From the outside, you wouldn't guess anything was going on behind the peeling, Georgian facade at all but inside, what was once called "the handsomest room in town" was graced by equally handsome Hugh Grant and the luscious Helen Mirren as part of a fundraiser to raise awareness of the ever worsening plight of Wilton's Music Hall. Earlier this year, Wiltons hit the headlines when it was listed in the World Monuments Fund top......

It’s cold outside this week, so it seems like the best plan is to cozy up on the couch and watch some telly. Why would you want to risk frostbite? On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 12 November I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here (ITV1, 21:00-22:30) It’s off to the jungle yet again with Ant & Dec as they guide a new group of “celebs” through as many disgusting tasks as you’d......

Hands up who remembers Kriss Akabusi running though Greenwich with the torch a few years back? Us too. We also remember thinking it would have been great fun to have a go. It appears that if we were still at school, me might have just got that chance. Secondary schools from all over the city can nominate pupils to carry the torch through London for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The torch makes its way......

This Feeling has been making waves in the indie world since late last year. Held monthly at the oh so stylish Parker McMillan in EC1, the night aims to "merge contemporary indie aesthetics with the underground refuge of Parker McMilian in order to create a night that will be truly big". It lands this month on Friday (28 September) starring Oasis' Andy Bell DJing, The Rifles and The Lea Shores performing acoustic sets and......

After following up a superb night with The Field by bringing Gui Boratto a few months later, Allez-Allez have fastly become one of our favourite club promoters. If we're not dancing to the best in minimal techno at one of their Plastic People events, then we're likely downloading one of the many installments in their excellent podcast mix series. This Wednesday, Sam and Steve return to Plastic People with techno superduo Supermayer (Superpitcher + Michael......

Film maker extraordinaire Quentin Tarantino has arrived in the UK to promote the DVD release of his latest film, Death Proof. Nothing newsworthy in that per se. But the whens, whos and wherefores of this publicity event are nothing short of astonishing. Londonist has learnt that the movie icon snucked (or was dragged) along to Wimbledon Dog Stadium on Monday evening where he watched the likes of Shayne Ward, Charlie Simpson (from Busted) and a......

As befits a truly global capital, London has established itself as a hub in the important international trade of tourist-attracting human reproductions, importing Chinese warriors and exporting waxwork celebrities. While the first crowds were taking a gander at 20 members of the Emperor Ying’s terracotta court at the British Museum, 51 waxworks produced by Madame Tussauds arrived in Washington DC, naked and apparently ready to party. The likes of Beyonce, George Clooney, Tom Cruise......

Rockabaret is fabulous. Dress up. Be crazy, silly, decadent, beautiful. And then dance the night away to your favourite songs! Londonist had a chat with Nikkie Amouyal, director of Rockabaret, who runs the night with Tony Maggs. The next night is on Saturday 21st July at the Cobden club: Viva La Revolution! What is so different about your club night? It's glamorous, extravagant, elegant and what a rock star party should be! We have......

From next week London will be hosting India Now, a three-month season of events exploring London’s relationship with India and India's culture. It all kicks off with a hefty PR stunt on the morning of 17 July, when a replica of the Taj Mahal will sail down the Thames. Yes, really. It will start from Millbank and head down-stream - pausing for photo opps beside Parliament, the London Eye and Tate Modern. Somewhat like......

With gay pride hitting London this weekend for its annual raunchfest of protesting, parading and partying, we thought it the right time to approach Megan Jones, promoter of Vauxhall house music mega-club FiRE, to find out what they will be getting up to. What are your plans for Pride? We've got loads on for Pride this year. Firstly we'll be participating in the parade on Oxford Street, and afterwards we'll be hosting the sound......

We'd like to start this week's run-down by wishing a very happy birthday to parent blog Gothamist, which turned four on Friday. If it wasn't for them, the rest of us wouldn't be here. They celebrated their birthday by nabbing an interview with Entourage star Adrian Grenier, who misses NYC public transportation when he's working in LA. They also reported on NYU students protesting a band whose name is also known as a slur,......

Police seem to be close to solving a 17-year-old murder case involving a 'masseuse', television celebrities and three crossbow bolts to the head: The 42-year-old worked at a massage parlour in Camden, north London, and saw clients from what police describe as the higher echelons of society at her £500,000 home in Friern Barnet. She was last seen on June 23 1990 when she left the house at around 9pm to go to a......

