Euston concourse: unlovely home to many angry commuters tonight.

• Train lines out of Euston are still crippled following this morning’s freight derailment. We wouldn’t advise walking.
• Some parking fines will go up mahoosively during the Olmypics.
• See who went to see Beckham’s pants on Regents Street.
• International Olympic Committee impressed with London’s preps.
• Mayor opens emergency St Mungo’s shelter for rough sleepers.
• The Occupy movement confronts capitalism head on…by capturing a community centre from a Scout group.

Image by M@.

London’s ‘most-talked-about-new-shopping-mall-built-from-shipping-containers’, Boxpark Shoreditch is offering a cool 20% off food and drink for the whole of February.

Use your month-long 20% discount to try burgers at Bukowski, salads at Chop’d, juices from Crussh, cake ‘n’ coffee in Foxcroft and Ginger, frozen yoghurt from Frae, Vietnamese at Hop Namo, Burritos by Mexway or pies by Pieminister throughout February.

Claim your 20% off voucher through Boxpark’s Facebook page now.

As an added bonus, you could be tucking into a #freelunch from Bukowski and Frae on Saturday or Hop Namo on Sunday if you follow @Boxpark on Twitter. And by #freelunch they mean proper meals for two people with booze or soft drinks included.

Check @Boxpark for #freelunch between 8am and 1pm each day to see how you can enter!

To find out more visit Boxpark online, like Boxpark on Facebook and follow @Boxpark on Twitter.

There are seven to choose from. All sound mouth watering if you enjoy exploring architecture.

South London Regeneration – Borough, Bermondsey and Bankside, from the towering Shard to the area’s many experiments with housing developments.

Hidden West End – The architecturally interesting buildings, old and new, that you might not have noticed in this most familiar part of town.

East End Transformation – Discover how the development of Canary Wharf, the upcoming Olympics and other initiatives have radically changed the built environment of east London.

The Square Mile – Of all the areas in London, its most ancient offers the greatest variety of architectural styles, from Roman walls to towering glass edifices.

Boat Tour: Architecture of the Thames – Take a leisurely boat trip, first upriver to Battersea, then downriver to Canary Wharf , while an expert guide discusses the history and architecture of the river’s most important buildings.

Photography Tour: The Changing Face of London – Another tour of the City, but this time with camera in hand and a specialist in architectural photography to guide your focus.

Evening Residence Tour: The Gap House – Take a snoop around Bayswater’s unusual Gap House, a narrow residence squeeze between traditional terrace houses.

Walk times, dates and costs vary, so check each individual page for further details and other booking information.

Jealousy the emotion, but also jalousie, the French name for Venetian blinds, cut their influence through the visuals and the choreography, creating a striking new exploration of the human psyche through architecture and objects.

Using the narrative structure of Alain Robbe-Grillet’s 1957 cine-novel Jealousy, choreographers Hubert Essakow, James Cousins (remember his work at Firefly?), Daniel Hay Gordon and Morgann Runacre-Temple (Ballet Ireland’s Sheherazade choreographer) will each carve different movement into their segment of the set. Materials, light and soundscape will augment each divided piece, creating a cinematic experience. Playing with the idea of voyeurism, between the dancers themselves and between the dancers and audience, the shadows of venetian blinds will reveal the passage of time, whilst hiding jealous figures.

Jealousy runs from 6-18 Feb at The Print Room, 34 Hereford Road W2 5AJ at 7.30pm, Saturady matinee at 3pm. Pre-show talk on 14 February. Tickets cost £20, conc. £15.

But never fear — Garreth Carter has made another documentary about the Tube, and like a good Londoner has concentrated on how gosh-darn pretty it is when you speed it up to some funky music. Enjoy.

Their inclusion in our Ones To Watch list was earned following a mesmerizing Lexington show which teetered on the edge of disjointed drone, yet maintained composure by transcending lo-fi shoegaze into an ethereal post-punk. Think The Fall’s bite, with Ride’s melody and the ingenuity of These New Puritans and the scope of Fever Dream’s abilities become apparent. Debut single This Waste oozes apocalyptic guitars yet remains hauntingly distant and subtle. It’s discerning noisy dream-pop for people with angular sensibilities.

They formed while Sarah Lippett (bass) and Cat Loye (drums) were on a drunken jaunt around America, then forcefully recruited Cat’s former Esiotrot band member Adey Fleet on guitar and vocals. In true indie spirit the three Brighton University friends started writing after returning from All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2010, playing their first gig that Christmas.

We spoke to Adey to find out more.

What do Fever Dream sound like in a sentence?
Kittens eating cupcakes with broken glass centres.

Describe your musical philosophy to us.
To play songs loud enough so no one can hear you mess up, or you’re out of tune. And to rip off enough bands in each song that they almost end up sounding original.

Who are your influences music and non-music?
We all have different musical leanings but we’re collective fans of noisy 90s stuff like Pavement, Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, and most of the Postcard back catalogue. I think we’d all agree that Philip K. Dick is a true hero, and Neil Buchanan inspired us to attend art school.

In what area of London are you based, and how has that area influenced Fever Dream’s music?
We’re dotted around various parts of east London, so we’re lucky to be amongst some fantastic bands and venues. It’s easy to get to gigs of friends’ bands, have them come to yours, and to record and practice in the same spaces. I wouldn’t say we’re part of a scene as most of the bands we hang out with are pretty different to us, but I think that’s healthy.

What’s your favorite London venue and why?
Of the venues we’ve played so far, The Lexington stands out – they have a mini-fridge with TWO types of beer backstage, and the whiskey selection is outstanding. The great sound helps too. We were big fans of Barden’s Boudoir before its untimely demise, and nothing seems to have filled its sweaty boots yet.

What’s the London gig circuit like for bands starting out?
We’ve had some fantastic gigs with great promoters like OddBox, Scared to Dance and HDIF, who’ve taken a chance on us and are genuinely interested in promoting new music. But you still have some gigs where you’re supporting a Kooks covers band and you have to guarantee you’ll bring 500 friends before you get a free beer.

If you could have yourself projected on any building in London, which would it be and why?
Something Brutalist like The Hayward Gallery or the Barbican, for that authentic Blade Runner feel.

What’s your favourite…
…London monument?
 THE Monument – the climb is scary but the view makes it worthwhile.
 …Tube line and why?
Sarah would probably say the DLR but I’m going for the Overground.
… Place to hang out?
If only for the beer, the Jolly Butchers in Stoke Newington.
… Area for food, China Town or Brick Lane?
Brick Lane!

Where would Fever Dream like to play if they could play anywhere in London?
The revolving restaurant at the top of the BT Tower would be fun. I think we could pull off playing some lounge jazz there if we had to.

How exciting is to be releasing your debut single?
Bed-wettingly so, everything seems to have come together quite nicely. It was recorded at the end of last year at the new Soup Studios, and we’re really proud of how it’s ended up sounding. It’s our first release so it’s kinda nerve-racking to see how it’s received, but the guys at Underused Records have been fantastic in promoting it.

What’s been Fever Dream’s career highlight?
Playing in a public toilet in Berlin to a bunch of punks – and a fake fish tank.

What are your future plans?
To play in more public conveniences, all around the World. We also have plans for a long-player on Underused in the works.

Fever Dream play a single launch party, Friday 3 February @ The Others, Stone Newington, 6-8 Manor Road, N16 5SA. Their Debut single This Waste is released 6 February on Underused Records.

Photo by nottheviewsofmyemployer

As the repercussions of last year’s riots continue to ripple outwards, the Metropolitan Police have embarked on a mission to train more officers in dealing with any repeat rioting.

The Met were criticised at the time over lack of officers and vehicles to contain looting and violence — in Clapham there were just eight officers available which led to police withdrawing from the area and allowing rioting to continue unabated. In the aftermath, the police took the opportunity to draw up new rules of engagement around policing and civil unrest. New Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe told the London Assembly police and crime committee:

“On the Saturday night we’ve accepted from the beginning that we didn’t have enough police available to deal with Tottenham High Road. We’ve got significantly more police officers available to deploy, we’ve tested that.”

