We flagged this up in London On The Cheap but it's so good we're telling you again. The Temple is having an open weekend this weekend. Through a doorway off Fleet Street, the Temple is home to two of England’s four the Inns of Court; The Inner and Middle Temple, as well as Da Vinci Code tourist attraction, round Temple Church. It was home to the Knights Templar and is generally steeped in history,......

Just out the Van: Lights, Music, Words, Action - It’s Book Slam time again with Guatam Malkani, author of the Londonstani, Salena Godden, writer, singer, and raconteur, and Iman, winner of the National Music Award. This Thursday at Neighbourhood, 6.30pm till late, 12 Aclam Road, W10 5QZ, £5 in advance or £6 on the door. Fresh Next Week: Michael Palin leads a reading from Another Sky, a new collection of work by writers whose lives......

Have you worked out Peter Bradshaw's hidden code yet? In his review of The Da Vinci Code in today's Guardian, Bradders wraps up his rather disturbing critique of the Ron Howard conspiracy flick with this even more disturbing revelation: Well, every decoding is another encoding, as the structuralists used to say, and here is a paragraph by Leonardo about cryptography I have discovered in the British Library... We then get a lengthy passage about......

It's enough to get Dan Brown pulling at his pencil again. One minute the gentle folk of the Thames and Medway Canal Association are doing their thing cleaning up and restoring the disused canal, the next they're soaping themselves in garlic and bulk ordering their crucifixes. OK, we made that last bit up. Instead of the usual car tyres, bottles and body parts we take for granted washed up off our waterways, they recently......

Public Enemy frontman Chuck D's line "don't believe the hype" is up there as an aphorism which cuts to the quick and right down to size. With this in mind, approach if you will the unbelievable buzz surrounding the launch of the Da Vinci Code film. Branded Eurostar trains, 'on the trail of the Da Vinci Code' coach tours, and now this – a note left by Tom Hanks, who plays protagonist Robert Langdon,......

Like a bad penny or a persistent STD The Da Vinci Code refuses to go away. Now the bloody judge who oversaw the 'hey we're all here to make money so let's have a court case' plagiarism case concerning the most widely read book since Ladybird's Peter and Jane series (and for some the only book they've read since Ladybird's Peter and Jane series) has put his own code into the written judgment -......

The new series of Doctor Who (Sat 7.15pm BBC1) is well underway now – and what do you think? So far it has elicited a muted response from the only critic who counts; not a good start, although he does say that this Saturday's offering is "flipping great" and it's onwards and upwards for the rest of the series. Fair enough – but what did the incredibly dedicated, oh-so-devoted fans over on the Digital......

The Londonist Literary List appears every Tuesday. If you’d like to bring an event to our attention, please email londonistlit@gmail.com. The toughest seat in town this week might be the Dan Brown trial, but for those of us who enjoy a bit more literary value and a bit less sensationalism, there are quite a few other big names appearing around London over the next few days... Events Around London: Tonight, American novelist Jay McInerney......

George Michael was arrested just before 2am this morning at Hyde Park Corner, on suspicion of possessing class C drugs after being found slumped at the wheel of a car. Ken's off to the High Court today to challenge his supension. (Dan Brown and Livingstone are both at the High Court today, going to be a busy one!) Today sees the 'last ditch' talks between RMT and London Underground in an attempt to avert Thursday's......

Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code is due out on May 19th but in true Dan Brown style there may be one more twist in the tale before we get to that point. Next week Brown is up in High Court on charges of plagiarism brought agaist him by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh,the authors of the (very good) non-fiction book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Their complaint is obvious if a......

Anne Widdecombe has been getting all fire and brimstoney over Gilbert & George’s latest exhibition, saying the artists are "blasphemous in the extreme, as [they] will find out when finally they stand before the Son of God". Goodness, we thought, who could we possibly take? (By the way, if Anne Widdecombe is waiting for us in heaven, well… we prefer warmer climes). We decided on our least shockable friend, someone who wouldn’t blink at......

Say it ain't so! TV Troll's two favourite telly talent shows, X Factor (Sat 6.40pm/9.10pm ITV1) and Strictly Come Dancing (Sat 6.30pm/9.20pm BBC1) have their series finales this week. We'll be stuck in front of the glowing screen, frantically flicking between the two, trying to get as much performance footage and as little Brucie/Tess/Kate in as possible. Expect to see smoke rising from the remote. Predicting a winner for either show is going to......

Tourists take note: as of this week you'll have to travel to sunny Lincoln to see Westminster Abbey. And it's all thanks to Dan Brown. Yes the Da Vinci Code debacle continues thanks to the Hollywood version currently being filmed with Tom Hanks as the dashing hero. Hanks and director Ron Howard are currently over here shooting the adaptation but ran into a bit of trouble when Westminster Abbey turned down an approach from......

Why has Westminster Abbey decided to embroil itself in the ongoing Da Vinci Code argument? We're hoping that it might be because it's getting close to the summer and they need to bring in a few extra tourist greenbacks. In which case: well done Westminster Abbey, we salute your entrepreneurial spirit. Unfortunately, we suspect that the real reason the Abbey has "armed marshals with leaflets to tell tourists exactly what the novel got wrong,"......