Things to do for a fiver or less this week.

Monday 7 January: Watch Fowlers Molly dancing on their usual Plough Monday tour in the Greenwich area, starting around 8pm at the Ashburnham Arms then on to the Morden Arms to dance around 8.45pm and finishing at the Richard I dancing around 9.30pm.

Tuesday 8 January: Resolved to be greener this year? Visit the Permaculture Picturehouse for films, talks and discussion at Passing Clouds, behind the Haggerston Pub. Entry £3/£2 concs. plus there’s seasonal organic food available at £5 a plate. Doors 6.45pm.

Wednesday 9 January: Long Poem Magazine showcases its work and opens up a Q&A with its editors in the foyer spaces of the Southbank Centre. Free but email to book your place. Starts 8pm.

Thursday 10 January: Find out how South London Folklore Society started with a talk from someone who was there, then watch a film about Austin Osman Spare at the first SELFS meeting of the year, upstairs at the Old Kings Head, off Borough High Street. All welcome, entry £2.50/£1.50 concs. talk starts 8pm.

Friday 11 January: Pop down to Elephant and Castle shopping centre to see Culture Shop: January Sale, an exhibition and live art event by young people in an empty unit. Free, between 6.30-8.30pm.

Saturday 12 January: The London Ice Sculpting Festival begins on Friday and runs all weekend in Canary Wharf. Watch in awe as artists brandish chainsaws and create art out of ice before your eyes then frolic in the snow pit for free.

Sunday 13 January: Planning to laugh more this year? Try Free and Funny new act night at Camden Head, Islington from 8pm.

Consult our London for free page for more ideas.

Another idea: find and sit on the Spitalfields rabbits. In fact, poke about and see just how many pieces of public art you can find and sit on in the area. Many thanks for the idea, inspired by the photo by Not Quite Me found in the Londonist Flickrpool.

photo by @paulinlondon

If you’re also in the camp that thinks George Bernard Shaw was endlessly verbose, you’re in for a treat at Wilmington Theatre’s neatly boxed production of three short, sharp and funny playlets at the Old Red Lion.

It’s as though the old boy gave up worthy polemical drama and started to write for ‘Smack the Pony’ as these extended sketches tackle marital fidelity, uppity women, wife swapping and the contrasting moralities of London and ‘the country’ from a perspective you simply wouldn’t expect of a dramatist born in the 1850’s.

In ‘Village Wooing’ a shop assistant wins a competition and takes a world cruise on which she meets a travel writer – but he’s so focused on his own writing that he’s not observant enough to experience anything ‘in the moment’.  Shaw could as easily be spoofing the Facebook and Twitter era where tourists frame the world through the postings they put online …

In ‘Overruled’ itself, two adulterous couples bicker with each other and eventually agree how to swap partners: it’s rammed with epigrammatic banter and you’ll wonder whether Noel Coward read it before writing Private Lives, the speech rhythms are so similar.

Polina Kalinina’s directing is pacy and admirably well-focused, the company of six actors are universally fine: Lucy Hough especially so as the shop assistant and architect of her own future in ‘Village Wooing’ and Leo Wyndham delivering two excellently differentiated variations on foot-shuffling awkwardness as callow young romantics.

Emma Bailey‘s set is elegant and clean, washing the backgrounds in cool blue-grey and cream, with very good furniture and props, and the ladies’ costumes are beautiful – perhaps a touch too revealing for an Edwardian cruise ship although gents in the audience didn’t seem to mind and with the temperature in the auditorium most of us would gladly have stripped down to our pants.

Overruled continues at the Old Red Lion Theatre Islington until 19 January, Tuesday to Saturday at 7.30pm, Saturdays and Sundays at 3.00pm.  Tickets £10-15 and ‘pay what you can’ on Tuesdays.  Box office on 0844 412 4307 or tickets online through the Angeltix website with £1.50 fee.   Even in January, the theatre gets quite warm so dress accordingly.

Scots and Sassenachs alike can toast Scotland’s favourite son in London this month.

