Gather your pocket change and hold your head high. There's some place to be every day of the week, no matter how skint you think you are. London provides.
Friday: Every club in the city seems to be jumping on the recession party bandwagon. It may be the most overplayed gimmick this side of Valentine's Day, but we can't complain about more free nights out. Slipped Disco join in the pop economics with the Recession Sessions at Bar Music Hall, inviting Goldierocks, recent resident DJ at the O2's Matter.Saturday: The Fragmented Orchestra is a distributed musical instrument the size of Britain, modelled on the firing of the brain's neurons. 24 Fragments is a 24 hour festival at all 24 of the Orchestra's audio-linked component sites. Free psychoacoustic events are planned alongside the meta-music at a number of London locations: the Institute of Psychiatry, the Rochelle School, the National Portrait Gallery, the Stephen Lawrence Centre, the Roundhouse, and St. Andrew's Fulham Fields.Sunday: Even the London Wildlife Trust are getting into LGBT History Month, with a special lecture and walk in Nature-ist favourite Camley Street Natural Park titled Go Wild in Camden. Learn about the sexual diversity of the animal kingdom, which would require a significantly longer acronym than LGBT to cover in full.Monday: How does 2001: A Space Odyssey hold up eight years after we were all supposed to be docking with an orbital cocktail lounge? Find out in Canary Wharf, still probably the most space-age spot in London, at a free big-screen film night in the voluminous glasshouse of the East Wintergarden.Tuesday: The British Academy's public lectures aren't afraid to take on vast issues in a most academic way. This evening's double bill of talks on civil society cover first the state of civil society in America as Obama takes on the questionable inheritance, and then the entire history of civil society in Britain under New Labour. If you feel like you could use some catching up on the issue then this is about as comprehensive a refresher as you're going to get in one evening.
Wednesday: Walking Greenwich foot tunnel has always been an eerie experience, but tonight Palimpsest push it to new mythological depths with The Tunnel, a performance installation offering the underworld at its finest. Final dates are tomorrow and 4-5 March; email to reserve a spot.Thursday: The Wellcome Collection serves up a dinner of cold steel in Up to the Hilt, with discussions and demonstrations of sword swallowing. Learn how and, more to the point, why.
