect science, comedy, quizzing, a short movie, fancy dress (optional), and lots of fun if you’re passionate about space. £5, 7pm

ALT.MEDICINE: Natural remedies and herbal pills are sold to the public with very little medical testing compared to pharmaceuticals. Should we care? A panel at the Dana Centre tonight debates the dangers, perceived and real, with alternative therapies. FREE, 7pm

TECHBIZ: Are new tech startups driven more by the tech, or the imagination of the entrepreneur? A panel including TechHub founder Elizabeth Varley assembles at the Royal Institution to get to the bottom of it. £10, 7pm

LACK OF DOOM: When the world doesn’t end in 2012, how will the believers cope? What makes people believe in prophecy, second comings, Armageddon and the like? David V Barrett offers his opinions upstairs at The Bell, Spitalfields in this month’s London Fortean Society meeting. £3/£2, 7.30pm

Friday 24 February

ANTARCTICA: Discover why the frozen continent is of huge value to scientists and geologists at a special Natural History Museum talk. £10, 7pm

LATE DINOSAURS: Connected to the event above, the Natural History Museum will remain open late for anyone who favours dinosaur viewing at a nocturnal hour. FREE, till 10.30pm

Saturday 25 February

COMICS: The London Super Comic Convention is on at Excel all weekend and, get this, Stan Lee himself will be in attendance. Ticket price varies, 10am

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below. Or email us at matt-at-londonist.com to alert us to future events.

Simply called The Tube (and absolutely nothing to do with Jools Holland) the series follows Underground staff of all flavours, as they go about their merry business.

The debut episode, tonight at 9pm, focuses/unfocuses on how staff cope with inebriated passengers. The show follows hot on the rails of Channel 4′s Confessions from the Underground, which, despite a controversial billing, exposed pretty much nothing of note about the network. Annie Mole has more commentary on the opening episode.

Think Picasso and what springs to mind are cubism and paintings that have sold for millions of pounds. But Picasso’s most enduring legacy is the impact he has had on shaping much of the modern art that followed, including many notable works by British artists.

This exhibition aims to explore these links to see how the likes of Francis Bacon, David Hockney and Henry Moore were influenced by Picasso.

There is a profusion of Picasso on display here, including works from his early Impressionist days, through his blue period and on to his cubist and surrealist paintings. A few masterpieces are present, including ‘Three Dancers’, ‘Nude Woman in a Red Armchair’ and ‘Weeping Woman’.

With the many styles that Picasso experimented with, it would be difficult to find a modern artist who hasn’t been influenced by him, and his works are here used to greatest effect when displayed beside the work that they’ve inspired; the similarity between Picasso’s ‘The Source’ and Henry Moore’s ‘reclining figure’ is uncanny. The comparisons are less effective for those who were influenced by many other artists, such as Nicholson who clearly owes as much to Matisse and Mondrian as he does to Picasso.

Though the influence of Picasso on British art is an interesting journey, the real draw of this exhibition is the works by Picasso himself. They highlight that he experimented with many different styles but was able to inspire at every turn, and though many British artists followed in his wake, none ever managed to surpass the master.

This is your opportunity to appreciate why Picasso is heralded as one of the most influential artists of all time.

Picasso and Modern British Art is on at Tate Britain until 15 July.  Tickets are £14 for adults, concessions available.

A few days ahead of the previously-advertised date (albeit months later than originally planned) Blackfriars Tube station re-opened to passengers this morning. Click through the gallery above for photos from our pre-rush hour visit.

Fresh from a closure that lasted three years, Blackfriars has been completely rebuilt. The station now sports cream tiling throughout, replacing the Seventies-looking brown and orange pattern of its previous incarnation (see Homemade’s pictures for an idea of how it used to look). There are new lifts between the ticket hall and platform level, four escalators, and a greatly enlarged ticket hall, part of a new entrance to the station complex.

With the new Bankside entrance to Blackfriars rail station opening last year, the three-year rebuilding project is slowly coming to a close. The new Thames-spanning platforms should be finished in the first half of 2012, bringing the project to a close.

• Monday – 20th February 1913: Two suffragettes set fire to the tea pavilion at Kew Gardens at around 3am, destroying it completely.
• Tuesday – 21st February 1946: Alan Rickman is born in Hammersmith. He would become a multi-award-winning film, television and stage actor.
• Wednesday – 22nd February 1807: A huge crowd gathers outside Newgate Prison to witness the hanging of convicted murderers John Holloway and Owen Haggerty. In the crush and chaos, as many as one hundred people are killed through trampling or suffocation.
• Thursday – 23rd February 1633: Samuel Pepys is born in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. His detailed private diary from the 1660s would become well-known when published in the 19th century.
• Friday – 24th February 1987: The London Daily News, a newspaper owned by Robert Maxwell, is launched. Intended to rival the Evening Standard, it would collapse just five months later.

Random London Quote Of The Week

London is enchanting. I step out upon a tawny coloured magic carpet, it seems, and get carried into beauty without raising a finger. The nights are amazing, with all the white porticoes and broad silent avenues. And people pop in and out, lightly, divertingly like rabbits; and I look down Southampton Row, wet as a seal’s back or red and yellow with sunshine, and watch the omnibus going and coming, and hear the old crazy organs. One of these days I will write about London, and how it takes up the private life and carries it on, without any effort.

