2008 is shaping up to be the year that street art went truly mainstream in London. Currently, you can see Banksy at Selfridges, a half-mile tunnel of talent in Waterloo and, for the eagle-eyed, that subtle bit of wall painting at the Tate Modern. Street art is also getting big in the more literal sense. Here are just a few of the supersized pieces around town at the moment. At the top of the......

In the week that Doris' crack gets filled in, Tate Modern has announced plans for a rethink of the building's river-facing facade. Between May and August, a group of the world's most acclaimed street artists will be allowed to daub their designs across designated 15x12 metre areas on the north side of the former power station, the first time the exterior has been used in such a way. According to curator Cedar Lewisohn, the......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 10th March 1906: The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway opens, running between Baker Street and Elephant & Castle stations. It would soon become known as the Bakerloo Line. Tuesday – 11th March 1692: The Royal Chelsea Hospital is founded by Charles II. Designed by Christopher Wren, the hospital would also become the model for Greenwich’s Royal Navel Hospital. Wednesday – 12th March 1988: The Bank of England......

A week after opening for the Queen, St Pancras International is finally ready for the likes of us. The station has been restored beyond its former glory. Britain's answer to Central Station is ready for business. Everyone knows by now that the sumptious Euston Road frontage to the station was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott. But what else in London did the Great Scott design? Time to dust off our old 'Stalks' series,......

As both bands and fans saunter back to the capital with the mother of all hangovers from Glastonbury, this week is a bit slow for music in the capital. Things are also running a bit slow for this Londonista, thus the later than normal posting of this weeks listings. Tonight sees Camden post-hardcore Hell is for Heroes play the Barfly, whilst Jason Molina fronted alt-country collective Magnolia Electric Co. play Scala. Hell is For Heroes......

One for the diary: Masked Mexican Wrestlers attend book signing in Borders, Oxford Circus: Thursday 2nd November, 12 - 2PM. And why are masked Mexican wrestlers coming to Borders? Well, it's to mark the publication of photographer Malcolm Venville's new book Lucha Loco, which documents his quest to "find and capture the essence of these masked gladiator-like showmen throughout many different trips to Mexico City in 2005". Venville is going to be signing copies......

Celebrate Ben Franklin's 300th birthday with the Bikini Bandits and Phillyist! (NSFW). Speaking of Mr. Franklin, send in a picture of Ben (or Ed Rendell) with a red tongue and win a free t-shirt. And they might have the next YearlyKos in Philly. You know who's going to be upset about those Bikini Bandits? The Houston school system. Houstonist also reports on some redevelopment shenanigans over a landmark theater. LAist's sex advice column on......

Just two gigs to tell you about this week because we're still pissed that we're going to miss both The Shins on Thursday at Koko and Radiohead at Hammersmith on Thursday and Friday. If you can get tickets to either show, then we highly recommend them both. They may be worth remortgaging your house for. Tonight: Shoegazers amongst you unite, you have nothing to lose but your paisley pattern shirts at the return of......

Hosepipe bans come into effect today. Time to start shopping the neighbours. Ken defends his decision to make the septics pay the congestion charge and defends Blair Jr. A good man to have in a fight then. Oxford won the boat race. No one released any sharks into the water unfortunately. And finally, Iron Maiden's producer is very happy with the way the new album's going. Which makes us happy at least Image by......

This week: Capote, Lucky Number Slevin, and The Fog. Plus all the usual film news and rumours and Trailer of the Week. This week sees the release of one of Londonist's most highly-anticipated films of 2006: Capote, and boy did they pick a good week to release it. Everything else out there is pretty much dross (we had to make a decision this week whether to look at The Fog remake or Date Movie......

This week: Good Night and Good luck, Casanova, Aeon Flux and all the film news and rumours (plus, Trailer of the Week). You've already heard what we at Londonist have to say about Good Night and Good Luck (which we're going to call GNaGL from here on in) so what do the broadsheet hacks make of Clooney's big Oscar hopeful? To start us off it's three stars from Pete Bradshaw in the Guardian, who......

Ahoy there me hearties, it's day two of the Music Dungeonistas' look back at those musical moments of 2005 that made us go weak of knee, teary of eye and moist of crotch. Today it's Noisy Londonist's (Mark's) turn, and yes, that Coldplay gig is in there! As Pop Kid mentioned yesterday, remember to drop us a line letting us know your recommendations for 2006. Top Twelve Albums (since Ken only chose seven there's three......

Just a quick, special edition of the FFN this week as there's no real cinema releases, so Instead we're going to take a look at the films we're really looking forward to in 2006. These aren't necessarily the ones that we 'guarantee' will be great, they're just the ones we're pinning our hopes on and will be quite annoyed about if they don't live up to expectations. We've split them up into three sections......