We’d love to say that these are extra officers and local policing won’t be affected but we can’t — Hogan-Howe also warned that numbers would fall while training was being given but it’s all for the greater good. Recruitment was also on the agenda at the committee and the commissioner said that the Met mustn’t disregard graduates in favour of promoting from the ranks of PCSOs.

Now that the Met’s performance is within City Hall’s remit, the mayor is responsible for overseeing the force’s strategy; though just last month he was criticised by electoral adversary Ken Livingstone over a 1700-strong dip in the capital’s police numbers. Brian Paddick, however, advocates recruiting local communities to fight crime.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of The Nudge.

Fancy a complimentary, VIP-style night out in London for you and five friends?

If so, our pals over at The Nudge have just launched a competition for exactly that, courtesy of private concierge service Innerplace.

If you win you’ll meet your five friends for cocktails and champagne at exclusive members’ club Eight, before moving on to dinner with live jazz and blues at new City steakhouse The Door, and then finish up with VIP treatment at Mahiki’s sister bar Kanaloa (including your own “Maui’s Chest Of Fire”, serving ten).

Worth a punt…

For more info and to enter the competition head to TheNudge.com, where you’ll also find the full terms and conditions.

It has been a chilly few days with temperatures averaging around 0°C, by far the coldest it has been all winter. But with clear blue skies and a bright sun, the weather has also been its crisp, bright best.

These photos show the cold weather making London shine and shiver at the same time. Happy days for purveyors of furry hats; tough times for traders working outdoors.

The cold front is due to hang around a little while longer with some snow showers forecast for the weekend.

Many thanks to jaykay72, AMSImages and kenjonbro for sharing their images in the Londonist Flickrpool.

Scene from Mulholland Dr.

With the man himself having apparently retired from filmmaking and retreated into artistic and musical ventures, the BFI has put together what might be the definitive David Lynch season.

Not that showcasing the director’s work is a particularly new idea: in 2010 Battersea Arts Centre ran a Twin Peaks Weekender, showing every episode of the television drama back to back, while last year Riverside Studios in Hammersmith ran a Lynch Film Day, screening three of his best films; at the time we were unimpressed by the decision to show Mulholland Dr. on DVD.

Happily Lynch’s 2001 masterpiece is included in the BFI season in glorious 35mm, alongside his eight other feature films, ranging from Eraserhead (1977) through to Inland Empire (2005), and a collection of his early shorts. Of particular interest to Londoners would normally be The Elephant Man (1980), Lynch’s version of the familiar Joseph Merrick story, set and filmed in various locations around the capital, but it’s only screening one more (having already been shown on Thursday) and it’s already sold out.

True aficionados might enjoy Time Out’s list of the Top 50 Lynch characters.

David Lynch: A Reputation Precedes…. is at BFI Southbank until the end of February.

Today, Greenwich gets a regal promotion. The Borough will adopt a Royal appellation as part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. It joins existing Royal Boroughs Kensington & Chelsea and Kingston upon Thames in this privilege, and sports a new crest (right) to symbolise the new status.

The occasion will be marked with a fireworks display at Woolwich this evening. Further events, including more fireworks on Sunday, will take place across the weekend.

Greenwich certainly deserves the honour, at least from an historical perspective. Three monarchs — Henry VIII, Mary I and Elizabeth I – were born at the palace of Placentia, the long-demolished royal residence formerly on the site of today’s Old Royal Naval College. Only St James’s Palace can boast more Crown births. In addition, boy king Edward VI died at Placentia, and two of Henry VIII’s marriages took place there.

Then there are, or were, many other ‘Royal’ buildings around the borough: the Royal Observatory (itself part of the newly branded Royal Museums Greenwich), the Royal Artillery, Dockyards and Arsenal downriver at Woolwich, and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on the slopes of Shooters Hill.

Diamond Geezer has more on the naming, and similar bestowments around the country, while Darryl Chamberlain gives a local’s view.

The site looked at 3m quotes for home insurance made over a year and found that 33.6% of applicants living in N16 declared a previous claim for theft. This could mean various things: maybe Stokey residents are more honest and own up to previous incidents, or it shows that people who have had a burglary are more likely to need to switch insurers (bye bye to the no claims discount that made your old policy so cheap) or maybe, indeed, the mung bean capital of North London is thief heaven. It’s all so different from the picture painted by comedian Helen Arney.

Also battling it out with seemingly crime-ridden West Yorkshire for places in the top 20 are Wood Green, Streatham, Woodford Green, Barnet and Mill Hill.

Photo by Nicobobinus from the Londonist Flickr pool

The centre is run by St Mungo’s and provides hot showers, food and clean clothes as well as refuge from the sub-zero streets and a bed for the night. Support and advice is also available to help guests get off the streets for good.

All boroughs have ‘Severe Weather Emergency Protocols’ which kick in whenever three consecutive nights of freezing temperatures are predicted and a full list of London shelters is available from Homeless Link.

If you are concerned about a rough sleeper, you can contact St Mungo’s outreach teams, who are working round the clock in Westminster, Southwark and Ealing to bring people in off the streets.

Support St Mungo’s – make a donation online.

Photo by Roll the Dice via the Londonist Flickrpool.

Luckily this year you can join in. Tickets to attend the NME awards go on sale tomorrow morning, and tickets for a special Brit Awards Party in aid of War Child will be available from Saturday. Both feature unique performances from London’s best talent.

OK, you won’t be treading the red carpet (your mates don’t have to know that) but opportunities to see Florence Welch collaborate with the Horrors at the NME awards and Damon Albarn with Graham Coxon in their first show together since the phenomenal Blur reunion shows simply cannot be missed.

Tickets for the NME Awards @ Brixton Academy, 29 February are on sale 9am Friday 3 February through See Tickets.

Red carpet photo by Alex_Pink via the Londonist Flickrpool.

• The Turnpike Lane shooting victim was sitting in his car
• MI6 cancels all leave till after the Olympics
• Speaking of which, have your kids got free tickets through school?
• And TfL have turned down the Black Cab Olympic fare premium proposal
• Finally, are you braced for snow?

Photo taken in Crouch End today ‘Cougar Encounter’ by Peep O’Daze via the Londonist Flickrpool

Radical Dining Society, an online members club for “food and culture lovers to extend their social network” and “explore the nexus between art and food”, has launched in London. The first public event was held at 33 Portland Place (yes where much of The King’s Speech was shot) and featured inspired cookery from chefs visiting from Toulouse, innovative wineglasses not yet on the UK market and edgy art and foodie photography to round out an evening of convivial yum.

Chefs Daniel Morgan (the Ritz, Maze, The Square, Heston Blumenthal) and Magnus Reid (The Bathhouse, Hackney Pearl, Dalston Superstore, A Little of What You Fancy) are having a pop up, Nine French Place, in Shoreditch from Friday 3 to Sunday 5 February. The tickets are £50, and with that you get a cocktail, and a six course meal. More details at www.ninefrenchplace.tumblr.com.

Just in time for Valentine’s, the folks at the Cadogan hotel in Knightsbridge want guests to think of Champagne as not just something to sip but something to drench oneself in. The hotel will soon offer to guests the “ultimate indulgence” of a Champagne bath. Available to guests from Valentine’s Day, 120 bottle “Champagne Bath Menu” starts at £4,000 for Louis de Custine Brut and ranges up to £25,000 for a Dom Perignon Vintage wash. While your bubbly bath is drawn, a personal butler will be on hand to place some chocolate covered strawberries and a complimentary bottle of vintage Champagne within easy reach of the tub.

The Bavarian Beerhouse will host a traditional “Carnival Fancy Dress Party” on Saturday 18 February from 7pm to 1am at its Old Street location, promising an evening full of “imaginative and outrageous outfits” and a DJ playing the “latest cheesy Euro trash that will get you up on the dancefloor”.

