The Dark Lord of Musical Theatre, funny faced "genius", Andrew Lloyd Webber, last night scooped a Classical Brit for Outstanding Achievement in Music. Andrew (as he likes to be called on his website), who was 60 this March, has been ubiquitous in the West End for 30 odd years. He was recently reinvented himself at Graham Norton's hands as 'The Lord' in his 3 BBC reality TV shows casting lead roles in revivals of......

Kevin Spacey today hijacked his own promo for new gambling film 21 to slam the BBC for giving certain West End musicals 13 weeks of free publicity disguised as reality TV shows. Whilst recognising that they helped promote West End theatre in general he's clearly got the hump that it's the camp musicals hogging the limelight and cashing in on ticket sales rather than the more serious plays running at theatres like his own......

There's masses going on for us culture vultures to choose from this week. First Thursdays As it's the start of March, it's First Thursdays this week. More than 80 galleries and museums will be open til 9pm across East London. We recommend John Squire's (yes, him from the Stone Roses) Re-engineered Garments; alternatively, pretend you're an alien at the Barbican. The Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art opens this Thursday. East is East East London's......

Taking a cue from police investigators and reality TV shows looking to create a scandal, Harrow Council in northwest London has started to use voice risk analysis -- a type of phone-based lie detector -- to try and catch fraudsters claiming unneeded benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions. How does it work? "The technology detects changes in people's voice patterns such as hesitation or avoiding direct questions, and identifies them as a......

Photograph of Michael Strahan, coach Tom Coughin (holding the Vince Lombardi trophy) and quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning by Tien Mao Gothamist was amazed after the Giants won the Super Bowl, the city went wild, and it witnessed a ticker-tape parade.Barack Obama drew 20,000+ ahead of Seattle’s Saturday caucus.Londonist had Super Tuesday too.Elusive guerrilla street artist Banksy revisits Los Angeles.After the Patriots lost the Super Bowl and came this close to making......

As we ease out of the austerity, self-denial and penny-pinching of January, so too the arts world comes even further out of its shell. This week sees a whole host of exciting openings. Take your pick; payday's passed and February's just round the corner! Be the first Gilbert and Sullivan's hilarious opera about love, corrupt local government, marriage, executions and heroics, The Mikado comes to the Gielgud Theatre from Wednesday. Alistair McGowan stars as......

Reality TV has found a new audience with the broadcast of a splendid new show, Model Mosque. Shown on the Islam Channel, the programme sees mosques from around the UK (of which there are 1,500 official ones) going head to head to be awarded the title of Mosque with the mostest and to receive £35,000 worth of consultancy. Viewers vote by text on the weekly knockout rounds - the final is on 25th November. Londonist......

Anarchists, nihilists, thorns in the establishment's side, punks, poets, property developers, reality tv stars, radio show hosts; if nothing else the Sex Pistols are a contrary bunch. So whether the 30th anniversary bollocks celebration/reunion tour is a final nail in the coffin or breath of life to that ephemeral thing they call Punk attitude, only history, possibly as written by the NME, will tell. Either way their initial batch of Brixton dates sold out......

Except they’ve moved to a tip in Croydon and are decidedly less furry than their 1970s incarnation. When Channel 4 advertised for volunteers to participate in a prize eco-challenge, most of the respondents were anticipating the jungle, or polar icecaps perhaps. What they actually ended up doing was living as modern Borrowers on rubbish for three weeks. Literally. They were plonked in a municipal refuse dump in South London and told to get on with......

Reality TV: Not quite the white-hot topic it maybe was a few months ago at the height of Shilpagate but still newsworthy, if you're a lazy newspaper editor with a comment space to be filled, anyway. What can there possibly be new to say on the subject? Well, a debate being held next Tuesday (3rd April) in the Southbank Centre aims to explore the shifting interface between "watcher" and "watched" embodied by Big Brother,......

Tomorrow, the BBC announce the acts that will be in contention to represent the UK in Eurovision. Making Your Mind Up, the show, will be held sometime in the next few weeks. Whispers have been flying around for months about who'll be in the running, with some rumours hitting the headlines (yep, Morrissey), but as yet, nobody knows for sure. This year marks the UK's 50th Eurovision entry, as well as the 40th anniversary......

The best news we've heard in ages: Britain's national film and television archive is to be opened up in order for it to be accessed by the public. Visitors to the British Film Institute (BFI), which is in London, will be able to choose items from the collection and watch them free of charge. There was a time before utter shit like Strictly Come Dancing and reality TV smeared itself across our screens that......

Everyone loves Kylie (well apart from this guy). Oh and maybe anyone who paid good money to see The Delinquents. Which we did. God we're old. Now as far as Londonist is concerned the best thing Ms Minogue did since leaving Neighbours was to be killed by Nick Cave in the video for 'Where the Wild Roses Grow'. But she knows how to wear a dress. Or pieces of dress. Or sometimes just a......

A couple of weeks ago on Friday, the perfect antidote to a certain, unmentionable reality TV showdown was a gig at Swiss Cottage Library, of all places. For one night only, the aptly named Mr Hudson and the Library, graced the award-winning building as part of a larger tour of book lending institutions. Their hard work is in aid of the "Get it Loud in Libraries"campaign, promoting the ever growing catalogue of CDs available......