Dancing

The Ceilidh Club run a series of Burns Night ceilidhs on 18, 19, 25, 26 January and 2 February at Hammersmith Town Hall. Book early and arrive early – they’re hugely popular and if you don’t arrive betimes you’ll be queuing in the cloakroom for ages and miss all the dancing. There’s a slap-up paper plate style supper to be had but this one is really all about three hours of dancing (and sweating). Tickets £27.50 (£15 concessions) in advance.

London-based, Scottish band The Timorous Beasties throw a free Burns Night Ceilidh with bagpipes and caller and cheap drink offers at the Institute of Education on Friday 25 January from 8pm.

While not a formal ceilidh you can be sure of some spirited dancing of sorts where Celtic Folk meets Drum n Bass in the shape of the Monster Ceilidh Band and friends at Hootananny Brixton on Friday 25 January from 9pm to 3am. Free before 9pm, £3 after.

Reach for the Bunting! is an alternative ceilidh, led by the Ceilidh Liberation Front and Nest Collective (folk hero Sam Lee’s lot). Their Burns Night Extravaganza on Saturday 26 January at St Mark’s Church Hall, Dalston, promises a celebration of all things Scottish, party tunes and dances of wild abandon from 8pm (with a break for scran and whisky). Tickets are £8+bf advance and £10 on the door (but we doubt there’ll be any left). You might even like to go to the formal sit-down supper beforehand.

Formal dinner & dancing

Join the Burns Club of London to attend their Birthday Festival Dinner on Saturday 19 January at the Caledonian Club. Then on Friday 25 January, pay your respects to The Bard with the Club as they lay a wreath at the Burns statue in Victoria Embankment Gardens at 12.30pm.

Do you know someone who can get you into Middle Temple’s annual Burns Night celebration on Saturday 26 January? It’s sure to be a sumptuous spectacle as those barristers whirl around the historic hall.

If you can get membership of the networking Button Club, you could attend their 10th Annual Spectacular Burns’ Night Extravaganza at Royal Overseas House, St James’s on Friday 25 January. It’s a swanky and romantic affair with a 50/50 mix of lads and lassies so none’s without a dance partner. It’s £100 including five course dinner with wines and whiskies.

Burns Night at Butchers Hall in Smithfield is another five course meal with a chance to learn about the livery company and the Scottish meats on offer. Tickets cost £80+ VAT per person and a minimum of 10 people must apply in order to fill tables.

Dining & drinking

Join the Friends of Tate South Lambeth Library to get into the free annual Pre-Burns Night Party for Friends – and friends of Friends – which offers a Burns Supper plus poetry and singing and takes place on Wednesday 23 January at 7pm.

Scotland’s “unofficial embassy in London”, Boisdale is offering pipers, speakers and fine Scottish food with a wee dram of Drambuie every night between 21-25 January in its Belgravia, Bishopsgate and Canary Wharf restaurants. Check the website for menus.

The Loch Fyne restaurants in Covent Garden and Leadenhall offer a three course Burns menu, including a dram or a glass of wine for £23.95 a head (haggis, neeps and tatties as a starter – steady on!)

The St Pancras Grand just received an award from the Scottish Whisky Society so they’re throwing a “gala Burns night” do on Friday 25 January, promising haggis, whisky and a Highland fling for £48.

Vinopolis are doing a whisky masterclass and a two-course dinner on Friday 25 January from 6pm. Tickets £55.

The Burns Night menu for the Fifth Floor Restaurant at Harvey Nichols comes with lashings of Chivas Regal, with whisky tasting and pairing. Cocktail reception is followed by four course supper and costs £65.

Albannach on Trafalgar Square always does something but never announces it till late on. Expect a Burns supper in the restaurant, and the usual massive selection of whisky in the bar.

Finally, in a cultural mash-up, Chinese restaurant Min Jiang in Kensington has created “a quirky and fun ‘Chinese Burns’ package for two in the bar, consisting of two whisky sour cocktails and a platter of haggis dim-sum (Haggis and Prawn Har Kow, Haggis Char Siew Puff, Haggis and Cucumber Roll, Haggis and Chive Wonton) to share at £30.