Hackney based Niko B Organic Chocolates will host a Love Chocolate dessert club on 12 and 14 February as well as open a pop up Love Chocolate shop where “we will be selling our Breaking Chocolate Hearts and our Bleeding Raspberry Chocolate Hearts, alongside our range of fresh truffles, chocolate creations and confections”. Both will take place at Dalston’s boutique Avo Hotel, where Niko B will be making fresh chocolates on site Price for the dessert club is £26 for 4 courses, champagne, private shopping at the chocolate shop and a chocolate making demo.

Photo/Chris Osburn

The 550m tunnel, which runs underneath the old Connaught Passage linking the Royal Albert and Victoria Docks and formerly used by the North London Line, suffered a hit in 1940. Experts want to make sure no other devices buried themselves in the soil before they start repairing and reinforcing walls. The middle section of the tunnel was narrowed in 1935 when the Passage was deepened; original 1878 brickwork was taken out and replaced with steel.

Crossrail contractors will dredge a section of the Passage next year and lay a reinforced concrete slab. This will allow the steel to be removed and a foam concrete (which sounds fun) added to the walls. And all this is just to prepare the tunnels for boring!

As well as checking for old bombs, archaeologists will have time to explore the Crossrail sites to see if they can find artefacts from London’s buried past.

London Reconnections had a look round the Connaught Tunnel in 2010. Didn’t spot any bombs, though.

Photo courtesy of London Reconnections.

Curious about the role of nurses in romantic fiction? ‘Raise your Temperature‘ at the Florence Nightingale Museum on 14 February at 6pm, then cool off with a glass of wine. Tickets £8.

Send the Opera Diva Baroness Tamara von Stein zu Leitershofen to surprise your sweetheart with a Valentine’s Operagram. Bowl your beloved over and support vulnerable children in Africa at the same time.

Direct your own Valentine’s Day movie with LIGHTS! CAMERA! IMPROVISE! at the Arcola Theatre on 14 February, at 8pm. Tickets £12.

Fans of erotic thriller movies should head to Rich Mix’s Valentine’s special on 14 February: Morricone In Love with film and live music from 7pm. Tickets £14 in advance.

For the cynics and doubters, new play, Mathematics of the heart asks what happens when love doesn’t add up. It runs at Clapham’s Theatre503 from 7-29 February with a Valentine’s Day performance. Tickets £14.

Skating on thin ice with your partner? Act it out. Broadgate Ice is offering a two for £10 deal for couples for 14 February. No need to book in advance, sessions are available on a first come, first served basis and run from 6.30 until 8.30pm.

Laugh the whole thing off with My Funny Valentine, a special night of stand-up comedy on Valentine’s Day, starring Stephen K Amos and friends at Theatre Royal Haymarket. Tickets from £10.

If the idea of a ‘truffle shaped chocolate and hazelnut gelato filled with melted chocolate fudge and dusted in cocoa powder’ floats you and your loved one’s boat, book a dessert date at La Gelateria. Special menu £8.

Loners are just as welcome as lovers at Bloomsbury Live’s The Love Below party. Great music, karaoke and bowling and speed dating (not compulsory). From 8pm till late, tickets £4 in advance, £5 on the door.

Singles, Click Tonight invites you to “F*** Valentine – Just Party” at Kanaloa for £15. No hearts, no flowers and wearing red is taboo.

Put a dampner on Valentine passion by joining the “Turn me off” tour in the Natural History Museum, showing you the scariest, grossest and most dangerous creatures in their collections. Doors opens at 6:30pm, tickets cost £28 and you must book.

Feeling Gloomy host their Love Hurts: Anti-Valentine’s special, in association with Down With Dating, on Saturday 11 February, to bring you sad music, speed hating, the Blind Hate game and opportunities to moan about everything at Islington Academy. Tickets £4.50 in advance.

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Photo of vintage cheddar heart cheeses by mlazopoulou via the Londonist Flickrpool.

Today’s Times is not a happy result, but the latest chapter in the tragic story of Mary Bowers, 27, hit by a cement truck on The Highway on her way to work. Mary has been in a coma ever since her accident. And so the work of her colleagues — notably Kaya Burgess — brought this issue onto the front page of the paper of record. We’re not aware of any occasion where the Times has taken such a stand – it is commendable, go read their manifesto and if you agree, sign up.

Though the campaign is national, it is deeply routed in the London streets where Mary cycled. Those streets, remarkably, have become a significant issue at the Mayoral election. We have Boris to thank for that — his enthusiasm for a particular kind of cycling is what got the blue paint on the roads and the hire scheme up and running – he made cycling a bit more ‘in your face’, gave long suffering campaigners a new enthusiasm to keep trying, and unleashed a new wave of online activists.

However, in the four years of his mayoralty the idea that we can promote cycling while not making space for it on our roads has been exposed as tragically — fatally — flawed. Most cyclists don’t want to cycle like Boris Johnson, his phone to his ear, his hair blowing in the wind, his life in his hands. Most people who would cycle, but don’t, wouldn’t ever consider his approach to personal safety.

Campaigning group Londoners on bikes are asking people to pledge their vote to the candidate promising to do the most of Cycling Safety. As we approach the elections our candidates are taking positions, and all have new cycling policies — Paddick has endorsed cycle lanes at dangerous junctions, Ken has promised to make Green AM Jenny Jones the ‘supreme commander’ of cycling, Ms Jones herself is a full-on infrastructure-ist and Boris promises further expansion of the cycle hire and highways schemes.

If you cycle, or think about cycling, these are exciting times for London — but let’s never forget the terrible human cost of the progress we’ve made. Best speed on your recovery, Mary.

Experience vintage Bollywood at Rich Mix on Saturday night (photo by shuma.rani)

All weekend

• Longing for warmer climes? Kew’s Tropical Extravaganza is in the Princess of Wales conservatory for the next month (general admission £13.90, under 17s free).
• Watch Student Film Festival screenings at London College of Communication, Elephant & Castle (£5 or less, or buy a festival pass).
• David Lynch month at BFI Southbank screens Blue Velvet, Dune and The Elephant Man this weekend.
• Try a beginners street photography workshop (£20)
• Follow the chewing gum art trail at Trinity Buoy Wharf (free)

Friday:

• The South London Black Music Archive (remember their map?) host a panel discussion at Tate Modern 6.45-8pm (free but booking recommended).
• “Cool as a penguin’s lunchbox” try Barbequtie at Highgate’s Boogaloo (£3).

Saturday:

• Can you handle the 2012 Waitangi Day Circle Line Pub Crawl?
• The Shhh Festival of quiet music happens at the Gallery Cafe, Bethnal Green from 3-10pm (£7.50 early bird or £10 general admission).
• Take a Dickens walk around Holborn (free)
• Judy’s Affordable Vintage Fair is at Old Spitalfields Market from 11am-5pm (free entry).
• Write Queer London host an afternoon of Gay Domesticity at the Geffrye Museum from 1pm (free but book your place quick).
• London Rollergirls play their first home bout of 2012 at Brompton Hall, Earl’s Court from 4-9pm (£14 adv).
• Experience vintage Bollywood with Bollywood Bitesized at Rich Mix from 6.30pm, with a club night after the films (screenings + club £9, just club night @ 10pm £5).

Sunday:

• The dragon comes to east London with Chinese New Year celebrations at Rich Mix (free).
• Treat your ‘Little Bookniks’ to a day of wordy fun with stories, film, music, puppetry, poetry, a mystery-object-discovery-tour and more at the Jewish Museum (some activities free).
• Spend the day volunteering with BTCV at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.
• Get retro homeware at the Vintage Home and Interiors Fair at Cecil Sharp House from 11am-5.30pm (£2 entry).
• Play with a big bouncy ball in Hackney from 1pm
• It’s the Grimaldi Memorial Service at Holy Trinity Church, Dalston at 3pm, followed by a clown show for the kids in the church hall.
• Watch the Royal Greenwich fireworks at 6pm (free).
• Find a Superbowl party to suit you.

