Londonist likes to breathe. This Londonist is pneumatically challenged, and so she is especially fond of a good puff of the invisible stuff. So when the invisible stuff becomes visible, and London is shrouded in an ominous sulphurous blanket, we either stay indoors, or wander around looking like Darth Vader, with one of those terribly fetching mouth and nose masks that cyclists wear. Various bods are meant to monitor air quality, but it seems to......

To be honest the rain and coldness is kind of making us not want to go to gigs at the moment, preferring instead to wrap ourselves up warmly at home. But if we did, this is what we'd be bouncing at. Monday: The biggie tomorrow is of course Led Zep at the O2, but you've more chance of meeting Santa than getting tickets for that. So instead, forget the dinosaurs and try something new......

Hard-Fi have announced a massive UK tour of arenas throughout the land, including a night at Wembley Arena. They’ll be bringing their tales of urban hell to Wembley on Tuesday 18th December, with tickets on sale tomorrow morning at 9am. For those quick off the mark on their refresh buttons, Bloc Party play Camden Barfly (yes, you’ve heard me right – they’ve sold out two nights at Ally Pally but they’re doing a miniscule show)......

A festival weekend wouldn’t be complete without the threat of rain, but while fans at Wireless in Hyde Park mostly got away dry, 500 geeks at Alexandra Palace couldn’t escape Saturday's storm. Hack Day is a 36-hour marathon of coding, pizza, beer and music sponsored by Yahoo! and the BBC. But the festival gods weren’t about to spare us just because we were indoors. Instead they sent two bolts of lightning sizzling down onto......

Tickets are going on sale at the moment for a lot of the Autumn gigs, so be sure to get your diaries out for this little collection of gems to catch soon. Everyone loves the Manic Street Preachers, and they've just announced a new full UK tour, where they'll be playing Brixton Academy on Tuesday 11th December. They're on sale slightly later than other tickets at 9:30 on Friday. KT Tunstall brings her own......

What with March coming in like a lion and blowing everyone all over the place it's the ideal time to take to the water under sail power. Although there's plenty on offer for the seasoned small boat owner in this weekend's Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace there's also a determined effort to get new blood interested. In case you have visions of a depressing afternoon mooching around clunky wooden toy boats and garish......

The London Assembly is pondering what's going on with London's allotments. The Environment Committee is apparently going to look into whether allotments are disappearing to make way for things such as the Olympic Village in Stratford. With luck, they might even suggest what to do about it, because it'll be a little disappointing if the outcome of their investigation was 'Yup, they're disappearing,' and they left it at that. The timing is fortuitous (ok,......

You may have noticed that we skipped this week's mid week listings post. That's because we've decided to roll them into one bumper Friday post combining new tour announcements and a randomly bizarre recommendation of gigs for the week ahead. There's a bumper crop of shows to mention this week, but not until we've stopped laughing at the news that Justin Hawkins of The Darkness bought back a copy of their forthcoming album off......

America are going crazy about them, but on this side of the pond we aren't too sure yet. Find out what all the hype is about as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah announce a UK Tour. An art rock band not a million miles away from Talking Heads, you can catch the Clap at their November 22 London date at ULU here (TK) The Fugees play the Hammersmith Apollo on 14th December playing live......

Get your bids in. The ‘ailing’ Alexandra Palace is now up for grabs, and is looking for someone to take on a 125 year lease. The Grade II-listed complex sits high atop Muswell Hill and is the major landmark of the area. But like Battersea Power Station and the Dome, it’s one of the great buildings of London that misses its full potential. So who’s going to buy it? Well, restrictions stipulate that the......

To paraphrase a pentameter from Poe: "the Proms, the Proms, the Proms, the Proms, the Proms!" They are upon us! It is the greatest classical music festival... in the wo-o-o-orld! It has to be true, because we read it on the side of a bus! Seriously, though, the Proms really are amazing. It is, in fact, too big to write a preview of. Just so we're clear: there are seventy-four regular Proms concerts in......

OK, so hands up all those who are going to get tickets for Billy Corgan's solo show in June (15th) at the Forum. Yeah, thought so. Old razor bonce himself has never really been forgiven for burning his t-shirts and inventing the Morpheus look 5 years too early. The jury's still out on whether his new solo outing thefutureembrace is going to disappoint the old Pumpkins fans even further but Londonist really liked Zwan......

Guerilla-gigging rockers The Others will feature in an event at the V&A on 25th February. According to the V&A, 'Agitate - Educate - Organise' is a "Social documentary on today's everyday life voiced by young poets, novelists, artists and musicians. Poetry reading, story telling and installations." Londonist suggests the V&A get writers that don't make its events sound so dull. Anyway, as The Others' rather more interesting announcement says, the band's film 'Guide to......

Manic Street Preachers have announced a UK tour. The artists formerly known as thin play the Hammersmith Apollo on 18th April. The official line is "Tickets are not on sale yet. Watch this space for more details very soon....." but the CD Times reckons that tickets will be available this Friday at 9am from gigsandtours.com. The excellent Delays will be supporting. Meanwhile, a band who have yet to settle into corpulent comfort and could......

NME reports that Razorlight will play another night at the Ally Pally, after selling out their original gig there. The new 12th February gig is apparently the last chance to see the band before they head back into the studio to record their Difficult Second Album. Check the usual suspects for ticket availability but do it soon, as tickets are bound to sell out quickly. We're not really massive fans of Razorlight here at......