In the pub

London’s only genuine Scottish pub, the Rob Roy in Paddington welcomes ‘well behaved Sassenachs’ too. As is traditional, on Friday 25 January, their Piper will be playing in the pub and around 7pm, the haggis will be piped in and addressed, before being stabbed with a knife and served up. However, you can get haggis in the Rob Roy (plus Scottish beers and Scotch whisky) any day you like.

The Alma Scottish Food and Drink Festival in Islington takes place for a whole week, from 18-25 January.

The Elgin, Ladbroke Grove is doing haggis specials and whisky tasting to the sound of bagpipes on Friday 25 January.

The White Horse on Parsons Green will have the traditional Burns supper and a piper in action on Friday 25 January.

Laughing

A London Burns Night tradition that’s become more recently established is the Glasgow International Comedy Festival gala at Leicester Square Theatre, featuring acts who’ll be appearing in the forthcoming festival up north in March. No guarantees on how many Scottish performers there’ll be but they do attract big names. Tickets are £15, starts 8pm. At least buy a wee dram at the bar to nod toward older traditions.

DIY Burns Supper

Do it at home. Here’s how it should go. Here’s an address to the haggis. And here’s a good soundtrack. Slainte!

Photo by CEDRICtus via the Londonist Flickrpool.

“Inspector Sands, Please Report to the Operations Room Immediately”.

It’s an announcement that most of us will have heard on the London Underground, or mainline stations. Common wisdom has it that this stentorian command is a code, designed to alert authorities to a potential calamity or emergency without alarming the public.

Stephen Wood knows better. In the artistic interpretation above, he imagines the Inspector as a real entity, reporting for duty at some recondite Operations Room, deep underground. The eerie Victorian official comes complete with top hat and ticket machine, fated to wander the secret rooms and tunnels of the Tube network for eternity, as measured in the sand timer he keeps in place of a face.

The picture is part of our series: Londonist Underground. We asked readers to draw, paint or photograph an image of subterranean London as part of the celebrations for the Tube’s 150th anniversary. We’re still looking for further entries. Draw secret tunnels under Fitzrovia, imagine the mysterious creatures who inhabit London’s hypogeal realms, or simply take a photograph of something unusual or impressive in your local Tube station. Fact or fiction, be as imaginative as you like.

We’re hoping to arrange an exhibition of the best images, so get thinking and doodling. Send entries to matt@londonist.com.

Previously in Londonist Underground

• The secret caverns beneath Upper Street, Islington 
• Things which don’t exist beneath London

London events for people with curious minds.

A gentle easing-back in to January, with only a handful of events around town this week.

Tuesday

ASTRONOMY: Just a reminder that Stargazing Live, with Brian Cox and Dara O’Briain, returns to BBC2 tonight. All associated events are fully booked, but remember to tune in. 8pm

Wednesday

TUBE: To coincide with the 150th anniversary of the first underground trains in London, Oliver Green gives a Gresham talk at the Museum of London about the development of the Tube and its current underpinning importance to the modern city. Free, just turn up, 1pm

Thursday

MORE TUBE: Today marks 150 years since the first passenger service on the London Underground. Join Londonist’s M@ and a panel of experts (Christian Wolmar, Annie Mole, Mark Mason and Gareth “London Reconnections” Edwards) at London Transport Museum for Tube chat and an underground quiz. £10, prebook, 6.30pm

SLEEP: A film screening and discussion exploring the phenomenon of sleep paralysis and hallucination takes place at the Dana Centre. Free, prebook, 6.30pm

Booking Ahead

Helen Keen’s Spacetacular!, in partnership with Londonist and supported by the UK Space Agency, takes place at the Leicester Square Theatre on 27 January. Space scientists, comedians, musicians and others share an enthusiasm for space exploration, with the audience dressed in tin foil. Book now, £10. Follow Spacetacular! on Facebook.

Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments, or email matt@londonist.com to tip us off about upcoming events.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of Wellcome Collection.

Wellcome Collection’s current major exhibition is all about death and on Saturday 19 January, they’re hosting a morbid yet fascinating day of feature films and shorts on the subject. The free event, Death on Screen will present three eclectic films offering iconic, philosophical and comedic perspectives on death, plus a specially curated programme of rolling shorts bringing together some of the best artist films on this subject.