Other good stuff:

• Things to do for a fiver or less
• Museums and Galleries
• Books and spoken word
• Sci/tech/nerd stuff
• Theatre, dance, opera, classical music and exhibitions
• Cabaret, parties and alt-performance
• Stand up and sketch comedy
• Gigs to go to

Need more ideas? Browse all latest arts and events features, consult free things to do in London and make your tummy rumble with our latest food and drink content.

What did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Image of Uncle Ji and his roll by shuma.rani via the Londonist Flickrpool.

The mayor was criticised last year by the Green party over the scaling-back of his original proposals and by April last year only 534 people had taken up the government’s £5,000 grant to buy EVs. Figures published by Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) suggest either a massive success or a slow take-up, depending on how you choose to spin the data — 2011 saw 1,082 total EVs registered against 138 in 2010. It’s certainly a big increase, but it’s nowhere near Boris’s projected 100K (although his disclaimer of ‘as soon as possible’ does allow for some wiggle room presumably).

Despite the £5,000 grant, the electric vehicle revolution is in its infancy; the choice of eligible cars is tiny, with just five being currently available but due to expand to nine by the end of 2012. Going electric is also costly — the Nissan Leaf starts at £25,990. Availability of charging points and the car’s travelling range are also concerns; no-one wants to run out of power on a busy roundabout. SourceLondon’s charging point map shows a growing network of around 400 but still far short of the 1,300 points promised by 2013. That’s next year, folks.

The motivation of car buyers is also questionable. £25K is a high price to pay to be a member of the environmentally-friendly motoring club and given a choice between spending £5K on a reasonable second-hand petrol or diesel car and £20K on an EV (with grant applied) you’d have to be pretty determined to prove your green credentials to want to part with that extra cash, especially in these times of austerity. And for inner-city driving, the whole raison d’être of the push to reduce pollution via the EV grant, a car is not always the most practical transport solution anyway. That leaves the occasional run out of town, away from all those lovely charging points. What’s that you say? A range of 110 miles? Oh.

With any technological innovation, early adopters pay the highest price. Within 10 years we could see a far more extensive range of attractive, cheap-to-buy electric cars with a greatly-extended battery life which would make them a viable option for those on lower incomes. We think that over-reliance on the electric vehicle revolution to significantly address carbon emissions in London may be a tiny bit premature.

Photo by BethPH

Let’s check off the big names first: Charlie Brooker, Matthew Fort, DBC Pierre, Steve McQueen (director, not Great Escape artist), Robert Harris, Mike Figgis, Ian McEwan, Jeanette Winterson, Zac Goldsmith, Jon Snow, Duwayne Brooks, Jon Ronson and Rachel Cusk. Then there’s the Guardian writers: Grace Dent, Marina Hyde, Martin Rowson, Simon Hattenstone, Steve Bell, Jonathan Freedland, Alan Rusbridger, Polly Toynbee and Laura Barton doing what might be the most ‘Guardian’ event ever – an interview with Mumford and Sons. That’s just a tiny taster: check out the massive list of speakers yourself.

There’s a comedy gig with Colin Hoult, Sara Pascoe and Josh Widdicombe and a pop quiz hosted by John Harris. Anyone desperately trying  to work out the identity of the Secret Footballer should head to a video link interview on the Sunday afternoon and if you have an interest in anything at all (politics? Education? Getting a new job? Technology? Crafts? Food?) there will be a panel discussion to attend.

Got kids? Take them to see authors Meg Rosoff, Sue Monroe, Judith Kerr, get writing tips from Lucy Mangan, drawing and storytelling sessions. And two under-16s go free with each paying adult.

The Guardian Open Weekend takes place 24 and 25 March at the Guardian offices and Kings Place, 90 York Way N1 and Hub King’s Cross, 34b York Way N1. A Saturday day pass costs £40, Sunday day pass costs £30 and a weekend pass costs £60. For more information see the Guardian website, and they’ve made a video as a quick introduction to the project.

1893: Bruxelles. 1989: Paris. 2012: Londres.

Moules frites mega chain with humble Brussels roots and a massive presence in France (not quite to the extent of, say, Pizza Express here in the UK but that’s a pretty good analogy), Léon de Bruxelles takes a leap across La Manche to have a go at British (and presumably Euro tourist and expat) punters with a new Soho restaurant.

Adding to the nine Chez Léon eateries in Belgium and close to 70 Léon de Bruxelles sites in France,
Léon takes over the old Med Kitchen location at the nexus of Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue. Set in the bustling heart of London with a cavernous space to fill, the restaurant seemed to be doing a pretty good job of placing bottoms in seats during our Friday evening visit with a steady stream of customers flowing in and for the most part appearing especially pleased when leaving. And if those customers were fans of moules frites and Belgian beer, it’s easy to see why they enjoyed Léon so much.

The restaurant does breakfast, lunch and dinner and features a ‘something for everyone’ kind of menu. But the best (only?) reason to visit this place is for the mussels … which are excellent. Served in large cocottes with perfectly crisp frites on the side along with a basket of bread for sopping up all the savoury sauce, Léon’s moules frites are available in a range of ten different styles – from classic Marinière to Ardennaise (with white wine, crème fraiche, smoked bacon and mushrooms) to mussels in a light Madras curry sauce – and priced between £11 and £16. Londonist can vouch for the Ardennaise and the Madras options (we’ll be back!).

What better to accompany the famed Belgian duo than a Belgian beer? Léon’s own micro brewed house draft (6% ABV, £3.50 for a half pint) is commendably cloudy choice and goes well with a number of selections. Spirits, cocktails, wine, soft drinks and a Belgian-centric but international (you can get a Guinness or a Corona for example) beer list round out the drinks menu.

Room for dessert? Yep you guessed it, Léon’s got waffles from £3 (covered in icing sugar) to £8 (for a banana split extravaganza) along with an assortment of other sweet treats.

Service is especially friendly and keen to accommodate (if still getting the hang of things after a soft launch a week or so ago). The setting is comfortable and attractive. The location is about as convenient and central as they come.

Léon de Bruxelles is located at 24 Cambridge Circus, WC2H 8AA.

Photo/Chris Osburn 

Several years and £30m later, the conversion of Exhibition Road, Kensington into a shared-space thoroughfare, in which there are no pavements and traffic and pedestrians use the same surface, is complete. Yesterday saw the official launch ceremony.

Reaction to the project has been mixed. Guide Dogs for the Blind have repeatedly criticised the scheme, arguing that removing the kerb will put visually impaired pedestrians at risk. The Observer’s architecture critic Rowan Moore welcomed the redesign, while Simon Jenkins was also supportive in his Evening Standard column this week.

We took a walk along Exhibition Road last month, which is when the pictures above were taken. The overall effect is pleasing: the criss-cross grid pattern on the street creates the sense of a pedestrianised zone, and the absence of clutter and street furniture is welcome, as are the benches, though given the frigid air they weren’t much in use during our visit. There’s a relaxed pace, no doubt aided by the new 20mph speed limit along the road.

There were some awkward moments, particularly at the southern end, near South Kensington station, where vehicles and pedestrians got in the way of one another. At this end there’s been something of a compromise involving some raised sections in the middle of the street, which are a little out of place. A minor gripe, but overall the scheme is a promising one, at least when seen on a cold winter’s day. We’ll have to wait until the summer tourist season to really gauge how effective it is.

Presented as an “A-Z of England’s greatest novelist”, the book is really one big excuse for Sutherland to share his favourite theories and facts about Dickens. That the book opens with an A for ‘Amuthement’ and ends with a Z for ‘Zoo Horrors’ will give you a good impression of the author’s eccentric approach. This is a book built to entertain, but underpinned by a long career of scholarship. Sutherland finds his subject an ‘inexhaustible fund of entertainment,’ and bends that spirit onto his own pages.

Just a few examples… Under ‘C’, we learn of Dickens’ attitude to cannibalism. ‘H’ for Hands paints Great Expectations as a ‘masturbator’s manual’. ‘B’ for Blind Spots discusses the mysterious lack of Irish people in Dickens’ novels, and the total absence of that other iconic figure of the age, Queen Victoria. Not many authors could confidently begin a chapter by saying “I believe I was the first to point out a teasing puzzle in Great Expectations…” (a hattery matter), or get away with comparing Dickens to Michael Jackson’s doctor.