Down in the midst of the Londonist music dungeon we've got our fair share of ideas as to which bands are going to be high up in our last.fm chart at the end of 2007. That said, we've not afraid to see what other people are saying and steal their ideas. So when Poptones boss and all round legend Alan McGee told The Guardian that he thought uplifting pop group The Revelations were going......

The trial of the Metropolitan Police, over health and safety allegations relating to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, will not be heard until October next year. Sir Robert McAlpine has been chosen to build the £280 million Olympic stadium. We assume he'll have a bit of help (boom boom). A new report claims that London will face an ‘increased risk’ from radioactive waste if a new generation of nuclear power plants are......

Celebs. In the theatre. Are quite bad enough. (Val Kilmer in The Postman Always Rings Twice immediately springs to mind.) But. But. Jade Goody. As in, Jade Goody. She isn't even a celeb. She is to make an appearance in The Vegemite Tales. We wonder if this is perhaps worse than the time someone thought that it would be a good idea to put Abi Titmuss in an Arthur Miller play, and she forgot......

Tits. Often considered to be "the bigger, the better" - but not for Big Brother "star" Jade Goody. La Goody has changed before our horrified televisual gazes from duh-brained reality TV show contestant ("Rio de Janeiro? Isn't that a person?") to a surgically enhanced, high earning businesswoman (she's got a fitness video and plans to open a beauty salon - technically "business"). After scaling the dizzy heights of celebrity post-Big Brother (see fitness video,......

After Wired ran a story documenting the GoogleCenter of the United States a bunch of ists jumped on the opportunity to figure out their own middle. Gothamist, Chicagoist, Bostonist and Seattlest all zoomed in on their creamy GoogleCenters. A crack cartography team is hard at work determining the GoogleCenter of the Ist-a-verse as you read this... Austinist read a book about Olympian Bode Miller and liked it. They also took a few pictures of the......

It may not have snowed on Christmas day, but it's becoming increasingly apparent that if you get to shop in stores that don't have proper names, life is a continual sprinkling of soft white powder. Especially if you read the Hindustan Times, who claimed yesterday: London Hit By Cocaine Epidemic. Now that does sound a little more fun than bird flu, but we knew this already. The HT, not known for mincing their words,......

Londonist was incredibly disappointed when the Daily Mail announced that they had succeded in snaffling Richard Littlejohn from the clutches of the Sun, as we'd actually put in a bid for his services ourselves. We knew that we couldn't hope to offer him the same kind of financial packagae he'll be picking up at the Daily Hate, but we'd hoped that our promises of the best seat in the Londonist dungeon (between Greg and......

The week’s just begun and we’ve already been elbowed on the tube, pushed past on the stairs and had to cup our hand over our mouth to avoid gagging on the fumes. Some days we pine for a life more tranquil. Wouldn’t it be nice to have pastures green instead of grim buildings? A host of lovely daffodils instead of fast food wrappers? To live somewhere like the Cotswolds…? Not according to Joanna Trollope.......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. The celebs of the London literary world seem to be keeping quiet this week in the lull before the Booker Prize is announced, leaving space for the little guys. And they are taking full advantage, it would seem, with three enticing readings this week. We are most curious about Decongested (see below), because of......

With the 25th London Marathon taking place on Sunday we thought we'd give you a few of the most useful and interesting links we could find to put you in the long-distance frame of mind. First off, obviously, it's the official site which, among other things, has a detailed list of pubs around the course, and a nice PDF map of the route. Then there's there's the BBC site which has all the usual......

We haven't posted much about the Olympic bid recently. Mainly because you can read about it just about everywhere, but also because we're sick to the back teeth of it. When it gets to the point where they're using the DLR as a promotional tool then, to be honest, we just stop listening. But even we have to admit that the latest promotional release from London's 2012 team is pretty impressive. At four minutes......

I'm a Celebrity Stand In We're not really sure what could be worse than being one of the "celebrities" in I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here (which starts on Sunday ITV1), other than maybe being a stand in for I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here. The celebrity status of that show has always been pretty dubious, but this year we must be becoming more of a celebrity fan than we......