Richard Linklater’s 2001 film Waking Life focusses on dreams, consciousness and existentialism and uses a method of animation called rotoscoping to create the feeling of life as a waking death. Hal Ashby’s cult classic from 1971 Harold and Maude fuses black comedy with off-the-wall romantic drama, soundtracked brilliantly by Cat Stevens. Finally, Swedish director Ingmar Bergman’s iconic film The Seventh Seal, released in 1957 is a harrowing account of one knight’s quest for truth and includes perhaps the most well-known example of Death as a character on screen.

A programme of shorts curated by Wild Gift, a curatorial team consisting of artist Rosie Cooper and writer David Lillington, accompanies the features. Their selection, “Dying on Screen” consists of films which view death as a thing we perform and screens works that comment on death as it happens on the stage of real life.

The accompanying exhibition, “Death: A self-portrait” will also be open to look round. Read our review here.

Death on Screen takes place on Saturday 19 January between 11am-7.45pm. Tickets are free but must be booked in advance at www.wellcomecollection.org/deathonscreen. The shorts programme is drop-in – no booking required.

If you’ve not already done so, you can subscribe to these daily listings and have them delivered to your inbox at 7am every morning.

GIVE BLOOD: Go make a scarlet donation (O Negatives especially welcome) at Brewers Hall in the City of London. Free, just turn up, 9.45-11am and 12.15-4.15pm

DANCE: The Resolution! Festival begins at The Place today, with 27 nights of contemporary dance. Times and prices vary

SUSTAINABILITY: Resolved to be greener this year? Visit the Permaculture Picturehouse for films, talks and discussion at Passing Clouds, behind the Haggerston Pub, plus there’s seasonal organic food available at £5 a plate. £3, just turn up, 6.45pm

SPEED FLATMATING: Looking for a new flat mate, or seeking shared accommodation yourself? Head to 93 Feet East, for a spot of speed flatmating. Free, prebook, 7pm

TRANSPORT: Would-be Mayor and Actually-is transport expert Christian Wolmar speaks at this month’s Street Talk event about making London a more liveable city, upstairs at the Yorkshire Grey, Theobalds Road. Free, just turn up, 7pm

AMORPHOUS LIT THING: The Special Relationship with Tom Baden, a sort of multi-format literary salon, promises “poets, authors, playwrights, journalists, comedians, film-makers and even a rock star or two (exactly two actually)”, downstairs at the Book Club in Shoreditch. £5, just turn up, 7.30pm

COMEDY: Tom Rosenthal off Friday Night Dinner, Edinburgh Newcomer winner Daniel Simonsen, improv-ers Do Not Adjust Your Stage and one-third of WitTank Naz Osmanoglu are in Putney for Gits and Shiggles, hosted by Luke Benson. £7, prebook or turn up, 7.30pm

INCEST: Infanticide, infatuation, murder and mayhem: storyteller Jan Blake tells tales of taboo at the Soho Theatre. £9, prebook or turnup, 8pm

Random London Fact Of The Day

The London Borough of Enfield’s coat of arms contains an unusual heraldic beast, itself known as an enfield.  Should you ever chance across such a miscreation, you’re sure to recognise it. An enfield has the head of a fox, the talons of an eagle, the chest of a greyhound, the body of a lion and the arse of a wolf (see here for a particularly good artist’s impression, or here for a sort of sexy-hippy enfield playing the flute). These astonishing bodily attributes apparently make the enfield a bit of a whizz with a football, as evinced by the emblem of Enfield Town FC (right).

The origins of the creature are Celtic, with heraldic links to the O’Kelly family, but it’s not known why the beast is named an enfield, or why it is associated with its namesake area of London. We’ve certainly never spotted any on our occasional sojourns to the borough.

London Weather

At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci astounded the world by gaining seven perfect 10s across disciplines. Today, she is bested by the London weather, which maintains an unshakeable grip on the big 1-0 all day long. In fact, today is officially the most 10-ish day of weather since records began. BBC Weather has all the non-details.