Sutherland is clearly a man who knows his subject so well that he’s able to play games with it. The result is a joyful dance of a book that even the most jaded Dickens reader will relish.

The Dickens Dictionary by John Sutherland is out now from Icon Books. Buy here.

Bloc, the emerging heavyweight of UK electronic music festivals, has revealed the first acts for its debut event in the capital.

The festival, from 6-7 of July, announced its line-up late yesterday with a range of electronica’s great and good set to perform over two days. Scene veterans Orbital will be headlining, along with LA astral beat-boffin Flying Lotus and paid up AA member Gary Numan. Other highlights of the cooler-than-ice-cold line up include Chilean minimalist Ricardo Villalobos, enigmatic masked rapper DOOM and twitchy math rockers Battles.

A wave of disappointed sighs were heard when Bloc declared it was upping sticks from Butlins Resort in Minehead, its home of five years. However, the announcement of this year’s festival on the site of the former Royal Victoria Pleasure Gardens looks a perfect fit. Pleasure Gardens, the most famous of which was found in Vauxhall, were outdoor venues along the banks of the Thames which provided the capital’s wealthier denizens with evenings of “al fresco entertainment, socialising and romance”, and were referenced by Samuel Pepys as early as 1662. The gardens grew in extravagance, reaching their pomp in the 18th century, with tightrope walkers, Chinese pavilions, fountain displays and fireworks. Music careers were also launched here, with Thomas Arne and George Frideric Handel building their reputations with outdoor performances. And in surely one of those “were you there?” moments, the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall held a 1,000 strong re-enactment of the Battle of Waterloo in 1827. Records suggest the evening was a lot more fun than playing Risk.

As all good things must come to an end, the grounds fell into decline in the 19th century and much of the land was sold off piecemeal for development. While a park still exists on the site, much of the surrounding area has since declined to a state of industrial decay. This year’s festival is set to spearhead an Olympic development scheme seeking to return the area around the Royal Docks to a cultural hub. Other features of the development will include a guerilla-art hotel, wild gardens and a floating cinema. All of which sound like better ideas than a ruddy massive McDonalds.

Britain’s first PM Robert Walpole once described an evening at the Royal Victoria Gardens as “by far the best understood and prettiest spectacle that I ever saw…nothing in a fairy tale ever surpassed it.” Whilst raving at 5AM to techno in the riverside surrounds, we’re sure others may reach a similar epiphany.

More information and tickets for the event can be found here. While entry to the Pleasure Gardens is no longer a guinea, there is a 6 tickets for 5 offer to entice early bookers.

Image used with permission from Bloc.2012

This article wrote that the festival was to be held at the Pleasure Gardens in Vauxhall. This has since been amended.

A new initiative in Soho is trying to cut down on plastic waste by only giving customers a straw on request. Although the wee tubes make up just a small fraction of the total amount of plastic crap that ends up in landfill and (due to the ease with which they end up down drains) oceans, they’re an easy single-use item target that could make more of us stop and think whether we really need to use all this stuff.

So far, 18 restaurants have signed up, including Barrafina, Randall and Aubin, Wahaca and Ducksoup. And although it started in the heart of London, the message is already spreading as far as Shoreditch (Pizza East), Somerset and Berlin, where they take recycling very seriously.

Now the campaign needs to tackle a small stumbling block – McDonald’s, with its 3.5m drinks-with-straws a day – and they’ll really be onto something.

Photo by emmlpop from the Londonist Flickr pool

Zinger Of The Week: Finger In The Pie’s Fifth Anniversary Show @ Madame Jojo’s, Sunday

Celebrating their fifth anniversary this week is London variety showcase specialists Finger In The Pie. Their hotter-than-hell lineup at Madame Jojo’s features burlesque clown Audacity Chutzpah, neo-cabaret duo Bourgeois and Maurice, more burlesquing from Shirley Windmill, physical comedy courtesy of Dr Brown and Frank Wurzinger, northern star Myra Dubois and ace comperes Moonfish Rhumba. Not enough? Get there early to chow down on Blanche & Shock’s experimental food selection. £15 (£50 for two inc. meal)

Wednesday’s Zingers

Its happy birthday and many happy returns as up-and-coming comedy-and-cabaret night Heart & Lung Unit celebrate their first anniversary tonight. Help blow out the candle at Dean Street’s LVPO in the company of (amongst others) Chris Dangerfield, David Cronenberg’s Wife and “uber-quirky-electronic-multi-instrumental-pop-storytelling-on-the-run-for-murder” Bernadette Bentley. £3

Bouffant bon vivant showgirl Miss Hope Springs continues her tales of woe in her new show Miss Hope Springs…Sings Her Songs at the Leicester Square Theatre. Following on from 2011′s Je M’appelle Hope, Springs’ alter ego Ty Jeffries – son of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’s Lionel Jeffries, don’t you know - has had dinner with Frank Sinatra, danced down Sunset Boulevard with Fred Astaire and even spoke to us last year. Yowsers. Show continues until 10 February. £10/£8 concessions.

Self-proclaimed “musical genius”  and world-record holding pianist-turned-rapper-turned-pianist-turned-rapper Chilly Gonzales is back in town and at the Soho Theatre. His brother wrote the music for the Buffy The Vampire TV series. Fact. Show continues 2, 3 and 4 Feb. £15.£17.50

Thursday’s Zingers

Hop aboard the the Battersea Barge for this month’s Cheese ‘N’ Crackers talent night. Unleash your inner Simon Cowell as you try to spot The Next Big Thing amongst ten variety acts all competing for Paul L Martin’s coveted Cheese & Cracker platter. Expect music, magic, burlesque, cabaret, clowns, stand-up and possibly something to wash your dinner plates in. £7

Watching bongo flicks in public and hearing from those in the sex industry has never been so much fun or edifying thanks to vintage pornmonger Ophelia Bitz and her ArtWank! shows. She wowed the Old Vic Tunnels last year and is only going from strength to strength. Catch her at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern on Thursday. £8

Following hot on the heels of the relaunch of La Reve, the mighty black beast of Soho that is Madame Jojo’s Bete Noire tries a new format with a two-part show dubbed ‘La Belle et la Bête’. With stars like the clown-queen of burlesque Audacity Chutzpah and the croonmeister Frank Sanazi in each half, it doesn’t matter whether you go early or go late: just go. £10 for one show; £15 for both.

Friday’s Zingers

This is cabaret for all the family, as long as that family are the Mansons: famed drag-queen supergroup The LipSinkers will be “singing” more twisted songs than can be found in a pile of melted vinyl at the soon-to-be-no-more Bistrotheque’s cabaret room (pass the hankies). £12/£10 diners

Charity begins at home. Actually, that’s not strictly true tonight as you will need to get yourself down to the Bethnal Green’s Working Men’s Club for their Charity Night Variety Extravaganza in aid of Cancer Research with comedy, kung-fu and and some retro tunes. £10

Saturday’s Zingers

Like a rabbit from a hat, a fun fundraiser for the Circle for the Magic Arts appears this afternoon. Host Steve Allen of LBC fame will be close-up and personal as he unleashes ten different magicians on the audience. £34.00

How can you not love a group called The Swingle Singers? The acapella group has been around since 1963, changing lineups as they went, and tonight you find them at posh pizza joint The Pheasantry. £25 not including pizza, pasta, doughballs or dessert.

Black Elvis will be entering this Saturday at the homo-exotic Duckie at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. If you can make it past door-whores The Clothes, you can see him swing his hips alongside Amy Lamé, Roy Kerr and regular DJs The Readers Wifes. £6

Sunday’s Zinger

See Zinger Of The Week.