Virginia Woolf

Picture by Duncan Harris via the Londonist Flickr Pool.

Transport is the major area where the mayor has direct power and control over what happens in London. He or she is directly responsible for the buses, tubes, trams, DLR, cycle hire and London Overground trains. The mayor also runs London’s major roads, sets public transport fares, licenses taxis and minicabs, funds road safety schemes and has some influence over the rail network.

The mayor is Chair of Transport for London (TfL) and sets its fares, its budget and its policies. The mayor sets out his or her vision for transport policies in London in their transport strategy.

Transport is probably the biggest single challenge that the mayor faces, balancing the competing demands of high costs, fares, congestion, air pollution, service failures and the need to relieve overcrowding.

Some major infrastructure projects are currently taking place in London, which all involve the mayor/TfL to varying degrees:

• Crossrail is a major joint venture with central government, while Thameslink involves the rebuilding of several rail interchanges with London Underground.
• Upgrades to the tube network have taken a long time to carry out and have been difficult to deliver without disrupting existing users. They have also been costly because of the time taken and the financial models used.
• The extension of the East London Line to Clapham Junction completes the orbital rail network across south London – although controversially it reduces some links to central London.
• The Bounds Green A406 scheme is just reaching completion and the mayor faces new challenges to combat growing congestion in the development areas of east London that have led to proposals for new roads, ferries and tunnels.

The bus network has consolidated in recent years, but needs to be made more reliable and attractive to people who use other more congested modes at present.

Cycling and walking equally are politically challenging areas of policy, especially as there has been a massive growth in cycling in recent years and in the political voice of the cycling community with particular emphasis on safety.

The mayor will also want to have his or her say on major national infrastructure requirements such as airport capacity and location, and on the proposed high speed rail link (HS2) to the midlands and the north, which will involve substantial rebuilding of Euston station and could require the building of another Crossrail.

The mayor has however, been dealt a difficult hand in relation to funding both existing transport operations and providing the additional infrastructure that the growing city and rising user expectations demand. Central government funding has reduced as have contributions from developers as building projects have slowed down. At the same time, fares have been rising to cover the shortfall between costs and funds available and not many passengers are happy to pay for jam tomorrow today.

A measure of the scale of the transport task can be found in statutory consumer watchdog London TravelWatch’s ‘10 policies to keep Londoners moving’. The watchdog has already sought to use the document to influence the prospective candidates from the main parties in the lead up to May’s mayoral election and hopes that Londoners take the opportunity to ask their representatives on the doorsteps this spring about the priorities included in the publication that affect them most.

Further information about London TravelWatch is available at www.londontravelwatch.org.uk.

Read more of Londonist’s election coverage

Photo by MeDwayBoY

• Hogan Howe and Lee Jasper clash live on air.
• Slightly mad prof lives in plant filled box for two days.
• Goodness: Lord Lucan is still making headlines after all these years.
• Man decapitated by a lorry in Tooting.
• Five men injured in Homerton shooting.
• The Lambeth Show will go ahead after all.
• Thames Clipper fan? Sign here to stop the closure of Greenland Pier.
• Council evicts pensioners in Kingston.

On display by Darren Lehane via the Londonist Flickr pool.

This week saw the relaunch of Proud Cabaret Camden.

The venue is part of the Proud empire owned by Alex Proud. While Mr Proud made his fortunes from dealing in Japanese art and selling Rolls Royces to the Russians, the venue itself has enjoyed mixed fortunes. DECADES, the venue’s chief attraction last year, showcased many fine performers but was singled out and savaged by Time Out’s Cabaret Editor as the worst of 2011: “the show’s spine — a series of decade-themed dance-burlesque numbers — failed to convince either as sauce or as anything but the glibbest period engagement…Tits ’n’ teeth only get you so far.”

The new show again is not short on great talent. There is a heavy emphasis on burlesque but, unlike another current show, the all-female line-up was far more diverse on press night with fan dancer Banbury Cross, the latex-loving Marnie Scarlet and the globetrotting burlesquer-cum-aerialist Empress Stah. This was especially impressive considering that most of the capital’s top cabaret talent were at the inaugural industry awards. For sure, the bill would have benefitted from a great variety of acts, especially as it hard to imagine performers of this calibre turning up for every show, but it is hard to fault the talent on display for opening night.

The food itself was noteworthy with diners able to choose from five choices for each of the three courses. What we tasted was above par for supperclubs and competed with the entertainment for effort. Drink prices too were surprisingly reasonable with a gin and tonic costing £3.80. The in-the-round setup meant that most punters had a clear view albeit occasionally obscured by latecomers.

If this relaunch is anything to go by, Proud Cabaret Camden have put together the best regular burlesque supperclub experience in town. Go.

Londonist attended at the invite of Proud Cabaret Camden. For more information, see the official site.

For more cabaret recommendations, check out our weekly roundup.

All photographs (c) Guilherme Zühlke O’Connor