Two weeks into the New Year and it's important to find things to distract yourself from the grey weather, gym timetables, failing diets and attempts to avoid alcohol. If you're still feeling the pinch post festive season then we've got some excellently cheap things for you to do this week to cheer, edify, inspire and amuse you. Monday: Happy days! The Fonz will be at Forbidden Planet for a book signing between 5-6pm. It's......

January is a toughie. Torn between new year's virtue and that rebellious streak? Well, here are some things to amuse you that at least wont tug too hard at your purse strings. Monday: Witch hunts to start the week at Gresham College from 6pm. Free knowledge. Tuesday: Are you a tech geek? Are you interested in search engines, the internet and web technology? Do you need to make more friends? Well, pitch up for......

Last full week before Christmas, we expect your bank account's feeling the strain. All that Christmas shopping and partying taking its toll? If you want to make the most of being out and about before Christmas cabin fever and complete exhaustion set in then we're here to help. Monday: Keep the braincells going through silly season. Go to the free lecture at Gresham College about why our society rewards celebrities, fads and fashions and......

Event of the Week Battle of Ideas at the Royal College of Art, all weekend The Battle of Ideas is, according to their website, 'an annual festival of social, political, scientific, academic and cultural discussion'. In other, more juvenile words, it's a mass debate. And it's probably going to get quite messy. The panel-led discussions, organised by the Institute of Ideas, are designed to cut through the crap and get down to some genuine......

Event of the week Game On, Science Museum Remember that game on the ZX81 in which you had to manoeuvre a letter X through a minefield of dangerous letter O's? And the equally addictive follow-up, in which the Earth (represented by a series of hyphens) needed saving from a belligerent battlegroup of aliens (menacingly realised as a creeping cluster of hashes)? Ah, happy days. Well, apparently, gaming has developed somewhat since then. And we......

Event of the Week Structure and the Living Cell, Royal Society tonight The cell, despite its microscopic nature, is a vast, multiscale subject. Over the past 350 years, we've found increasingly tricksy ways of probing into cells at ever-deeper levels. Starting with a basic understanding that God's creatures are made of these little fuzzy circles, we moved on to catalogue all kinds of subcellular bits and blobs that function a bit like organs in......

We’re back! Did you miss us? After nearly a month without any major sci/tech events, the usual venues are starting to awaken again following a summer break. So the Cogito returns, to appear every Wednesday and point you to the best London has to offer the inquisitive mind. Event of the week Future London: Footprints of a generation, at the Truman Brewery, 8-16 Sept. Had Google been around a couple of decades ago, there’s......

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 Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, from Monday Roll up, roll up, for the premier event in London’s popular science calendar. The annual Summer Science Exhibition is when the Royal Society fills up its halls with (a) top British scientists, (b) cool stuff to play with......

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 So you want to be a brain surgeon?, Thursday at the Dana Centre Sometimes it’s hard trying to pick an Event of the Week. We were struggling this time, too, until spotting the following magic words in one of the listings: Then it's your turn.......

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 New social benefits from an old Docklands discovery, at Gresham College on Tuesday 150 years ago, an east-end teenager stumbled across something remarkable: a brand new colour. Henry Perkin, ensconced in his flat on Cable Street, was toying with some simple chemicals. By chance, he......

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 How To Grow Trees, at Gresham College Wikipedia has an amusingly impenetrable outlook when it comes to technical matters. It’s as though the wikislaves who lace it together are trying to out-jargon each other. While no-doubt correct, their definitions are of use to nobody but......

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 Pure Iceland at the Science Museum Given the cheesy promotional video and the long list of sponsoring Icelandic companies, it’s easy to view this new exhibition as one big advert for the Icelandic tourist industry. And it’s certainly that. But there is an important message......

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 Bio-Bling: Bone jewellery, at the Dana Centre This one really is as creepy as it sounds. You can't give the one you love your heart. But you can grow him or her a ring from your bone tissue! At least it would be more pleasant......

Photograph based on actual events. 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 Einstein vs. Newton debate at the Royal Society Bit of a hoary old chestnut, this one. With apologies to Darwin, these two heavyweights would easily top a 100-greatest-scientists-of-all-time poll. Channel 4: get commissioning! But which of the pair made the......

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 Ice Skating at the Natural History Museum Ice skating? Ice skating? By the beard of Copernicus what are we thinking, you might well enquire. Where’s the science in that? Well, we could talk about how the low sliding coefficient of friction facilitates experiments in Newtonian......

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 STOP PRESS: The Royal Institution have kindly offered free entry to Londonist readers for tonight's (Thursday 27th) Headline Debate (see below). Just turn up and mention Londonist and they'll waive the £8 entry fee. Event Of The Week A Briefer History of Time: Stephen Hawking Or should that be......

Peter Lennard is the founder of The London Bridge Museum and Educational Trust, an organisation whose aim is to create "a dedicated Museum as a worthy tribute to the world's most famous bridge." (And if you're thinking 'hang on, where are they going to put it' well the answer is under the bridge itself obviously, or more precisely "in the large southern abutment space where there still remain the substantial walls of the Sir......