Monday’s Zingers

Two recession-friendly options tonight: Rotherham’s finest export Myra Dubois will be at the Cellardoor where you can see her for a very round price or you can watch Timberlina publicly fondle his smooth balls at the RVT’s weekly bingo for £1 a round.

Tuesday’s Zinger

If it’s a night of all-out tassel-twirling fun you’re after, head east for The Brickhouse and Seattle’s Sinner Saint Burlesque - aka Evilyn Sin Claire, Polly Wood, Jesse Belle-Jones and Lady Tatas – show you a thing or two.  Our review is over here. Show continues until 25 February. £10 show only/£40-£45 for food plus show.

This week’s video has those scallies Moonfish Rhumba asking a straightforward question: why can’t we all be lesbians? You can see them compering on Sunday at Madame Jojo’s.

• A man has been shot dead near Turnpike Lane station
• Sixteen parties are bidding for the Olympic Stadium, including West Ham
• The second longest serving Tower Beefeater has retired
• Does BBC London love the Jubilee Line?
• A Ladbroke Grove water tower has been turned into a home
• Is the Doc Marten the most Londony shoe?

Photo: Blue Cheese (Soho) by Julian Reid via the Londonist Flickrpool

By Dmitri Stepanenko

Sense the City finalist and Londonist Flickrpool favourite, Noirchick is leading beginners’ workshops every other weekend under the auspices of We Shoot People.

Find out the best camera settings for street photography and get invaluable tips and hints for boosting your confidence ‘shooting people’ in public without fear. Themed challenges will help train new photographer eyes to notice the quirky detail that makes street photography so ace.

At the end of the session the group will gather at the pub to replenish creative energy with drinks and food and take some time to review the workshop photos and chat.

For £20 attendees get 2.5 hours tuition with two experienced street photographers (that’s Noirchick AKA Linda Wisdom and Dmitry Stepanenko) in friendly groups of no more than 10 people, exploring vibrant areas with plenty of scope for smashing photo opps.

There are two workshops this weekend: Saturday, 4 February is London Bridge to Borough Market and on Sunday 5 February, try your skills on Brick Lane. You can also submit your views on useful things to cover in these workshops via their Meetup poll.

Inspired by Brian Keenan’s An Evil Cradling, this dark production, designed with ominous urban spaces in mind, shows how the human spirit can somehow claw its way through, in spite of the worst circumstances.

Voice, strings and percussion will swell the repressive atmosphere, and the fusion of movement, sound and light conjure a volatile range of emotions, as people become less valued than slabs of meat.

Andrew Wheatley of Cabinet Gallery describes how the production “provoked movement of the crowd” and creates the feeling of “almost combative physical threat.”This promises to be an intense experience, where you will find yourself transported to the dank, cold terrain of Lebanon’s hostage chambers in the Old Vic Tunnels under Waterloo Station.

Without Warning is on now until 11 February at Old Vic Tunnels. Monday-Friday 6.30pm, Saturdays at 1pm and 6pm, Sundays at 2pm. Tickets cost £15.

Left at the wayside for much of the 2000s while producers stripped techno to its bare essentials or tested the durability of their subwoofers, this decade has seen the re-emergence of house music from clubland’s dark corners. Producers are taking solace in the form’s purity, from UK upstarts like Julio Bashmore and Pearson Sound shackling UK Bass signifiers to 4×4 rhythms, to Berlin’s Motor City Drum Ensemble and Dublin’s Space Dimension Controller reveling in forging deep, cosmic atmospheres.

But for all these new directions, house music is often at its best when left in its classic form – stabbed piano chords, high-hat splashes and diva invocations. It’s a view espoused by Azari and III, the team-up of Canadian musicians Dinamo Azari and Alixander III who come to London this week to launch their self-titled album. The band jet in from Toronto, fast becoming a dance music hub with acts like The Art Department and Basic Soul Unit finding sanctuary from the eternal blizzards in House’s warm atmospheres. This album launch seems somewhat delayed, their self-titled record being readily available on import for the last six months. Whatever, you don’t need an excuse for a party.

Their twin anthems Hungry for The Power and Reckless With Your Love were everywhere in 2010, mixing timeless elements into vital dancefloor destroyers. If you enjoyed Hercules and Love Affair but found their take on house somewhat sterile, a little safe, Azari and III’s album is a lot more muscular — the  band dubbed it “the soundtrack to dancing like your life depends on it.” Take album cut Undecided, whose frenzied synths and sleazy nocturnal vibes invoke a monstrous splicing of Lords of Acid with  Soft Cell’s Sex Dwarf. On a car journey over Christmas my own mother turned this track off claiming she’d probably have to be on drugs to enjoy it – always the hallmark of an absolute banger.

The pair don’t adhere to the two guys behind a mixer formula either, employing the fabulously named singers Fritz and Cedric to add to the party atmosphere. The two vocalists look like they’ve stumbled off the set of Madonna’s Vogue video — little surprise that the band are rumored to be supporting Madge on her 2012 tour. This being their only London date, Thursday’s show at Heaven marks a great opportunity to catch these guys in the intimate setting their sound demands. The UK economy shouldn’t be the only thing getting down this week.

Azari & III play Heaven on Thur 2 February. Tickets are available here.

Image from radio1interactive Flickr account under a Creative Commons Licence

The Bee was originally staged at the Soho Theatre in 2006 before returning to Japan and winning all the major theatre awards there. It is now back in London again in between stints in New York and Hong Kong and its easy to see why the Japanese audiences took this play to their hearts. Hideki Noda and Colin Teevan’s play may be based on Yasutaka Tsutui’s short story Mushiriai  (Plucking At Each Other) but the plot feels like the unholy love child of Quentin Tarantino and Michael Winner.

There’s much to commend The Bee, especially to people who don’t normally go to see plays. There are some beautifully theatrical touches like the way three actors  and the few props are constantly being re-purposed into new characters and objects; Mr Noda plays the hostagetaker’s wife while Kathryn Williams as never-less-than-enthralling Edo, a man driven to ever more desperate measures.

Fans of flicks from the Land of the Rising Sun like Audition or Battle Royale will recognise how the initially commonplace setup becomes a steep descent into the more barbaric aspects of human nature. We think, though, that the writers looked West for inspiration: while the first half is a triumph of slapstick comedy and media satire, the latter half, with its themes of bloody vengeance and vigilantism, comes across as a Michael Winner wet dream – surely it can be no coincidence that The Bee is set in 1974, the year that Deathwish was released? – with a Tarantinoesque attitude to brutal logic. Compared to this, Titus Andronicus is a sunny day at the seaside.

The Bee continues at the Soho Theatre until 11 February. More information can be garnered here.

The world’s biggest celebration of Russian culture outside of Russia itself will take place this month in London from the 19th to 26th. A second year in a row for the London Maslenitsa Festival, the event will bring venues across the city to life with a week of performances, food, exhibitions and more.

The Maslenitsa celebration is a centuries-old tradition to bid do svidaniya to winter, and marks the last feast before Lent in the Russian Orthodox calendar. Think of it like Shrove Tuesday, just bigger, longer and obviously Russian. As with Shrove Tuesday, the traditional Maslenitsa meal is the pancake (blinis), but served with a Russian twist. Instead of the usual lemon and sugar, Maslenitsa pancakes, or blinis, are traditionally served with caviar and vodka.

Highlights of the London Maslenitsa Festival include a fashion show from leading and up-and-coming Russian designers at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a children’s production performed by the renowned Moscow State Gogol Theatre at Shaftesbury Theatre, and masterclasses with celebrity Russian chefs exploring authentic Russian cuisine.

The climax of the festival will be on the Sunday the 26th, the actual date of Maslenitsa, from 1pm to 7pm when Trafalgar Square will be transformed into a bustling bazaar offering traditional Russian foods, handicrafts and souvenirs and original art. At the same time performances from some of Russia’s most acclaimed dance, theatre, folk, pop and jazz artists will entertain the audience from the festival’s main stage.

