At their previous, east London venue, Bohemia Place. Image by Black-Owned Hackney. You know it's nearly summer (no matter what the weather outside says) when Black Eats Ldn launch their 2024 season. Over the last couple of years the Black Eats Ldn spring-summer dates announcement has become one of the annual milestones that let you start to feel like, okay, long days and warm nights might be on the horizon now. And this year the announcement's a bigger one than usual, because it comes with a venue change. No longer in Hackney, the season's launching with a huge weekender south of the river ..read more

Transport author Andrew Martin writes about his experiences as a teen northerner in the 1970s riding the London Underground. You can read much more of this sort of thing on Andrew's Substack, Reading on Trains, all about trains and travel from a cultural and social-history point of view. "The guards were heavy booted, anti-social-looking men, usually pale — from spending too long underground, I supposed." Image: Mike Goldwater from this article I was a privileged youth, in the literal and limited sense that, as the son of a man quite high up in British Rail, I possessed a 'privilege pass' f ..read more

The excitement is Mountie-ing Trafalgar Square will be awash with poutine, Mounties and maple leaves for one Sunday this summer. London's annual Canada Day celebrations take place on Sunday 30 June 2024, marking the national day of Canada. Over 80,000 Canadians live in the UK — a fair tranche of them calling London home. 30,000 folks turned out to 2023's celebrations, although of course, you needn't be a Canuck to join in with the hijinks. 30,000 people attended in 2023. From 12pm-8pm everyone's invited to get involved in free fun and activities, including: A music stage featuring perfor ..read more

Chislehurst Caves are open to the public. "If you look far back into this one, you'll see something glittering on the walls." The tour guide waves his industrial torch in the vague direction of infinite darkness. "It's not gold, it's left over from when the BBC filmed Doctor Who here." For anyone playing pop culture bingo, that's the second tick that Chislehurst Caves offers — the first being a reference to the two occasions Jimi Hendrix played in these chalk caverns, 30ft below the streets and homes of Chislehurst. A rickety old bar remains, but no bottles — just chalk dust and cobwebs. It ..read more

Psst! Join Londonist for a party in a brewery this June — to celebrate our 20th! Londonist turns 20 years old in 2024. Here, we down tools for a couple of moments, pour ourselves a flute of Bolly mug of prosecco, and look back on our 20 most popular articles of all time. How many of these did you read? Click the headline or image for each one to read the full article. 20. London's Parakeets: Everything You Need To Know Image: Matt Brown/Londonist Pigeons be damned. There is no bird in London that can spark as much excitement (or indeed consternation) as the cheeky green parakeet. But what a ..read more

Check before you travel in early May. Photo: Londonist Train drivers belonging to the Aslef union will take part in three one-day strikes in early May. Different train operating companies will be affected on different days, as follows: Tuesday 7 May: c2c, Greater Anglia, GTR Great Northern Thameslink, Southeastern, Southern/Gatwick Express, South Western Railway main line and depot drivers, and SWR Island Line; Wednesday 8 May: Avanti West Coast, Chiltern Railways; CrossCountry; East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway; and West Midlands Trains; Thursday 9 May: LNER, Northern Trains, a ..read more

All weekend The Classic Car Boot Sale parks up in King's Cross QUEER EAST: Queer East Festival continues until the end of this weekend, celebrating all manner of LGBTQ+ visual arts and performances from East and Southeast Asia and its diaspora communities. Screenings, workshops and performances take place at various venues around London, including Welcome to Neverland, a series of short films about the boundary between fantasy and reality. Until 28 April TIME IS RUNNING OUT: ...to see current exhibition Time Is Running Out by the Institution of Civil Engineers, on display at London Transport ..read more

For more of all things London history, sign up for our new (free) newsletter and community: Londonist: Time Machine. Some of the first members of the public to use Tower Bridge are shown in the exhibition Previously unseen photos of Tower Bridge from its opening week in 1894 will go on show this summer. The new open-air exhibition — marking the landmark's 130th birthday — features photos kept by one of its original engineers, Edward Cruttell. They were discovered recently by Cruttell's descendants, and show the final few weeks of the bridge's construction, including the workers responsible ..read more

For more of all things London history, sign up for our new (free) newsletter and community: Londonist: Time Machine. Every Londoner does this at least once... Do you remember the first time? Your first ride on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR)? For many, it's a magical experience, whizzing along on elevated lines through the East End and former docklands, marvelling at the lack of driver — perhaps even pretending to be the driver.   But where did it all come from? How has it developed over the years? What were the names of the first two dogs to ride the DLR? And how on earth was t ..read more

If you like maps and history, then you'll love Londonist: Time Machine, our weekly newsletter about the city's past. The tourist attraction was bombed in July 1974. Image: Neil Howard via creative commons 50 years ago, the Tower of London was rocked by a deadly bomb. At 2.30pm on 17 July 1974, the Tower's Mortar Room — a basement in the White Tower crammed with displays of historical weaponry — was ripped through by a modern explosive. With chilling irony, the bomb had been hidden under a cannon. The room was full of tourists from England, America and across Europe, and 41 were injured — 10 ..read more