As we mentioned briefly before, Thursday brings the East 2008 Festival. For six days, a cornucopia of performances, exhibitions, workshops, food and other events ensures entertainment with emphasis on promotion of the best of East London. Here’s our pick of the mix: 6th March: F-EAST - artists Wiebke and Nicholas Morgan cook a meal from 12 recipes from a Nigel Slater cookbook, and serve it for visitors as an exploration into ownership and the......

Photo courtesy of The Sizemore McCabe Project It's not difficult to spend money in London as just leaving the house seems to remove a fair amount of cash from the average wallet. But for those with a less than average wallet, it can be a bit of a challenge to spend in a less than average manner. Silly money deserves silly spending after all. Introducing... The Cinema Suite at the newly refurbished InterContinental Hotel, one......

It's the week for spooky goings on and ever more events are coming to our attention. On Halloween night itself, our favourite quiz masters the You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat film quiz chaps are hosting a horror special. If you want to show off your knowledge of cinematic zombie uprisings, killer earthworms, vampires, werewolves, evil puppets and psychopathic homicidal revenge-seeking cross-dressers then get yourself along to the Boogaloo in Highgate this Wednesday night......

Climate change march reaches London, after leaving Northern Ireland in July. Would have been quicker to fly. Fake DVDs fund people smuggling. So stop buying them. Seventies and eighties sitcom scripts come up for sale. The olduns are the gooduns. Image courtesy of Yersinia's flickr stream.......

What with March coming in like a lion and blowing everyone all over the place it's the ideal time to take to the water under sail power. Although there's plenty on offer for the seasoned small boat owner in this weekend's Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace there's also a determined effort to get new blood interested. In case you have visions of a depressing afternoon mooching around clunky wooden toy boats and garish......

This Thursday, the Oxfam book shop on Marylebone High Street will be holding another of its super foodie nights. This is the charity's flagship London bookshop and is a treat for philanthropic bibliophiles: new and anitquarian books, CDs, vinyl, videos and DVDs can be found here and in-store events are programmed throughout the year. Tomorrow night, the writer-chefs Mark Hix (the man behind The Ivy, Le Caprice and writer of various books including fish......

Last night Londonist put together another team for You're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat in Highgate. By 11pm we had confirmed two things. 1. We are not as smart as we thought we were, and 2. This is the best pub quiz we've ever been to. You can tell it's a bit special from the intro: This was our second outing and while again we managed to finish respectably enough in the top ten,......

It might not be a vintage season in the league, where many of the capital's football clubs are looking nervously over their shoulders at relegation, but London seems determined to have at least one finalist in the first FA Cup showpiece at the new Wembley as yesterday's draw offered the possibility that as many as 44% of the fourth round matches (seven out of sixteen) could be played on our collective doorstep on the......

Every day this month the Londonist team will be pointing you in the direction of a Christmas present that (with a bit of luck) you won't already have on your list. Climb up onto our collective lap and we'll see what we can move from our sack to your stockings... Londonist has designed the Cornershop Christmas Hamper for those who really can't be bothered this year. Perfect for assembling on the way to a......

We like quizzes here at Londonist, but we don't go to nearly enough of them hence this being only our 4th ever quiz review. We're rubbish. Have you been to any good ones recently? Name and location of pub The Three Kings is in fancy Clerkenwell, past Turnmills, down a fancy road opposite a fancy church. We're being bitter as we quite fancied living in the house next door. Your nearest tube is Farringdon......

The Coin Street Turkish Festival was as loud, hot and tasty as it was last year though a little smaller as it only occupied the Bernie Spain Gardens this year and did not stretch out along the river walk, making everything seem twice as crowded and three times as hot. No one in the upbeat crowd seemed to mind - - families with dozing small children, old ladies in black head scarves and hip......

When shooting people indiscriminately results in a little bad press it's time to do a little swatting up: A police force is issuing its frontline officers with a guide to Islam in a bid to improve relations with the Muslim community. City of London Police is the first force in the country to issue its officers with a guide to the religion. The 86-page "Guide to Islam for non-Muslims" aims to give officers a......

We've mentioned this before in the Friday Film News, but we're actually quite getting our hopes up for the next Mission:Impossible film. Simon Pegg's in it, Philip Seymour Hoffman is the baddy, and Kanye West has done the theme tune. So how bad can it be...? ...Ok, don't answer that. But, no matter how crappy the film is we can definitely tell you that next week's premier will be one to miss, mainly because......

Fancy taking part in a trial that won't see you balloon up like the elephant man or see you facing terrorist charges? There's always a catch of course... you may be subjected to football: Four hundred and fifty volunteers in London are being sought for a six-month trial of high-definition broadcasts through digital terrestrial television. The BBC and ITV will include all of their live World Cup matches in the test, and will join......

We like to think we're as appreciative of a nice minty-fresh pit as the next person... unless the next person is this Gumtree poster: Oxford Street flatshare, Free rent in exchange for favours.... (£1 pw) Yes, you get your own room, free rent, in return for semi-sexual favours. Basically I'm a busy career woman, who knows what I want and always get it. Here's the deal. I am a busy woman, and will need......