Don't buy anyone any Christmas presents. Spend your money on these gigs instead: So lovely they even have their own made up language, Sigur Ros play a night at the Hammersmith Apollo on March 29, with all manner of collaborators in the pipeline. The Glastonbury stealing Secret Machines are playing a low-key show at the Garage on January 18th in support of their forthcoming 10 Silver Drops. They're also releasing a limited edition 12"......

It's been a good year for guitar pop bands and a good year for the folk and anti-folk scenes. So how did the Londonist music dungeon find itself rediscovering the joys of good heavy thrashing noise somewhere between Maximo Park and Sufjan Stevens? No idea, but it's been fun being pumelled by the likes of TODD, Part Chimp, Motorhead and Dinosaur Jr this year. One band we haven't managed to catch up with yet......

Ever since Al Jolson opened his gob in the Jazz Singer the worlds of cinema and rock'n'roll have become inextricably linked. You're going to have to go with us on the Jazz Singer rock'n'roll analogy but you know what we mean. Almost 100 years later and we have movie stars wanting to become rock stars (Lyndsey Lohan anyone???) and rock stars wanting to become movie stars (Gene Simmons and half the cast of Singles).......

George Romero's back and he brought some old friends with him. Land of the Dead is finally released in the UK after a ridiculously long wait compared to our American cousins. Londonist already reviewed the thing last month, but now the big boys have turned their attention to it - sort of. What will Peter Bradshaw make of the 'stenches' and Asia Argento's underwear? Well it turns out hekind of likes it in a......

Sleater-Kinney - Koko, Friday 2nd September The twittering bird song of Sleater-Kinney's intro tape is the last time you'll hear anything pastoral in Koko tonight. There's a few moments warming up and then Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein (guitars) and Janet Weiss (drums) crash straight in to The Fox, minus the split second of feedback that made it the greatest opening to one of our favourite albums of the year. It's this Londonista's first time......

The London Film Festival has just announced its opening and closing movies. The Opening Night Gala will celebrate the UK Premiere of Fernando Meirelles' THE CONSTANT GARDENER starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz. Based on the best-selling novel by John le Carré, THE CONSTANT GARDENER tells the story of one man's journey to uncover the truth behind a personal loss and a global conspiracy. The strong supporting cast includes Danny Huston and Bill Nighy.......

First off congratulations to Annie Sullivan and Andy Lee who won the Kaibosh and Delta Blues competitions respectively. Prizes in the post. Soon as we get some stamps. So what have we learnt this week down in the Londonist music dungeon? Well we've learnt that it's not a good idea to be a photographer at a Britney Spears Baby Shower. We've learnt that David Gray is a little late at jumping onto bandwagons. We've......

Well it's good to be back in the Londonist Music dungeon after the annual Pilton Pilgramage and staring at the crystal ball of RAWK !,,! to see whether there are any gigs of note on the horizon. And of course there are. First off we have mix'n'match music mashing maestro Mylo who's pulling a late one at the Brixton Academy on 5th November. Tickets on sale now. Also up for a late night is......

Dinosaur Jr - Forum - Wednesday 8th June Michael Azerrad describes a meeting between Lou Barlow (then ex bass player of Dinosaur Jr) and J Mascis (ongoing guitar player of Dinosaur Jr). Barlow had been sacked in the most insalubrious of circumstances; more or less the band (J and drummer Murph) had gone on tour without telling him, and a little band from outside of Seattle had just released an album called Nevermind. Barlow......

Now that Coldplay appreciation week has officially ended on Londonist and we're up ironing our plaid shirts in readiness for tonight's Dinosaur Jr gig at the Forum, there's just time to quickly mention a few other shows that have passed through town recently. And in doing so we might hopefully find an answer as to how we came to be staring at a heavily tattoed black man in his underpants moaning softly to himself.......

OK, so hands up all those who are going to get tickets for Billy Corgan's solo show in June (15th) at the Forum. Yeah, thought so. Old razor bonce himself has never really been forgiven for burning his t-shirts and inventing the Morpheus look 5 years too early. The jury's still out on whether his new solo outing thefutureembrace is going to disappoint the old Pumpkins fans even further but Londonist really liked Zwan......

Ever since the music world fell over it's collective hysteria at the Pixies reunion tour, bands have been reforming faster than new bands are being discovered. Londonist feels that this is the music industry's equivalent of Hollywood's remake fever. But then again there have been a few good remakes and there may well be a few more good reunions. With another 3 recently announced, the question is - how many of these guys do......

Dinosaur Jr are back! Older, but in full working order and playing at the Forum on the 8th of June. The grunge-happy rockers will take the stage once more with their original line-up before heading down to Donington Park to play in the Download Festival. Now we feel old. Londonist remembers seeing Dinosaur Jr around the time that Kurt Cobain still had a head full of brains and Sonic Youth ruled our lives. We......