Secret Hidden False Rumour Of The Day
The camden is another unusual heraldic beast. It has the head of a punk, the body of a tourist and the size 14 Dr Martens of a doped up bass player.

Image by StageShots (London)

Finborough Theatre’s alcoholic sibling Finborough Wine Café has closed. While the theatre, a separate business, continues, it does mean that interval drinks are now found at the off-license next door – a bit like a Brick Lane curry establishment. But we came for the play, not the tinny…

Sir Hector MacDonald (known as “Fighting Mac”) was a poor crofter’s son turned military general of high repute and favoured by Queen Victoria. But in his latter days, he was faced with rumours of inappropriate behaviour towards young boys in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) which irreparably damaged his legacy. MacDonald never faced trial, initially because homosexuality was not a crime in Ceylon at the time, although the British soon changed that. When he was later court martialled at the request of his senior, Lord Roberts, he chose to kill himself in Paris rather than face his accusers.

The evidence for what really happened is scarce and relies on hearsay, so writer and director David Gooderson has conjectured that the man may be innocent after all. In So Great A Crime, Sir Hector is presented to us as a victim of class, bullied and isolated by the island aristocracy who create the conspiracy against him. He is also hiding a wife in London because of financial difficulties, and not because of his desire to have it away with the army boys around the world.

There are timely elements to the paedophile witch-hunt, and it goes somewhat against the media grain to ask “where is the evidence against this dead man”? As troops this year are pulled out of Afghanistan, the mention of Hector’s tour of the region is also a reminder this war has been raging a very long time. But for all its potent themes, the play lacks a didactic quality that you would expect from the Brechtian staging, instead favouring a conspiracy theory of its own, thereby shooting itself in the foot, which is ironic on many levels…

Stuart McGugan as Sir Hector MacDonald plays the innocent victim so heavily, draining the emotional content, that it’s actually quite hard to identify with him. The supporting characters are a collection of British 70s sitcom types: Dad’s Army, any upper class lady, and a Sri Lankan Manuel from Fawlty Towers, although this adds a silliness to proceedings that would probably have made satirical viewing if it were even more grotesque.

For a much crazier interpretation of the MacDonald mystery, check out The Devil’s Paintbrush by Jake Arnott – there’s Satanism in that one.

So Great A Crime runs at Finborough Theatre until Tuesday 22 January 2013. Show times are Sunday, Monday 7.30pm and Tuesday 2.00pm. Tickets are £14, £10 concessions.

A festival of ice sculpture, now in its fourth year, crystallises its way into Canary Wharf  this weekend.

Twelve highly talented teams from the UK, USA and various European countries will compete at the annual London Ice Sculpting Festival from Friday. Each team gets to chisel away at an enormous block of ice, freighted in from an ice specialist in Belgium.

This year’s themes are The Wonders of the World and Infinity (for the doubles and singles competitions respectively). Sculptors will carve against the clock for the top prize, as well as a free-style competition, which will be judged entirely by the public. Other activities include the ever-popular ice-sculpting master classes (first come first served), a snow-pit with real snow, a graffiti ice-wall, ice chess and a Northern Lights laser show, as well as a Winter Market plus arts and crafts workshops. And it’s all completely free.

The London Ice Sculpting Festival, runs 11-13 January at various locations throughout the Canary Wharf area.

By Tamara Vos. Image of a Jubilee Diamond sculpture from last year’s festival, courtesy of VickieFlores in the Londonist Flickr pool.

Click for larger image.

Continuing our artistic celebration of the London Underground’s 150th anniversary.

We asked you to imagine what lurks beneath this great city, and send in a picture. Tanya Meditzky responded with this surreal cutaway, in which a typical London street is underpinned by a precarious troupe of creatures. It’s like an Hieronymus Bosch vision of hell, only with the assorted imps and beasties performing a more useful task than devouring souls. Wonderful stuff.

Want to have a go? Just draw, paint, collage or photograph your own scene from underground London. It might be something fantastical like a white-knuckle Tube line, or something factual such as a favourite Tube station. Send entries to matt@londonist.com before the end of the month. We’re hoping to display the best entries in an exhibition.