As the world holds it's breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

Tomma Abts has become the first female painter to win the £25,000 Turner Prize. She was awarded the prize last night by Yoko Ono in a ceremony held at Tate Britain. The run-up to the event was dogged with the usual controversy - the Stuckists had a bit of a protest outside the gallery and one of the judges, Lynn Barber, said the judging process was so farcical that it has seriously 'dampened her......

When are these pop stars going to learn not to mess with the awesome power of the ROCK? Ms Dynamite almost lived up to her name while filming some nonsense for a reality TV show when she was taken roughly from behind by AC/DC: Fellow contestant Brian Johnson, of rock group AC/DC, clipped the back of her car at Silverstone, in Northants, sending it spinning out of control... A Sky One spokesman said the......

The 16-year old on trial for the murder of 15-year-old Kiyan Prince outside the boy's school gates has denied murder but admitted manslaughter. Two men were shot outside a club in Elephant and Castle in the early hours of Sunday morning. One is in a critical condition in hospital, while the other, who was reportedly shot in the buttocks, is in a stable condition. Congestion Charge alert: People living in the western extension to......

Torontoist visits the site of a new Frank Gehry structure, stalks "the elusive Bahamas streetcar", and watches Tom Green get surgery. Phillyist rejoices in the Phillies' wild card chances, mourns the injuries sustained by Eagles defensive end Jevon Kearse, and goes pirate on our asses. SFist notes that Guns and Roses were in town, that San Franciscans are taking over reality TV, and that the San Francisco Chronicle's skills of original nomenclature could use......

Celebs. In the theatre. Are quite bad enough. (Val Kilmer in The Postman Always Rings Twice immediately springs to mind.) But. But. Jade Goody. As in, Jade Goody. She isn't even a celeb. She is to make an appearance in The Vegemite Tales. We wonder if this is perhaps worse than the time someone thought that it would be a good idea to put Abi Titmuss in an Arthur Miller play, and she forgot......

TV Troll has been dilatory of late. We missed the return of our favourite Aussies on Monday (Kath & Kim, Mon 10pm BBC2), we didn't warn you about the return of X Factor (Fri 8.30pm ITV1), and, most damningly, we didn't even cover the Big Brother final. Apologies – but we reckon the blanket coverage of BB absolves us a bit, and we'd given up by the last fortnight anyway as it was becoming......

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 Dino Jaws at the Natural History Museum Nothing packs in the punters like a few animatronic dinosaurs. Well, nothing except animatronic elephants. So the NHM should see its attendances soar like a pterodactyl with the opening of its new Dino Jaws exhibition. It’s Natural History......

Those who hate both Big Brother (daily, all the time, C4/E4) and the World Cup might well have entertained thoughts of entering a house of peace, and taking holy orders. Potential bonuses include: no more trying to find things to delete because Systems Administrator tells you that you're over your mailbox limit; no more deadlines; no more £3.50 pints of beer; no more floating in a sea of sweat on the Tube; no more......

We found it hard to imagine how last year's Big Brother could have been topped; OK, Science or Eugene should have won, but it provided reliable entertainment and too many coffee-machine moments to mention. This year's hasn't quite reached those highs, but we feel it's still in the process of bedding in - like some evil plant, a mandrake, maybe - and is just coiling itself up and building pressure before the big explosion,......

The animals went in two by two, hurrah. Hurrah! There'll be something else to watch on telly apart from the bloody football! And, good news for all us addicts across the land, the inhabitants of the Big Brother ark this year are weirder than ever. Last night's opening ceremony - or casting-off, maybe? - was a treat, despite the fact that it clashed with the Eurovision semi-finals (did anyone else catch presenter Paddy O'Connell......

Attention all students of London's more 'swinging' times: there's a programme on Radio 2 tonight at 8:30 which promises to pay tribute to the swingingest of all the swingy streets: Carnaby Street. Ok, so it's presented by Lulu, but don't let that put you off. They've also enlisted 60s pop luminaries like Pete 'it was research your honour' Townshend and Dave Davies of the Kinks in to help answer the question "which came first:......

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......

Normally when we set out each week to start writing the FFN, we bring up all the broadsheet film pages and at least one movie immediately jumps out at us as being the the most interesting offering of the week. Whether it's controversial, really good, really bad or just starring Scarlett Johansson - there's usually be something to catch our eye. But not this week. This week is full to the brim with complete......

Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice, for the new series of Green Wing (Fri 9pm C4) is upon us! We don't envy whoever has to go round the Tube taking down all the teaser posters, however. There isn't much we can add to this, except it makes us happy. As does the thought of Adam Rickett being eaten by Lord Freddie Whatsisface - shame that the producers of Alive: Back To The Andes (Wed 8pm Five) chickened......

Tits. Often considered to be "the bigger, the better" - but not for Big Brother "star" Jade Goody. La Goody has changed before our horrified televisual gazes from duh-brained reality TV show contestant ("Rio de Janeiro? Isn't that a person?") to a surgically enhanced, high earning businesswoman (she's got a fitness video and plans to open a beauty salon - technically "business"). After scaling the dizzy heights of celebrity post-Big Brother (see fitness video,......