This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice. 36. Art Attack Last week I mentioned about TfL's campaign to encourage better manners on public transport. The main issues I have with this and TfL's other advertising for this issues are that the new posters do not appear where they are needed (actually in-situ on the carriage) the characters are possibly not well suited......

It’s almost Christmas! Over the Christmas holidays, we’ll be here every day recommending the best of what’s on television. We’ll do the hard work, slogging through the TV listings, and let you sit back with a nice hot drink and a mince pie. Enjoy! On TV, Londonist likes: Strictly Come Dancing (BBC1, 17:50-19:15 and 21:25-22:10) While we haven’t been keeping up with the excitement of this year’s dancing fun, we know lots of you......

Never knowingly underrated - his was the sole photographic contribution to a recent Phaidon book about art history - Canadian photographer Jeff Wall is best known for his imposingly large colour transparencies that evoke scenes from unmade films. For his first UK show since a 2005 Tate retrospective, Wall has filled the lower half of the White Cube in Mason's Yard, SW1 with a selection of his lesser-known black and white photos. Drained of......

You may remember that we're not exactly lukewarm about this place. We were even up for finding love here. I guess you could say we're fans. Nothing has changed with a change in exhibition: Sleeping and Dreaming is marvellous and you must go. For a start, it's free. Nought pee. You can just swan through the doors, turn left and there you are. But that's where it gets dark and you immediately start watching......

Will the real Buster Crabbe please stand up? And put one of those flippers on each foot up? We were intrigued to discover that the South London Swimming Club will this Sunday morning be hosting a race for the "Buster Crabbe Memorial Cup". That name instantly transported us back to our school holiday mornings, transfixed in front of the televised black and white 1930s adventures of space hero Flash Gordon, embodied by one Clarence......

On Thursday night the Old Vic reverberated to the sound of a man pogoing enthusiastically against a glass ceiling. Rufus Wainwright, whose latest album, "Release the Stars", debuted last week in the UK album charts behind only Linkin Park, has comprehensively conquered his natural demographic of romantics seduced by the Broadway panache of his debonair vocals and cognoscenti who recognise a prodigiously gifted singer-songwriter when they hear one. Much as he is suitably grateful......

If people want something to look at while they are in hospital, ask them what they would rather see: a qualified nurse approaching with a fresh bedpan or a dramatic black and white photo of the local area. Neither are particularly appealing especially if you're recovering from surgery but it's an urgent interior decoration dilemma that Kingston Hospital is facing at the moment. In an email leaked last Friday to the London Health Emergency......

You know, if all of London’s animals just behaved themselves and acted normally, we don’t think Londonist would have half as many posts as we do. Today, we heard that a quartet of cows were caught squatting in a Hatch End suburban house. Four black and white cows escaped from a local farm and made their way down Oxhey Lane on Monday night before deciding the front garden of a house in leafy Heath......

This Day In London’s History 1962: The first ‘Panda crossing’ is opened on York Road, opposite Waterloo Station. Since the 1930s, pedestrian crossings in Britain were marked by poles bearing orange glass domes known as ’Belisha beacons’ (named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the Minister of Transport at the time). Traffic approaching these crossings was required to stop and give way to any pedestrians who were waiting to cross the road. At around the same time,......

Carpark Superstar has been doing some great work in black and white recently, but something about this shot of "Kaz in Brixton on the way to Neil & Stuart's wedding" really made us sit up and take notice. A pretty girl, a white dress, that sign and the backdrop all make something very British that conjours up a little Tony Richardson/Lindsay Anderson magic.........

No one seems to know what Lukas Moodysson is up to. People are still reeling from A Hole in my Heart which at times seemed to be an outright attack on his audience's expectations. In itself not a bad thing and we always have room under our wing for a film so ugly, but it did seem to come out of leftfield even when taking into count the darker territory he'd begun to map......

We love the ICA. Love it. Bear that in mind along with the fact that we always try our best to embrace change. We just got our October members bumf through the door and once we got inside the little white envelope things were very different. Gone is the familiar mini listings booklet and in its place is a green fold out thingy. A green fold out thingy. The website has had a face......

Well this is kind of a blow: remember the 'ravers' in the £15m (or £14m depending on which paper you read, buy hey it's expensive and that's all you need to know) house in Primrose Hill who were doing evil things like playing loud music and leaving empty beer cans in their doorstep? Well they're going to get evicted next week. In a statement Camden council said: "We have had three complaints from neighbours......

This week – fantasy pinup finds happiness in soft porn (The Notorious Bettie Page), a small screen classic gets a Hollywood makeover (Miami Vice) and the American oil industry crushes its rivals (Who Killed The Electric Car? ). Brought to us by Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American Psycho), first up is The Notorious Bettie Page. As Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian sets out, “50s nude pin-up queen Bettie Page is the subject of......

Advertising on the tube is about to get more distracting/annoying: Like a scene from science fiction movie Blade Runner set in Victorian England, giant advertisement films are to be beamed on to London Underground platform walls. Before we get to the meat of this let's just take a look at that opening paragraph. Like a scene from science fiction movie Blade Runner set in Victorian England? WTF? Mr Smale is trying his best to......