Previously in Londonist Underground

• The secret caverns beneath Upper Street, Islington 
• Things which don’t exist beneath London
• Who is Inspector Sands?

Welcome back to our weekly round-up, highlighting the best things you can see on London’s stages, be it comedy, drama, musicals, opera or dance.

Kooza by Cirque du Soleil is this week’s biggest theatrical event. Playing at the Royal Albert Hall from tonight until Valentine’s Day, this newest show tells the story of The Innocent, who is searching for his place in the world. That’s a world of contortionists, Wheels of Death, trapeze artists and high wires, in case you were wondering.

THEATRE
Elsewhere you can see Norwegian drama in Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea at the Courtyard Theatre from tonight; genito-urinary comedy in Impotent! at the Lion and Unicorn theatre, also from tonight; or Shakespearean obscurity (or is it?) Fair Em at the Union Theatre, also opening tonight.

Tomorrow, get a strange kidult fix at the Unicorn Theatre as hit show Monkey Bars returns, taking children’s chat and asking adults to reproduce what’s been said verbatim. The result is a revelatory show that is funny, touching and endlessly surprising. From Friday, you can see a seasonal Twelfth Night at Hoxton Hall, performed by the Salon Players, a self-proclaimed rag tag troupe of actors who recommend bringing your own stick-on moustache to help the proceedings along.

DANCE
There’s a lovely Sleeping Beauty opening at the London Coliseum tomorrow. Produced by the English National Ballet, this is Kenneth MacMillan’s popular production full of fairy sparkle. (See below for a taster.)

LAST CHANCE
Thursday is your last chance to see The Animals And Children Took To The Streets at the National Theatre.

Saturday is the final night for The Dark Earth And The Light Sky at the Almeida Theatre; Old Money at the Hampstead Theatre; The Arabian Nights at the Tricycle Theatre; and Yes, Prime Minister at the Trafalgar Studios (here’s a review of the latter at an earlier venue; we strongly suspect it’ll be back…

Did we miss anything? Let us know what theatre shows you’re seeing this week below…

Happy birthday to Tube.

If you’ve not already done so, you can subscribe to these daily listings and have them delivered to your inbox at 7am every morning.

GIVE BLOOD: Your donation options today are Stoll in Fulham and Cathedral Hall in Victoria. Free, just turn up, times vary

TUBE TALK: Oliver Green speaks at the Museum of London (in a Gresham lecture) about the development of the London Underground, on this the 150th anniversary of the first train journey. Free, just turn up, 1pm

BRIDGES: A panel of transport experts field questions on proposed river crossings for east London, at City Hall. Free, prebook, 2pm

SHORTENING ARM OF THE LAW: If you’re concerned about the proposed cuts to police services across London, the first of multiple chances to quiz Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Stephen Greenhalgh comes today, as his consultation roadshow kicks off in Lambeth (the Electric, 6pm) and Southwark (City Hall, 8pm). Free, prebook

MUSIC: We don’t know much about The London Dirthole Company other than (a) they have an eye-catching name and (b) they seem to have more drummers drumming than My True Love on the 12th Day of Christmas. They’re playing The Macbeth in Hoxton along with Die Munch Machine and DJs. Free, just turn up, 7pm

COMEDY: Raise funds for the Edinburgh Free Fringe at Bloomsbury Theatre with Phill Jupitus, Kevin Eldon, Robin Ince, Simon Munnery, Norman Lovett, John Otway and Howard Read. £15, prebook, 7.30pm

TRAVEL: Get a taste of seven cities at Rich Mix, with artist led-tours of the current 7 Cities in 7 Minutes exhibition. Free, just turn up, 2pm and on the hour till 8pm

SKATING: Ice skating as a serious art form, with Le Patin Libre at Alexandra Palace. £17/£14, just turn up or prebook, 8pm

QUIZ: The Bigger Boat Film Quiz returns to the Boogaloo in Highgate for an evening of movie puzzling. £3.50, just turn up, 8pm

