The Institute of Contemporary Arts has followed its bigger cultural brethren and abandoned the entrance fee. Previous visitors to the reclusive gallery on the Mall had been forced to hand over £3 to access exhibitions and the cafe - not a huge sum, but enough to dissuade the penny-pinching types. From today, though, access is free before 11pm. Artistic director Ekow Eshun got in his entry for Pseud's Corner early, describing the decision as......

Huntsmen and their hounds in Oxford Street, London. (Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) Back in days of yore, before Flickr gave ordinary Jones' ample opportunity to display their badly-framed mobile phone snaps to the world, the rhythm of London life was captured by various professional photographers, from a variety of sources, including the influential Picture Post. Such work has been diligently collected over the years by Getty, and the fruits of their Hulton Archive have......

We gave you a heads up last week but here's a big reminder - the Museum in Docklands is having a 5th birthday party this weekend, flinging open its waterside doors and welcoming all, waiving its entrance fee. The Museum is lesser known than its big sister, the Museum of London with pride of place on London Wall since 1975, but the converted warehouse at West India Quay brings the importance of the river......

Love London as we do, we know that some of this city's tourist "attractions" don't exactly represent value for money. According to a survey by the Sunday Telegraph, London's fee-paying attractions are among the most expensive in the world. The newspaper compared the cost of visiting nine popular attractions in London and ten other cities across the world, and found that a sight-seeing trip here would trouble the family wallet by the sum of......

Thinking of adding your footfall to the hordes that have already made the British Museum our most popular cultural attraction? Might not want to do it today - there's a strike on. Members of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) and Prospect are planning to down tweed jackets at 2pm, having been most untickled by a proposed 1.6% pay offer. Management claim the museum will remain open, though access to some galleries could......

Having already proved itself best in London, the British Museum has now ensconsed itself as the most popular cultural attraction in the UK. Elbowing out competition local (Tate Modern) and far-off (Blackpool Pleasure Beach), the 249-year old institution tempted 6.04 million people through its doors over the past 12 months, many to see the warriors of Qin Shihuang's Terracotta Army, who were to be found at ease in the Reading Room. Coming up next......

"Oh, the flesh-eating beetles are in there," shrugs our guide, pointing to a locked door. This is the Darwin Centre, where a gruesome surprise lurks around every corner. The annexe to the Natural History Museum holds some 22 million biological specimens bottled up in jars - it's like walking into David Attenborough's Facebook account. Much of the collection is freely available to anyone who wants to see it, and is stored over eight floors,......

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, proud resident of the handsome World Heritage-listed site that gazes imperiously across the River at the Mammon-fuelled glazed monstrosities of Canary Wharf, today has even more reason to be puffed up with pride. An Israeli billionaire has donated £20 million to build a brand new wing. Set for completion in 2012, the £35 million total wing will comprise a large scale exhibition hall, archive centre, learning space, cafe,......

A list of London's most popular attractions in the last year have been named. The British Museum took first place with almost 5.5 million visitors thanks to the help of a motionless army. Museum heads attributed the 12% spike in visitors to the First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army, the British Museum's most popular attraction since King Tut's goods were on display in 1972. If you want to go toe-to-toe with an army that won't......

Having closed its doors in 2004, and playing host to squatters in recent months, there's finally some good news to report about the Commonwealth Institute in west London. The disused building is to be the welcome recipient of £20 million development plan, with hopes to turn it into an art gallery (yay!), museum (double-yay!) or "centre for a corporate foundation" (erm, possibly yay - we're not sure what that means). This should hopefully mean......

In which we spend a night with some decayed, 17th century dudes, in the catacombs beneath London Bridge. Beneath the Surrey side of London Bridge, behind doors that once led to the robot-kitsch Cynthia's Bar, a new attraction is taking shape. The London Bridge Experience will open in February. Part museum, part CGI scare-fest, the LBE will take visitors on a historical tour of the 2000 year-old crossing, and down into previously disused catacombs......

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... We recommended memberships to various arty places as Christmas presents earlier this week, but in terms of things you can wrap and place under......

There’s plenty of tomes on the market describing our city’s buildings. A search on Amazon for the term ‘London architecture’ yields 1070 results. Into this crowded marketplace - one of the few not designed by Horace Jones - steps the London Atlas of Architecture. It’s a highly visual guide with up to eight photographs per page and plenty of maps. Section one is a chronology of architecture, spanning 1800 years from the Roman wall......

Whenever Londonist is feeling a tad glum, we have but to turn to Matt Harding and his amazingly silly website to get all cheered up again. Matt Harding is one big internet sensation, albeit a very unlikely one. The former games programmer has made a new career out of dancing badly in front of some of the world’s most recognisable and iconic buildings, and in some of the planet’s remotest terrains. But Londonist has been......

Londonist got the big scoop of the week with what may be the first images of notorious street artist Banksy in action. They also got on a runaway train without an operator provoking a response from the transport authorities. Elsewhere, London's answer to Central Station is about to open for business, and Londonist got a sneak preview. Meanwhile, spooky goings-on beneath London Bridge, where a cache of skeletons provided an apt story for Hallowe'en.......