These listings appear every Wednesday. If you want to let us know about any upcoming science or technology events, you can contact us on LondonistSciTech@Gmail.com Event of the Week Isambard Kingdom Brunel: fame and fate, Science Museum It took 1000 men, four years, and 19 000 tons of steel. And that was just to reinforce his silly hat. But Izzy Brunel’s ocean liner, the Great Eastern, was a true wonder of the world in......

Opening tonight at the Proud gallery in Camden is Shoot! A History of the World Cup in pictures. Yes, the name is almost unbearably predictable, but judging by the website it does look like they've lived up to their tagline, which reads "classic and unseen photography from all seventeen World Cup Finals 1930-2002". So there's a lot of atmospheric black and white shots of men who look far too old to be playing professional......

With a regularity only seen for bands who have a new album coming out very soon, Radiohead are in the news yet again today and this time it's a quick head up for their fans! If you haven't already been cheated out of a billion pounds by a tout for Radiohead's Hammersmith gigs in May, then be careful because those pesky touts are trying to sell tickets for gigs that don't even exist. Radiohead's......

The ne'er-do-well who pinched a handbag outside the 'Designer Bargains' shop in Kensington Church Street yesterday must have absolutely shat his knickers after being apprehended by a total of fifteen policemen. Just who was this guy? The Hulk? Quite why it needed two patrol cars, a BMW pursuit car and a van to stop this menace is a bit of mystery, but then perhaps we shouldn't be complaining about a surplus of police resources......

Humphrey, we hardly knew you: The 10 Downing Street cat Humphrey has died, a spokesman for the prime minister has confirmed. The black and white feline passed away at the home of a Cabinet Office worker who took him when he "retired". Humphrey was adopted by Number 10 after wandering into the building as a stray while Margaret Thatcher was PM in 1989. Surviving the Thatcher years only to be ousted by the pussy......

Although fine arts are less our forte than appaling puns, Londonist nonetheless found itself wandering along the South Bank on Saturday, email print out in one hand, friend in the other, searching for the Oxo Tower and Bargehouse and War Child's Picture This exhibition. Admittedly we were drawn by the idea of seeing some real life Stanley Donwood work as much as anything (he's the dude that does the Radiohead artwork), and for nish......

This week: Good Night and Good luck, Casanova, Aeon Flux and all the film news and rumours (plus, Trailer of the Week). You've already heard what we at Londonist have to say about Good Night and Good Luck (which we're going to call GNaGL from here on in) so what do the broadsheet hacks make of Clooney's big Oscar hopeful? To start us off it's three stars from Pete Bradshaw in the Guardian, who......

If London had to describe itself as a colour, what would it be? Seems like a trite question, huh? But, mark our words, it’s going to be a very important one for the nation’s design agencies this year. The race is on to create the winning logo for the 2012 games. It ain’t going to be black and white. So our question is apt. Traditionally, it would seem, red is the colour. After all,......

Just a quick, special edition of the FFN this week as there's no real cinema releases, so Instead we're going to take a look at the films we're really looking forward to in 2006. These aren't necessarily the ones that we 'guarantee' will be great, they're just the ones we're pinning our hopes on and will be quite annoyed about if they don't live up to expectations. We've split them up into three sections......

Er, that is, we mean Heartwarming Kitten news, of course... So two weeks ago Londonist told you about a miraculous kitten. Today, as we open our copy of the Walthamstow Guardian, we discover a story with exactly the same headline, with one word changed: Kitten Survives Water Ordeal. For a moment, we imagined that this was in fact the same kitten, acting out that "Cat Came Back" song. Or perhaps undergoing a series of......

Plate-faced actress Gwyneth Paltrow has reacted angrily to reports that she "slammed London". Er, what? It's right there in black and white, blondie - unless you'd like to sue Marie Claire US for misquoting you. In a classic display of doublethink, Gwyneth hopes to deflect the criticism she has attracted for her objectionable comments by insisting that her words have been misinterpreted - when it's actually pretty clear exactly what she thinks. War is......

The Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern is massive, possibly the biggest indoor display area in Britain. You forget quite how big the cavern is until you walk through the door. There’s something reverential about the space, the floor sloping away under your feet, the metal beams strapping the walls into place like industrial crucifixes, but today we’re not here to admire the architecture. Each year an artist is set the challenge of transforming......

We like magazines. We like free things. So it stands to reason that we'd like free magazines. Or so you'd think. Ok, Vice was required reading for a while there, if only for the novelty value, but their conservative hipster schtick gets pretty old pretty fast (plus, if you don't subscribe you're are pressed to find the thing). Young pretender Good for Nothing was a little bit of a disappointment. There was no doubting......

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

Apparently there's some tennis going on in London... Ahh yes well Tim Henman just lost again so it must be Wimbledon. Very well organised we hear, administration second to none. What? Tennis players you say? We don't really do those... unless you count Henman. Let's say that again. Hen Man. Tim. Hen. Man. Of course he's rubbish. He's what was known in the glory days of The Beano as a softie. At least Rudeski sounds......