ELECTRONIC MUSIC: Coup d’Etat, a new night devoted to underground electronic music, launches at the (so-Shoreditchy-it-even-has-Shoreditch-in-its-name) Shoreditch Butchery. Free (before 10pm), just turn up, 8pm-late

POETRY:  Long Poem Magazine showcases its work and opens up a Q&A with its editors in the foyer spaces of the Southbank Centre. Free, prebook, 8pm

MORE COMEDY: Watch Nick Sun, perhaps the most bonkers act we saw all last year, headline ComComedy at the Queen of Hoxton. Also on the bill are Mae Martin, Rob Carter, Ryan Cull, Chris Bett and Grainne Maguire with Luisa Omelian MCing. £7, prebook, 8pm

Random London Fact of the Day
Everyone’s talking about the 150th anniversary of the Underground today (official) and tomorrow (passenger), but it’s not the only London anniversary in town. Raise a toast to Philip Astley, who pioneered the first circus ring in a field near Waterloo 240 years ago today (just behind St John’s church). Astley, a kind of stunt horse-rider decided to prance round in a circle to entertain his crowds, unlike his rivals, who favoured a linear show. The format proved successful, and he later added clowns and other acts to separate his equestrian antics. Astley further developed the idea and eventually opened an enclosed arean on land now occupied by part of St Thomas’s Hospital.

London Weather
Clear blue skies and bright sunshine all day long! That’s the 100% guaranteed forecast if you happen to live five miles above the capital. Those of us on the ground will be greatly vexed by a boundless skywig of cloud, although it should thin out in the afternoon. Wrap up warm, for the cold is a-coming.

Berndnaut Smilde’s ‘indoor clouds’ kept popping up on art websites and tweets throughout last year, so it’s only fitting that he’s been given the chance to display his photographs in a London exhibition. Despite first appearances, there is no photoshopping of his works: they are the product of a fog machine, a camera and a lot of patience.

His work is both surreal and ethereal, inviting us into believing that the artist has captured a snapshot of the magical. This captured moment in time, plus the fact the clouds are suspended in unassuming locations, gives them a touch of reality encouraging viewers to imagine that clouds can travel indoors.

Smilde shares this exhibition with another young artist, Adeline de Monseignat. Her work also embraces a surreal take on the natural world but she prefers to work with fur, as it represents a state of living without being alive. She chooses to create sculptures that appear as if they could become animated – even going so far as to refer to her creations as ‘creaptures’ (a cross between creature and sculpture).

These are two exciting young artists experimenting with eye-catching pieces and this exhibition is sure to create many more fans of their work.

The Uncanny: Adeline de Monseignat and Berndnaut Smilde curated by James Putnam is on display at Ronchini Gallery, 22 Dering St, W1S 1AN from 16 January until 16 February. Admission is free.

Author appearances, poetry and spoken word events in London this week

Wednesday 9 January: Jonathan Fenby talks about China past and present at Foyles (6.15pm, free).

Hear poets Claire Crowther, Timothy Adès, Sharon Morris and David Morley plus take part in a Q&A with Long Poem Magazine editors Ann Vaughan-Williams, Lucy Hamilton and Linda Black at the Southbank Centre (8pm, free).

US poets Melissa Buckheit, Maxine Chernoff and Jaime Robles take part in the latest Shearsman Reading Series at Swedenborg Hall (7.30pm, free).

Thursday 10 January: Short stories from Stations and London Lies read by the authors, at Bookseller Crow on the Hill from 7pm (free).

Tim Wells and Porky the Poet (AKA Phill Jupitus) join the regular crew for Bang Said the Gun at the Roebuck for a spot of stand up poetry (8pm, £5).

Chris Redmond hosts Tongue Fu at Rich Mix (8pm, £8 / £6), with John Hegley, Anna Freeman, Adam Kammerling and guests from the Roundhouse Poetry Collective.

Friday 11 January: Tim Parks and Swiss author Peter Stamm are in conversation at the London Review Bookshop (7pm, £10).

Adam Horovitz and guests are at the Poetry Cafe, with music from Adam Donen (7.30pm, £5).