We've always had somewhat of an big girly crush on Simon Pegg. We loved Shaun of the Dead, and we think we've nearly worn out our Spaced DVDs. He makes us so weak at the knees, that when we once saw him at a Charlotte Hatherley gig at ULU, we were starstruck and unable to move, never mind attempt to say hello. So, it's with great excitement that today we read that he's finally......

Never one to rest on His laurels, God Almighty has instructed one of his voice boxes to move with the times and make going to Church on a Sunday less of a drag: The Reverend Robert Harrison of St John's Church in Hillingdon, west London, said traditional service times were out of touch. Parishioners can now attend half-hour slots between 0800 GMT and 1230 GMT. This means you can now watch The Heaven &......

Time again to dip into the Newsround site for a knee level look at what's happening in the world and what's on the mind of news conscious tykes this morning. Mostly as you'd expect it's Harry Potter. Outrage is the theme at the revelation that American kids will get the opportunity to own Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire weeks before the homegrown fans: Warner Bros has confirmed the DVD will be out......

Congratulations to Melanie, Stephen and Jason whose thorough knowledge of killer pig movies just scored them a couple of DVDs. The Australian horror classic directed by Russell (Highlander) Mulcahy was indeed Razorback. So nice that so many of you took time out to reminisce about the film. Maybe Peter Jackson should have a go at remaking it... A pat on the back to the poor lost soul who answered Cujo. Killer Saint Bernard movies......

The Fright Fest Presents DVD range continues to grow next month with the release of The Roost. The Evil Dead style horror has more killer bats than you can shake a stick at, but as we'll only be reviewing that film closer to the late February release date we figured that in the meantime we should offer up some LOOT. Thanks to the kind folks at Revolver we have three copies each of French......

Our friends over at Frightfest release their latest DVDs at the end of the month so if you've found January to be a little low on self mutilation, skinning and human taxidermy then things are definitely looking up with Eyes of Crystal and Tears of Kali. Now we're huge fans of Dario Argento (the whole family really) and while we can still be found traveling on the tube iRivered up with Goblin and screaming......

As Cherie Blair and whoever the hell is in the final of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here (Mon 9pm ITV1 - we don't have a clue, as we really couldn't give a broken biro who wins the bloody thing) would probably tell you, it isn't easy being famous. Once you've been in the public eye, slipping back into obscurity must be dreadfully depressing. What do you say to interviewers? "My experience......

First of all, I'd do something for the body: a gentle mid-morning run around Hyde Park with preferably no interference from the speakers at Speakers' Corner and lots of interaction with adorable over-excited, waggy-tailed dogs. These dogs do not leave poo on the park paths and do not chase to bite; they only chase in a friendly, playful fashion. And I find exactly the right volume level for my mp3 player so that I'm not......

Just a quick reminder that the Londonist First Birthday Party will be happening just one week from today in the fabulous surroundings of the Offside Bar in Islington. It's absolutely free to get in (just tell the big bloke on the door you're there for the Londonist party) and there'll be DJs all night as well as additional treats like images from the London photoblogging community displayed on the big screens and the now......

Londonist is as addicted to buying DVDs as everyone else, so it made sense that we should start a regular column to highlight the little laser-etched treats coming your way over the next week or so. Let us know what you think in the comments. Well folks, it's getting to the time of year when the likes of Chegwin, Biggins and Daniels descend begrudgingly upon [enter the name of your hometown here] to switch......

This past weekend saw the doors close for the final time at the 113-year-old Whitechapel Library. The library was founded 1892 by the Liberal MP J Passmore Edwards (there's a nice picture of the man himself here) and quickly garnered a reputation as "the university of the ghetto". Saturday's Guardan reported on the closure, reminding us of the scores of notable men and women who have perused the lbrary's shelves: Jacob Bronowski, scientist and......

We haven't mentioned Doctor Who for a while so thought we'd get a quick word in following the fantastic ARE YOU MY MUMMY? episodes and before it all gets mundane again with another trip to Cardiff (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space... in SPACE - that means they can fly further than Wales and the South Bank, Russell). SPOLIERS AHEAD! GO BACK! STOP READING! So while those of little brain are watching Big Brother......

London's Institute of Education is to issue lesson plans based on - this is difficult to type - soap operas, adverts and Grange Hill. The packs will be distributed to 1000 schools and contain lesson ideas and DVDs - which just goes to show that things have changed since Londonist was at school, and the "wheeling in of the huge video player" was a ceremonial event on the scale of the Trooping of the......

Brace yourselves... The trailer for Serenity is online. It's ok. We'll still be here when you get back. Go and see a few snippets of what we're expecting to be the best film of 2005. Joss Whedon may have been gone from the Londonist TV screen for a while now, and although the Buffy and Angel DVDs are fun to dip into, it's only his cancelled Sci-Fi show, Firefly, that we ever intend to......

We've been watching SFist's coverage of the Spring Asian Film Series with growing jealousy until we realised that we could put on our own best of Asia line-up on by simply harvesting the shops in Chinatown. Sometimes you just get tired of waiting for distributors to get their act together (Hero was finally released by Miramax in the States and the UK years after its completion) and simply have to take matters into your......