A list of Trafalgar Square performances will include traditional acts such as Folk State Academic Pyatnizky Choir and Siberian folk music and dance ensemble Ülger – one of Russian’s most famous groups and experts in the art of throat singing. More contemporary acts will include Russian pop-group Balagan Limited, pop-star Valery Syutkin, legendary rock band Chaif and prize-winning vocal ensemble A’Capella ExpreSSS.

The London Maslenitsa Festival will take place at the same time as Maslenitsa festivals across Russia including official state celebrations in Moscow’s Red Square. During festivities on the 26th, attendees at Trafalgar Square will able to exchange traditional Russian Maslenitsa greetings with Muscovites at Red Square via giant video screens that will connect both festivals taking place a thousand miles apart.

All events are listed along with more details at www.maslenitsa.co.uk.

Photo by Xube

Anyone dreading traffic chaos during the Olympics can breathe a (very slight) sigh of relief with the news that the dedicated VIP lanes could be opened up to the public after all.

City Hall announced that the controversial routes, which will allow the ‘Games Family’ – officials, sponsors, VIPs and media – fast movement between key venues during the games, will be made available to private users when Olympic traffic is scarce. A meeting between TfL and Games organisers came to the agreement that mobile traffic signs will alert regular road-users of changes if the dedicated lanes are expected to free up.

This announcement from the Mayor’s camp comes after a pile up of transport concerns in anticipation of the Olympics, which has resulted in Boris slumping behind Ken in the mayoral election race. Boris may be worrying that he will be booted out of the VIP lanes too, if he cannot provide some relief from the ‘car-mageddon’ expected if Tube strikes materialize and the Olympic Route Network remains out of the public’s reach.

One piece of good transport news might be just the ticket to launch him back into the lead – but this is not it. An official from the Olympic organising committee, LOCOG, admitted the traffic relief will be limited, with most lanes “highly unlikely” to be opened up during the games. Routes will remain very busy throughout with ‘official’ traffic which, organisers revealed, will include the chairman of McDonalds as well as Seb Coe and Usain Bolt.

If Boris fails to iron out the transport problems by 3 May, he might find himself stuck in the congested pleb-lanes with the rest of us. Londoners will have to pray that Boris’ stock drops even lower, forcing the white-haired warrior to bring out the emergency measures. Regent Street monorail anyone?

By Matt Ponsford

Book, poetry and spoken word events in London this week

Wednesday: Alex Walker performs extracts from Louis Aragon’s A Wave of Dreams, at Housmans (7pm, £3).

Lunchtime Doodles by Dan Lucas launches at The Book Club (7pm, free) with DJs and paper for your own doodles.

Kate Grenville talks about Sarah Thornhill, her sequel to The Secret River, at the Southbank Centre (7.45pm, £8).

Over in the Poetry Library there’s a book launch for St Brigid’s Day with Carcanet poets Moya Cannon, Sasha Dugdale and Olivia McCannon, introduced by David Constantine (8pm, free).

Thursday: Gemma Seltzer is at Dulwich Books talking about speaking to strangers in London, with poetry from Tom Chivers (7pm, free).

Granta 118 launches at Foyles (6.30pm, free but email to reserve a place). This issue takes the theme of exit strategies and has work from Aleksandar Hemon, Claire Messud, John Barth and Susan Minot.

While away your lunch hour today and tomorrow with storytelling from Nell Phoenix at Selfridges (11am-1pm, free).

Author of Born Liars, Ian Leslie, hosts a discussion on lying, appropriately, at the School of Life (7pm, £20.50).

Poet Salena Godden, English PEN director Lisa Appignanesi and screenwriter John Foster are getting some dark romance at Salon XIV (8pm, £10).

Newsnight economics editor Paul Mason heads to the Southbank Centre to explain why it’s kicking off everywhere (7pm, £10).

Storyteller Vanessa Woolf and folk singer Nigel of Bermondsey look over the Cuming Museum‘s Edward Lovett collection (6pm, free).

George Craig and Dan Gunn talk about Samuel Beckett’s letters at the London Review Bookshop (7pm, £7).

Nathan Penlington and Christian Watson join Bang Said the Gun for some stand up poetry (8pm, £5).

Friday: Alixe Bovey takes a look at the illustrations on medieval manuscripts at the British Library (6.30pm, £7.50 / £5).

An exhibition of Syrian poet Adonis’s work launches at the Mosaic Rooms with the poet himself and Khaled Mattawa (7pm, £8 / £5).

Kat Francois hosts a night of Intimates poetry SLAM at the Poetry Cafe (8pm, £5 / £3).

Leah Fritz, Hannah Lowe, Marie-Elizabeth Mali and Lorraine Mariner all perform at the Camden Poetry Series, in aid of Cold Weather Shelter for the Homeless (6.30pm, £5 / £4).

Saturday: It’s National Libraries Day! Find an event near you.

Rachel Rose Reid takes the storytelling reins at Selfridges (11am-2pm, free).

Sophia Blackwell, North Morgan and Bobby Nayyar talk about writing and austerity at the Whitechapel Ideas Store (3pm).

Competition winners from Poetry Space read at the Poetry Cafe from 7pm (free).

Sunday: There’s a full day of events for small people from Jewish Book Week: Andy Stanton, creator of the Mr Gum series, is doing crazy things from 10am (£5), catch a film of Where the Wild Things Are animations and from other Maurice Sendak stories (11.30am, £4), join the Golem box workshop (11.30am, £5) or see what James Mayhew keeps in his magic suitcase (12pm, free), play with Jewish poetry (12.45pm, £5), quiz the children’s literature expert Daniel Hahn in the Book Clinic (1pm, free), hear Vanessa Woolf tell the tale of the Golem of Wapping (2pm, £5), and Francesca Beard rounds things off with some rip roaring poetry (3.30pm, £5).

Nell Phoenix is back on storytelling duty at Selfridges (12-2pm, free).

Jumoke Fashola presents Life Stories at Pizza Express Dean Street, with jazz and special guest guest HKB Finn (8pm, £15).

Monday: Poet Sean O’Brien gives the Sebald Lecture at Kings Place, following readings from the annual translation prizes (7pm, £9.50).

Paul Koudounaris is talking death across cultures at Waterstones Trafalgar Square (7pm, £3).

Polari is graced by the talents of Tiffany Murray, Faarea Masud, Catherine Hall, Jack Scott, Vicky Ryder and Max Wallis at the Southbank Centre (7.45pm, £5).

Foyles and the Museum of London join forces to mark the MoL’s Dickens exhibition with a Bleak House book club (6.30pm, free).

Alwyn Marriage, Michael Swan, Ann Kelley, Robert Stein, Ann Segrave, Christopher North, Joan McGavin and Graham High all read at Coffee House Poetry (8pm, £7 / £6).

Helen Oswald and Melinda Walker do a bit More Poetry at The Coffee Shop near Liverpool Street (7.45pm, £1).

Exiled Writers Ink host work about being persecuted for religious belief from Adnan al-Sayegh, Pete Godismo and Yvonne Green, at the Poetry Cafe (7.30pm, £4 / £2).

Tuesday: Laurie Penny is at Housmans discussing the issues raised in her recent books (think feminism, protest, youth politics) from 7pm (£3).

Poet in the City host their regular drop-in at Waterstones Piccadilly (please book).

Head down to the Poetry Cafe to test out your own words at their open mic night Poetry Unplugged, hosted by Niall O’Sullivan (7.30pm, £5 / £4).

Follow @LondonistLit for our pick of that day’s literary events

Members of the group, from Stoke, Cardiff and London, conspired to send five nail bombs to targets across London. A supposed hit list, found at the Isle of Dogs home of Chowdhury, contained the addresses of Boris Johnson and two rabbis, as well as the American Embassy and the Stock Exchange.

Security services arrested the men after close surveillance. The men are not thought to have acquired any explosives or other harmful materials. They will be sentenced next week. The Telegraph seems to have more details than most reports.

Photo of the inside of the London Stock Exchange by Tanya Nagar in the Londonist Flickr pool.