The Mayor of London wants you to stay up late. Stay up late for the Lates October season. He wanted you to cut back on sleep and catch up on culture back in May when the first Lates season was launched, now it's October, he wants you to check out the things you miss during the day in the big museums and galleries. Have you been meaning to see something at any of the......

You want entertainment in London, you say? And you want it for free? Well, good sir or madam, you've come to the right place. Anyone who's lived in this fair city for a while knows that free entertainment is actually all around us. From our world-class museums to almost uncountable numbers of galleries; hear talks by some of the planet's great thinkers, and japery from the best new comics. It's all free, and it's......

Tourist season in rain-soaked down-town London, and all the big museums are, shall we say, a tad busy. But Londonist always has something up its sleeve for a rainy day. And for those of you inclined towards higher aesthetic planes, we would strongly recommend the Design Museum in Shad Thames, more particularly their current exhibition featuring the works of ‘starchitect’ Zaha Hadid. It is hard to over-state the achievements of this prolific lady –......

If you carry a handbag on a regular basis, we're sure that, like us, you've had the joyful experience of finding a misplaced fiver tucked into a corner, or a pack of gum just when you fancy a piece, or your favourite lipgloss which you'd written off as lost. Handbags can be a treasure trove of hidden objects, and it's always delightful to find something unexpected inside. An elderly widower in Woking found treasure......

It's not the first place you would think of when looking for love but for those with a questing heart, the place to go is Euston Road. art2heart is the dating organisation that aims to bring people together through art and culture. The idea is both lofty and lovely: each month, 150 people, sometimes more, gather for monthly art2heart events held at prestigious museums or galleries where art can be admired and discussed with......

London's got its share of surgical history, but our newest scientific exhibition space has strapped the operating theatre concept to a gurney and wheeled it into the 21st century. Last night at the Wellcome Collection a full house watched Dr Frank Wells perform open-heart surgery on a 68-year-old man. It was all done via a remote link to Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, so although the audience wasn't in the same room as the patient......

West End theatre is something probably most of us can't really afford that often, but if seeing the big shows is what rings your bell then you'll want to be heading down to Leicester Square this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday from 1230 - 6pm, West End Live will take over the square to showcase all the West End has to offer and in particular on the theatre side. A large stage will be......

In our minds, we don't normally associate museums with bouts of laughter. That is, with the exception of school trips where we desperately tried to keep ourselves amused/awake/alive as some old and dull man in tweed tried to educate us something similarly old and dull. We were particularly pleased to hear what they're up to at the Museum of London. They've embarked on a hefty two-year gazillion-pound refurbishment of the place and to keep......

How many hogs does it take to cleanse a whale? No, it's not a Zen koan. The glorious Victorian temple to murdered animals that is the Natural History Museum is cleaning up the whale exhibit in its Large Mammals Hall - using hog hair bristle brushes! But why hog hair brushes? There are many reasons, but mostly it's because using tiny, peculiar implements to clean the largest animals on Earth looks really impressive and......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th June 1762: A newly installed peal of ten bells at St Mary-le-Bow church in the City is rung for the first time to mark the 25th birthday of George III. Tuesday – 5th June 1734: The Bank of England’s current premises on Threadneedle Street are opened for business. Wednesday – 6th June 1997: Another anniversary for the Bank of England, which uses its newly granted independence......

With the popularity of monthly late night events at Tate Britain and the V&A, is it any wonder that other museums want to get in on the act? The latest addition to the fold is the Museum of London, which will be holding its first late night opening tonight. They haven't entirely got the hang of it - it'll all be over by 9pm - but the principle of the thing is sound. With......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 30th April 1999: “London nailbomber” David Copeland plants his last bomb, in the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho. Three people are killed and dozens are injured. Tuesday – 1st May 2000: The May Day anti-capitalism protests bring mass violence and vandalism to central London. On the same day one year later, police detain thousands of protesters and unwitting bystanders in Oxford Circus for about 6 hours. Wednesday......

The House of the Orange Monkey chronicles the adventures of a very special tourist. Mr Monkey is one of the few simian visitors to our city. He certainly makes the most of it, exploring the parts other tourists cannot reach, and writing up surprisingly useful field notes. We caught up with him to ask a few questions. 1. Tell us a bit about yourself I'm a pocket sized beanie monkey living in the north-west.......

Spring appears to have, er, sprung, at least temporarily, in most of the Ist-A-Verse, so naturally, we're all feeling pretty good. (Yes, we know that spring doesn't officially start till later this month. Just let us enjoy our weather!) And that makes us that much more eager to share all of the nifty things we're up to... Over at Sampaist, spring has more than sprung: it's sweltering! But, as everyone knows, museums are an ideal......

Ever wondered what an alleged bomb factory looks like? Now you know Telling the kids that most suicide bombers are Muslim isn't the best idea ever. As this teacher found out when he was sacked Four London galleries and museums have been shortlisted for an arts award. Oh and the £100,000 that goes with it The Red Cross wants to take on an extra 300 people in preperation for the next 'major incident' Blair......