A rainy bank holiday really isn’t fair, is it? We feel very strongly that you should stay in for the rest of the week, in protest of nature’s unfairness. We’re sure nature will take the notice and reward our protest with better weather. That’s how it works, right? On TV, Londonist likes: Tuesday, 27 May Gordon Ramsay’s F Word (Channel 4, 21:00-22:00) McFly joins Gordon in the kitchen this week, along with Janet Street-Porter......

April already? How did that happen? We feel the best way to avoid getting April Fooled is to stay in and watch some TV. Here are a few things you may want to take a peek at! On TV, Londonist likes: Monday, 31 March Poppy Shakespeare (Channel 4, 21:00-22:45) We really enjoyed the book, and are looking forward to the screen version of this quirky drama about the NHS and mental health care in......

Congratulations – you can read! (Presumably. Unless you just look at Londonist for the pictures.) Literacy is sexy. Hyper-literacy, even sexier. Or so we at Londonist tell ourselves as we don our Coke-bottle glasses and curl up each night with a bottle of wine and a dictionary. But enough about our steamy Valentine’s Day plans. What have you got planned? Now, you may have inferred that we’re a jaded lot over here at Londonist.......

Merry Christmas! (Or, if you’re not so much into the whole Christmas thing, Happy Tuesday!) We hope you’re having a very lovely Christmas day. If you need a break from the family madness, here are a few things you might want to take a peek at. On TV, Londonist likes: Top of the Pops Christmas Special (BBC1, 13:30-4:30)) Fearne Cotton and Reggie Yates present this look at the year’s most popular acts – and......

Fresh this Week: If news of the impending Doctor Who hiatus is giving you palpitations, fear not – the Book Grocer brings you not one but three new books based on the popular series: Paul Magrs – Sick Building The Doctor and Martha travel to Tiermann’s World, a planet where sabre-toothed tigers still roam. They arrive to warn everyone that an extremely hungry alien creature is on its way and if they don’t take action......

They’re rehousing their residents in some pretty odd places, that lot at Wandsworth Council. In an impressive initiative called Hidden Homes, the chief bods of this creative borough are re-evaluating all their abandoned nooks and crannies, coal holes and closets to see if they can be reclaimed, redesigned and refurbished. There are many redundant corners to most council estates – stores and community facilities which are no longer in use. These are not only......

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......

Lucky Soul play their biggest gig to date when they fill the lovely environs of Bush Hall with their appropriately sweet, melodic sound in little over a week on 16th May. Tickets for the gig are a measly £7, and can be bought online. In much the same way that Doctor Who turns on a load of bunsen burners before flicking on a shorted light circuit in a vain attempt to fend off a......

Kylie is set to make her television comeback in Doctor Who: Kylie Minogue is reportedly set to return to the small screen as a cyberwoman out to snare Dr Who on the British television show's Christmas special. The News of the World said filming would start in July on the Dr Who special which could revive the Australian pop singer's TV career. An easily recognisable theme tune, dodgy sets, dodgier acting and scripts written......

1. Ed Banger do Bugged Out @ Canvas. Dance label du jour, Ed Banger are having a massive warehouse style party in room 3 of Canvas with sets from Busy P, SebAstian, the all important Justice, and a live set from the pop da glock-ing Uffie. £15 2. Mark Ronson@Chalk: Chalk's been running for a few months now and always has a good line-up if you're into that slightly left of center electro/indie thing.......

Magnus Magnusson died. What a great name he had. If only he'd been born in the 10th century his starter for ten would have been a Viking axe to the face. As it was the Reykjavik born Magnusson became the UK's grand inquisitor on the original run of the Beeb's Mastermind (as well as an expert on old Icelandic literature hence the pic). Arguably the most famous winner of Mastermind was a London cabbie......

What was that we just said? Well, that mostly wraps things up for Londonist in '06... Yeah right. What we should have said is that mostly wraps things up for London in '06 because according to ABC we are ho ho ho fucked. Check out that headline: London Braces for Attack; 'Miracle' If There Isn't One Are you braced? We're not braced. We have a nut roast to worry about and a Christmas episode......

Two men have been arrested for murder of a police officer in Wembley back in May. After announcing new congestion charges for 4x4 drivers, Ken is probably rejoicing today after it was revealed sales of the vehicles are down 15% compared to this time last year. But is the slump because they're all buying electric cars instead? Doubtful, but The Green Guy has got some photos of the newly installed electric car chargepoints in......

A few distinctive London eyefulls have been awarded icon status. Westminster Abbey, the tube map, red telephone boxes, Wimbledon and the Thames itself have now joined previous London icons Big Ben, Routemasters, Brick Lane, Notting Hill Carnival, The Globe Theatre and The Tower of London. The full list can be seen here. The idea is for the icons to develop into a vibrant portrait of England. The 21 additions, which also include English weather,......

All this attention on Lily means her poor old dad hardly gets a look in. That should change when the new series of Robin Hood kicks off later in the year. Keith Alan gets the plum role as The Sherriff of Nottingham and while he may not entirely surpass good old Alan Rickman's turn in the Costner movie, from the clips up on the site he does seem to overshadow the rather flimsy looking......