The New England Patriots will be taking on the New York Giants on Sunday

Has there ever been a sport that looks after armchair fans as well as American football? Big fellas slamming in to one another, speed, skill, cheerleaders, all American showmanship, pop stars performing at half time, wardrobe malfunctions and watered down, tasteless beer (ok, perhaps not the last one then).

Super Bowl XLVI (46) is almost upon us and an estimated global audience of over 90 million people will be tuning in on Sunday night to watch the New York Giants battling the New England Patriots for the right to lift the Vince Lombardi trophy and be crowned champions.

With the game being played in Indianapolis and tickets selling for eye watering amounts, it’s probably a fair assumption that you won’t be jetting over the Atlantic to be in the crowd. So if you fancy heading out on Sunday night until the wee small hours to watch the best sporting action America has to offer, here’s a round-up of some of the best Super Bowl events happening around London. Hut hut, 29, 48, hut!”

IndigO2 (The O2)
The official Super Bowl party for NFLUK, Super Bash has been going for years and is immensely popular — which is probably the reason it’s sold out. But if you’re lucky enough to already have a ticket, then you’re in for a good time, with cheerleaders, classic American food and punters in fancy dress.

What to look out for: Cheerleaders, ‘American fare’, four free Budweiser drink vouchers, (Pepsi and Gatorade for those driving/needing to get up to do a day’s graft on Monday).

Costs: Sold out. More info here.

Clapham Grand (Clapham Junction)
Do you get sick of standing at the back of a crowded bar squinting at a tiny screen? Not so here, where you’ll be able to gawp/scream obcenities at the 24 foot screen as well as the many plasmas adorning the walls. This night-club venue (and now home to the infamous ‘The Church‘) should pull in a big crowd so if its a party atmospere you want, this may well be the place for you.

What to look out for: Larger-than-life-size players on the massive screen, American beers, hotdogs and cheerleaders (not neccesarily in that order).

Costs: Standard admission £10 with the first 100 through the door enjoying a free beer. VIP £20 for a table (minimum of 8 people) which includes a hotdog and beer upon arrival. More info here.

Famous Three Kings (also known as ‘F3K’)
This sports-mad boozer, located next to West Kensington tube, is one of London’s stalwarts when it comes to televised sports. It is, therefore, no surprise that it will stay open into the early hours of Monday morning to screen America’s premium sporting event. Tickets can be bought in advance, which secures you a seat and a free beer, or bought on the door (which does not secure you either of the aforementioned seats or free beers).

What to look out for: Swathes of fellow sports fans cheering on the Giants/Patriots (delete as appropriate), beer, staff and punters who are into their sport.

Costs: £10 in advance with guarenteed seat and free beer, £5 on the door. More info here.

Bar Kick (Shoreditch)
A venue that is probably better known for its foosball tables, Bar Kick has shown the Superbowl a few years in a row, and again hosts another party for 2012.

What to look out for: Super Bowl without the tackiness, table football at the end of each quarter and a slightly more discerning crowd.

Costs: FREE! More info here.

The Social (W1)
If you fancy watching the Super Bowl AND raising money for a worthwhile charity, then you could do worse than to head to The Social off Great Portland Street for their party, in aid of the charity Shelter. As the venue usually hosts gigs, expect the audio to be deafening!

What to look out for: DJs before kick-off and the half-time show by Madonna being pumped vigorisly through The Social’s ample sound system (metophorically).

Costs: £6. More info here.

Sports Cafe (Picidilly)
If you were to ask 100 random people to name a bar showing the Super Bowl, the words ‘Sports’ and ‘Cafe’ would crop up pretty often. With so many screens that you literally can’t help but see the game, there’s no chance that an idiot wearing a jester hat will be stuck between you and the goggle box.

What to look out for: TVs, lots of them. Random sporting memoribilia on the walls.

Costs: From £15. More info here.

Roadtrip (Shoreditch)
This rock and roll bar situated in the heart of Old Street is not only showing the game, but is also serving up its usual range of American cuisine to satiate you in to the early hours of Monday morning.

What to look out for: …or should we say what to listen out for? The venue has surround sound so you can hear those tackles come crunching in from all over the pitch.

Costs: FREE! More info here.

Featured image by Only Lines from the Londonist flickr pool.

See also: How to get tickets for October’s NFL game at Wembley.

Head to the Grant Museum of Zoology at UCL from today, and you can see an exhibition of art by animals.

Firmly planted in the “London really does have it all” category, this new show is displaying art by elephants and apes from around the world. One highlight is a painting of a flowerpot by the elephant Boon Me, who we’re told used to be a logging elephant in Thailand. (Presumably before he got his calling to don a beret and spend hours with his head on one side, brush in trunk, staring at blank canvases.)

Other pieces have been created by orang-utans, gorillas and chimps. Their handiwork is on show alongside animal specimens and historical documentation. The exhibition raises the question of whether animals can make art, and why some animal creations are considered valuable, while others are dismissed as meaningless.

Jack Ashby, Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology, says, “Whether this is actually art is the big question. While individual elephants are trained to always paint the same thing, art produced by apes is a lot more creative and is almost undistinguishable from abstract art by humans that use similar techniques.”

Co-curator Will Tuck says, “Although it is fairly clear that any notion of art by animals is essentially anthropomorphic it starts to raise very interesting questions about the nature of human art.”

Indeed, interest in animal art occurred at the same time as the Abstract Expressionist movement in human art in the 1950s.

Which makes us wonder if the Grant Museum hasn’t missed a trick: why not display the animal art alongside some priceless abstract human art, and get visitors to guess at the particular “animal” talent behind each.

Art by Animals is part of the excellent Humanimals Season at the UCL Grant Museum of Zoology, Rockefeller Building, University College London, University Street, London, WC1 and runs until 9 March: Monday to Fridays between 1 and 5pm. There’s a special Saturday opening 11am to 4pm on 10 March. Admission is free. Visit www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/whats-on/grant_listings for more information.

At first glance, Seoul Bakery might not stand out from the other similarly downtrodden Korean eateries lined up in the shadow of Centre Point “behind” Tottenham Court Road Station. Maybe a little, for its more more colourful signage and window displays, but that’s about it. Once inside, however, the bakery’s cosy vibe, simple menu and tasty dishes should win you over to the realisation that this sweet little place is a bit of a one-off wonder.

And if you happen to discover that you’re as much of a fan as many of Seoul Bakery’s customers, find some empty wall or table space…or more likely somewhere to stick a post-it note…to scrawl out a happy message like so many of the regulars have already done. Cutesy scribblings and doodles adorn much of the surface space here – adding to the K-pop piped-through atmosphere and the super friendly smiles of the staff while complementing Seoul Bakery’s otherwise minimalist trappings.

So what winning-over menu items persuade Londoners to deface Seoul Bakery’s walls and furniture? A fresh and healthy order of bibimbab is worthy of repeat visits and making a graffito note of. Options include vegetable, beef, tuna, chicken and tuna kimchi and range in price from £3.50 to £5. For a particularly filling meal add £1.49 to the price and get the “bibimbab set” which includes a cup of miso soup and kimchi or barley tea. Zanchi gooksoo, “Korean festival thin noodles with vegetables” for £4.99 is another ample and homey choice, particularly when it’s dreary out. Add beef, tunam kimchi or chicken to your gooksoo for just a quid more. Another noteworthy mentionable is the moreish and fiery kimchi fried rice, which costs about a fiver.

Thirsty? The “best seller” iced green tea latte (£2.50 out/£2.65 in) is a yummy chilled out slupper. Warm honey plum tea soothes for about £1.50. And, yes, as the name implies, there are baked goods available. Cheap and pretty good, green tea cakes or choco-pies are a nice way to round out a lunch if you still have some room.

A bit of a hidden gem and a brilliant spot for spur-of-the-moment budget bites of impressive size, Seoul Bakery is located at 55 St Giles High Street, WC2H 8LH. There doesn’t seem to be any official web presence for Seoul Bakery, but all the review sites and blog posts are vastly positive. Reach Seoul Bakery by phone at 07763 278681.

Photo/Chris Osburn