Dispensing with the (attempts at) witty chitchat this week and diving right in... Monday: Still time to get tickets for the Last Tuesday Society’s Hendrick’s Cocktail Party tonight. And should you wonder what tenuous connection we’re trying to make between gin and literature (we won’t play the Snoop Dogg Gin and Juice card just yet), hang on there! It’s not so tenuous. On tap at tonight’s party, along with an abundance of Hendrick’s, is......

There's something of a Valentine's theme to the Arts of choice taking place in the capital this week. But Londonist knows for every young Juliet embracing the idea of timeless romantic love, there's a Bridget hugging her near-empty vodka bottle, crooning to Chaka Khan. So, in the name of balance, here's a varied, half 'rom', half 'com' round-up for you all. Shows for Swingin' Lovers: Photographer Gregg Stone, has been taking snaps of kissing......

You’d be forgiven if upon watching Doris Lessing settle into her armchair and begin reading to the audience at the Southbank Centre Tuesday night, you were reminded of your grandmother tucking you in with a bedtime story. If, that is, your grandmother was the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature. And the story she was telling you effectively imagined away your existence. But incongruity seemed the theme for the evening. And so......

Anyone who has ever surfed the internet in a quest for enlightenment about British theatre will undoubtedly have come across the West End Whingers’ blog. By now, Andrew and Phil have become internet blogging stars, doing for theatre what Belle de Jour did for prostitution with only slightly less lubricant. Andrew and Phil have ranted against ticket prices, bar prices, fringe theatre and the general state of affairs since 2006, accumulating a huge fan......

Bloomsbury might become the place to relax after a heavy shopping session in town, if new proposals go ahead. Plans are being put forward to Camden Council to pedestrianise the Bloomsbury area and evoke its old free-roaming Bohemian spirit. The constant sound of drilling, and building works isn't conducive to a gentle autumnal ramble and academic chatter. And for most non-student Londoners who are coming into the West End on a bus, the area......

We've already told you about the whole Get London Reading thing, but we just wanted to remind you as because even though many of the events have been and gone you can still vote for your favourite London book. Up until March 1st you can visit LondonBooks.co.uk and choose from a shortlist of nine classic London novels: Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes End of the Affair - Graham Greene Great Expectations - Charles Dickens......

There've been a few changes to the plans for the Olympic Park, in order to save on so many jobs and premises being relocated. Wembley now has a 70% chance of being completed in time for the FA Cup. The Heathrow Terminal 5 workers will start a 3 day strike today. Kate Moss has decided to come home, she'll be back at end of this week to make a 'full and frank' confession apparently (meanwhile,......

And, by God, did he get around. Stalking Paolozzi was a piece of cake in comparison. The map above is our stab at showing all Dickens’ London addresses. But sources conflict, and there’s bound to be a few missing. During his childhood, Dickens hopped from home to home as his father tried to dodge the debt collectors. Following in his footsteps, we similarly hopped from one location to the next, though largely on account......

Kath Turner is on her way back to the West End for the first time since her 'impressive' performance in The Graduate five years ago (was that really five years ago?... wow, now we feel old!). Turner is all set to come to London as Martha in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? in the new year. The show is currently playing on Broadway, and according to the Daily Mail (we know, we know, but......

It's not every day you pick up the venerable Times to find an article evangelising about the "the Alpine meadows of the thigh region" or the "the exposed belly-button, plus its mandatory side-platter of belly, hip, rib and buttock crevice"! But today it seems Richard Morrison cannot help but pen an ode to "the eternal glories of the female body". You see, it's summer, and there's "so much female leg, tit, tum and butt"......

If the results of the Time Out 'best loved London books' poll have taught us anything it's that you have to be really specific when asking the public to vote for things. As the Guardian reports today the A-Z Street Atlas took fifth place in the poll, beating the likes of Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, Joseph Conrad, Zadie Smith and Peter Ackroyd. Time Out's books editor John O'Connell is quoted as saying that that......