If you were wondering why a certain Timelord's recent travels through time and space didn't clock up much mileage, its all down to cash flow : Budget constraints mean the new series of Doctor Who is largely earthbound, says writer Russell T Davies. What bollocks. Part of the charm of the last twenty odd years of Doctor Who was the wobbly sets and cardboard monsters. Of course back in the day the emphasis was......

More news of a plot intended to strike terror into our hearts that seems to have been thwarted at the last possible moment: Plans for a Doctor Who spin-off show starring Billie Piper were scrapped at the last minute, series producer Russell T Davies has revealed. Davies later decided the programme, Rose Tyler: Earth Defence, was "a spin-off too far" and called it off. As if turning on the TV wasn't risky enough with......

Anyone over the age of five still watching Doctor Who? We do of course, but only out of a morbid sense of curiosity to see exactly how bad it can get. The one light at the end of the time tunnel was the upcoming death of Rose. We were hoping she was going to get slowly beaten to death by a Cyberman using Mickey as a club or suffocated in her mum's cleavage, but......

... is pretty fugly. Judging by how it chooses to be presented on the small screen, at any rate. Take Gordon Ramsay's F Word (Wed 9pm C4): We're not denying that it's entertaining. It is hugely entertaining, especially when Gordon picks on twattish City trader boys from Essex and reduces them to tears, much as he reduces all sorts of delicious juices to make a lovely concentrated sauce. Mmm, we're hungry just thinking about......

After getting thoroughly soaked this morning on the way to work (TV Troll's tolerance for H2O is somewhere around the level of the Wicked Witch of the West's) , we are in need of a nice night at home in front of the telly - and what a night it will be, oh yes. The problem is going to be deciding which channel to watch. For those who fancy a lot of back-slapping, a......

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......

There's a famous and overused line about the past being a foreign country, and people doing things differently there; in some cases this seems a bit of a shame (what's wrong with being embalmed and put in a pyramid after you die, eh?) but in many cases it's a relief to look back and realise that the past is, well, passed, and that things have changed. In the case of the Brixton riots of......

A quick fly through some of next week's gigs starting with our our friends The Colonies, who are supporting The Big Strides and The Furies tonight at the 100 Club. The Colonies will be on at 8.40 Friday: If the name Tim Staffell means anything to you then you're probably a bit of a Queen fan. Once upon a time Tim was the singer and bass player in a band called Smile, alongside a......

This is exciting news. The Beeb continues its renewed love affair with the best kind of science: fictional! Following in the footsteps of BBC FOUR's popular success The Quatermass Experiment last year, comes another compelling adaptation of a science fiction classic: A for Andromeda. The drama stars Kelly Reilly (Mrs Henderson Presents, The Libertine) as Christine/Andromeda; Tom Hardy (Gideon's Daughter, The Virgin Queen, Sweeney Todd) as John Fleming; Jane Asher as Professor Madelaine Dawnay......

After initially finding the new Doctor Who to be too British (presumably because the good Doctor wasn't riding around on a motorcyle firing off machine guns) the SciFi channel have pulled a u-turn and are set to begin broadcasting the first season (or 27th season if you like) this March: Commenting on the deal Candace Carlisle, Senior Vice President, BBC Worldwide Americas, said: “The new production has fantastic storylines and production values and has......

Catching up with the battle of the Davids is always fun. We don't follow it daily because it's just not that interesting, but about once a week we like to dip into the battleground of the Tory leadership like hungry crows looking for a juicy eyeball. Reading about young upstart David Cameron having the potential yoof vote stolen from under his nose by Davis' blatherings about a "nip and tuck” political future we can't......

The BT Tower is 40 years old today! Staff at the tower are marking the celebration with a party , so if we hear of a rash of fatalities in the West End caused by vol-au-vents thrown from 620ft above ground level, we'll know that things have got out of hand. It seems to us that the Tower, formerly known as the Post Office Tower, is one of those structures that we can always......

Mr. Bronson has gone to the teacher's lounge in the sky. Michael Sheard the actor who brought to life the dreaded Grange Hill teacher Mr Bronson has died from cancer aged 65. Londonist has fond memories of Bronson and his indescribable hairpiece attempting to teach scallywags like Gonch and Imelda Davies French and rather gruffly taking Roland under his wing - even going so far as to allow him to retake his exams after......

The hype around season two (or season 28 if you want to be anorakish about the whole thing) of Doctor Who is building. The BBC are reporting that K-9 is being dragged back into the fold. No news yet that they're going to update the thing with modern jiggery pokery so we'll keep our fingers crossed that he'll be as loveably crap as we remember. He's only in the one episode, but one of......

Well, he is. Like one of those overcoated codgers who inhabit Wetherspoons pubs and mutter into their lagers about things not being what they used to be. No shit, Grandpa. The only response to bitter misogynists like Mr Buerk is to ignore them, and certainly not to watch the television programmes they appear on (Don’t Get Me Started, Tue 7.15pm Five). Let’s turn our collective back, shall we? Good idea. Make your dinner while......