Here at Londonist, we aren't too shy to admit our love for sweets. But that love apparently doesn't hold a candle to the dedication of food artist Prudence Emma Staite. To celebrate the return of blue Smarties, Staite has re-imagined famous works of art with Smarties as her chosen medium. The collection, including Warhol's Marilyn Monroe, Seurat's Bathers, and Banksy's Chalk Farm Maid, is currently on display at the V&A Museum of Childhood in......

Science, the esteemed global magazine of cutting-edge research, has an unlikely cover star this week. Banksy’s Bethnal Green flower adorns the hallowed page with the following explanation: An example of "art" by self-styled guerrilla artist Banksy, as seen in East London in November 2007. Human behavior that would be characterized as antisocial punishment can also be called art; prosocial institutions, most notably the campaign Keep Britain Tidy, refer to Banksy's work as vandalism. Odd......

Boris Johnson might just have won himself the election with a pledge to abolish the bendy bus and bring back the Routemaster. Emotions were high today as the Bethnal Green tube station disaster was commemorated, 65 years on. Londonist is feeling left out: we want to climb up something and protest: today saw two up a crane grumbling about the EU Treaty. On the Olympic front, today saw the announcement that the IOC is......

Even on its quietest weeks, London is something of a happy haven for bibliophiles such as ourselves, though we may be doing nothing more than perusing one of the city’s many lovely bookshops. This week, however, we’re in a veritable book geek heaven, as the London literary scene goes all glittery, playing host to some major names and fantastic events, leaving us tongue-tied and weak at the knees. Do we gush? Very well then,......

You wouldn’t think Jacqui Smith scares easily. In her time as Home Secretary she’s dealt with car bombs and blazing jeeps, and she’s lately been facing down a bunch of mightily annoyed cops. But in an interview appearing today in the Sunday Times, Jacqui revealed that she wouldn’t dare walk down a London street alone at night. Would she feel safe walking alone at night in, say, Hackney, east London? She looks alarmed: “No.......

So last Thursday we went to see Londonist-favourites Mitch (whom we interviewed a couple of months ago) play at the rather ambitiously-named Pleasure Unit in Bethnal Green. Here’s what we took away from the gig: A high-pitched ringing in the ears. Two guitars plus one bass plus one drummer plus forceful vocals plus small venue equals a very loud gig. The venue is OK, but not great. Sure, the bar staff are nice. But......

You may have heard of Caliper Boy - we've previously spotted his era-spanning scrawls around London and learned a bit more about the legend of this early 1800s downtrodden child, allegedly locked away in a cellar in 1819 by his prostitute mother until age 12, when he escaped to find his father. dANTE OR dIE is a theatre company that dances, sings and performs a type of musical theatre that is the complete opposite......

The provocative title is not simply a cheap trick like putting "SEX!!!!1!" across the top of a flyer to catch people's attention for carpet cleaning equipment. The One Night Stand With... series is quite literally one night with a specially commissioned artist at VINEspace, an inquisitive East London gallery in Bethnal Green Each month, an artist is invited to present an exhibition for one night only. It is taken down in the morning so......

The Londonist Music Minions have had a night off from their hectic gigging schedule tonight, and we hope that you have done the same. The party season is rapidly approaching, and you need at least one laid-back evening to conserve your energy for the rest of the week… If you can, start things off gently tomorrow (Tuesday) with one-time Zero 7 vocalist Sia at King’s College Student Union (tickets are officially sold out, but......

The brilliantly named artist Foster Spragge has finished her cylindrical artwork Ticket Cylinder made entirely of used railway tickets. With the Oyster card doing away with paper tickets (and even cash and mobile phones eventually...) there's something almost pre-emptively nostalgic about this 5' 2" tower of orange and yellow slips of card. Using no glue and only a pair of very steady hands, Spragge has been building this particular tower in Bethnal Green Library......

Say it enough times and it comes to mean anything you want. Chi Chi Bunichi is one of the nicest theatre / dance / music experiences of the year that welcomes audiences with tiny glasses of peppermint tea and little paper cups of halva and makes everyone sit in a circle like an evening gathering around a campfire. The performance blends the genres in a beguiling mix of sound and movement, in an atmosphere......

Media regulators Ofcom have finally come to a conclusion about one of George Galloway's inappropriate outbursts on radio station TalkSport. As a sitting MP and representative of Bethnal Green and Bow, it was not acceptable for him to have hijacked the morning show for promoting himself as a better candidate for Poplar and Limehouse. Called to stand-in for regular hosts on the morning of 10 August, Galloway proceeded to outline his plan to pitch......

Reader Chloe sends us these images of what is surely a new Banksy piece in Bethnal Green. And she seems to have captured the face of the artist, hitherto unseen. (However, we've seen that flower shape before, around Shoreditch—perhaps Banksy is here teaming up with someone else.) The work seems to be some kind of riposte to Tower Hamlets council, which recently declared it would erase all of Banksy's graffiti in the borough.......

The breathlessly international Bicycle Film Festival is seven years old this year and it is rolling into London with a string of cool films and even cooler parties and exhibitions, from Wednesday 17 October to Sunday 21 October. Films about two-wheel transport range from modern-day radicalism in Canada to gruelling fundraising cycle hikes over the Alps, from the factory floor in America to changing lives in Ghana, a helmet-camera tour of several international cities......

We're adamant that this week we're going to pretend it's still Summer. We're not content with sitting in watching the telly. We want to go out and play. But if we're going to do this every night this week, we're going to have to do it for very few pennies indeed. Here's the free stuff we've found this week: Tuesday: We tried really hard but we can't find you any free theatre for Tuesday.......

There are a *lot* of bands and artists in London, so many that it's easy to never discover the really great ones. Bandwatch is a new feature on Londonist where we talk to a new band or artist we think are really exciting. Of course it's our personal opinion and you might think our choices suck, but Bandwatch relies as much on you filling us in on the amazing band you discovered last week,......

Cult canadian star Feist is back in the UK playing a sold out date at the Shepherd's Bush Empire on Monday night. Now "1, 2, 3, 4" is all over an advert it might be tricky to find tix but we reckon the ever reliable XXX. Kill Hannah bring their Chicago rock to Kings College with I Was A Cub Scout and Saving Aimee supporting. Tickets are £7.50 and here and American R&B lothario......

It was pointed out to us, when we posted last week about rugby pubs, that somewhere else had done it better by team. Well yes, they had, but they'd got a bit lazy after the home teams and our closest European friends and bunched the rest of the world together. We know that London is the most diverse city in the world so we've made it our mission to find you, whichever rugby nation......

Ask someone what they picture when the word "burlesque" is mentioned and chances are they'll think of a pretty girl wearing feathers slinking about on stage. But what if Dita von Teese were a bloke? If you'd like to find out, boys and girls, head on east to the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club for the final of Tease:The UK’s ONLY Male Burlesque Competition ! Come and see who will be crowned ‘Mr Male......

A classic piece of political theatre was played out yesterday in the Commons when George Galloway, the raging MP for Bethnal Green & Bow, was suspended for some decidly murky funding links to Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. In the debate leading up to the decision, 'Gorgeous George' made his case in his ususal fiery style - citing everything from short-sword fighting to Julius Caesar's legions in his defence (defiance?). While everyone already knew......

Anyone with a casual interest in London’s street art could do worse than a visit to Sclater Street. This short road in Shoreditch connects the northern end of Brick Lane to Bethnal Green Road. Virtually every surface is covered with high-quality murals, from a range of artists. You can even find sculpture. But catch it while you can. The viaduct visible in some of these images will form part of the East London Line......

Expect delays on the westbound Central Line after a train derailed between Mile End and Bethnal Green at approximately 9.15am. The Central Line is currently suspended between Leytonstone and Liverpool Street in both directions. The TFL website is just saying there is a "faulty train in the Mile End area" but we got the information on the derailment straight from the mouth of the driver of the train directly in front of the affected one,......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 25th June 1953: John Christie is sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, whose body was found with several others hidden beneath the floorboards of his house in Notting Hill, West London. His conviction casts serious doubts on a previous murder trial that resulted in the conviction and execution of his fellow tenant Timothy Evans, who would be posthumously pardoned in 1966. The resulting controversy......

WWII bomb found in Bethnal Green. That's one way to free up land for the Olympics. Speaking of which...are we going to get a Ministry of Olympics? Paedophile! Living in a Watford playground! Thatcher opens Falklands exhibition at Imperial War Museum. And for all those people who've always wanted a BJ in a toga. Image (taken near Archway) courtesy of Marc Tobias Metten, who emailed it in especially. He tells us 'It's the most......

That quintessentially Shoreditchian pastime, urban golf, has lost its founder. According to Metro: Jeremy Feakes, who invited golfers from across the globe to compete in the East End, died of head injuries after a fall onto concrete at his studio in Hoxton. He had been planning to launch 'urban golf' worldwide, after the success of his annual Shoreditch Urban Open in London. Looking at the memorial page, it seems Feakes died over a month......

Burlesque is a big hit and has been infiltrating the London club scene over the last two years. Though it may seem inappropriate to call something that revels in quaint antiquity as "New Wave" it is indeed New Wave Burlesque that we are enjoying at the moment. We imagine that most readers are, like us, looking ahead to the weekend already and out of the many burlesque nights available, we thought we'd recommend one......

This Day In London’s History 1759: The British Museum in Bloomsbury opens its doors to the public for the first time. Some may feel that the British Museum these days is little more than a massive boast, bragging about how many cool things the British Empire has stolen from the rest of the world. But regardless of whether this criticism is fair or not, it’s hard to deny that the museum is still one......

Right. We were going to save the Jarvis video till Friday, but some clever bugger has ripped the embargoed video and put it on YouTube: Don't Let Him Waste Your Time is the first single proper from the excellent Jarvis. It's out on 8 January and heavily pilfers from Dion's Only You Know. Originally written for Nancy Sinatra (watch her version here), Jarvis must have seen sense and realised no one could deliver the line......

A couple of weeks ago we told you about a new singer who is going to be B I G in 2007 : Mika. Tonight, he plays a gig at The Reindeer in The Truman Brewery on Brick Lane. The Reindeer is a restaurant and theatre space set up by the people behind Bethnal Green's lovely (if a little expensive) Bistrotheque, designed to last only December with the clever tagline 'Remember, the Reindeer is......

The Museum of Childhood reopened yesterday, after a one year shutdoor for refurb. Unfortunately, and tragically, the Central Line was effectively closed all afternoon because of 'a person under a train' at the nearby Bethnal Green Station. So visitor numbers were no doubt down on expectations. Those who did manage to get there would have seen what is thought to be the UK's oldest rocking horse, possibly an erstwhile plaything of Charles I. The......