Saturday 12 January: Take the kids to Ealing Broadway Waterstones to see Marianne Levy read from her latest Ellie May book (11am, free).

Tom Bland, Errol McGlashan and Benedict Newbery are the established acts performing at Platform 1 at the Poetry Cafe. Get there for 7.30pm to sign up for open mic (8pm, £5 / £4).

Sunday 13 January: Francesca Beard, Deanna Rodger, Zia Ahmed, Rosie Adé and Colin Salmon – yes, that Colin Salmon – join Jumoke Fashola for Jazz Verse Jukebox at Ronnie Scott’s (7.30pm, £8).

David Morley offers an overview of this year’s TS Eliot Prize (1pm, £11) before shortlisted poets read their work at the Southbank Centre (7pm, £15 / £12).

Tuesday 15 January: We really enjoyed Ian Kelly’s book about 18th century amputee playwright Samuel Foote. Kelly’s talking about it at the National Theatre (6pm, £4 / £3).

Apples and Snakes has helped produce The Rememberers at the Old Vic Tunnels, a live hip-hop graphic novel for teenagers. Performances until Friday, tickets £14 / £9 / £5).

Ariadne’s Thread launches its fourth issue at The Old Ship in Richmond (7.30pm, free).

The Poetry Cafe‘s regular open mic night is taking registrations between 6-7pm. Niall O’Sullivan hosts (7.30pm, £5 / £4).

Frances Presley and Geraldine Monk read at The Blue Bus in The Lamb (7.30pm, £5 / £3).

Chris McCabe, Lorraine Mariner, Pascal O’Loughlin and Chrissy Williams perform at the Lumen Poetry Series (7pm, £5 / £4, all proceeds to Cold Weather Shelter).

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

Work by Kobra.

Our friends at Global Street Art are looking for suggestions. They help find new places for street artists to paint — from disused buildings to shop shutters — always with permission of the owners. The Walls Project helps make the urban realm more beautiful and can also raise the profile of the building or business that gets involved, as well as the artist. Last year, they helped over 80 new pieces of art come to fruition (for pictures check, see here).

Global Street Art is looking for new walls and shutters to paint. There are a number of top foreign artists looking for walls in London, like Kobra from Brazil (pictured) and Pixel Pancho from Italy, as well as plenty of talented local artists. Global Street Art is looking for more walls that than it can find.

The German Paint company Montana recently gave Global Street Art 100 cans of paint to help the cause.

So today we’re asking: where is London’s most boring wall, or other paintable surface? Which parts of town could do with brightening up? Could you give permission to paint a street-facing wall or shutter yourself?

They’d particularly like to hear from anyone who owns a property, wall, shop shutter or other surface, who’d like to collaborate with a leading street artist. Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below, or email them direct on lee@globalstreetart.com

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GIVE BLOOD: Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to head to the Hop Exchange on Southwark Street or the Royal Free hospital in Hampstead and donate some blood. Free, just turn up, times vary

BUY AN AWESOME FLAT: Fancy living in the soon-to-be-redeveloped Battersea Power Station? You won’t be able to pick up the keys until 2017, but you can buy off-plan from today. £6,000,000, just turn up, 10am

SLEEP: A film screening and discussion exploring the phenomenon of sleep paralysis and hallucination takes place at the Dana Centre. Free, prebook, 6.30pm

LONDON LIT: Short stories from Stations and London Lies will be read by the authors, at Bookseller Crow on the Hill, Crystal Palace. Free, just turn up, 7pm

MUSIC: The Stranger The Better mini-festival starts tonight at Kings Place, showcasing bands and artists who dabble in the philosophical, bleak and existential. Tonight’s event involves a string-quarteted Teitur (check out Josephine for a tear-jerker) plus guests (including Steven Adams from the sadly defunct Broken Family Band). Our pick comes tomorrow, though, with the understated power-misery of Gravenhurst. £12.50-£19.50, prebook, 7.30pm

POLITICS: Half way through the Coalition’s term, an event at UCL looks at political alliances. Free, just turn up, 7.30pm

SPOKEN WORD: Chris Redmond hosts Tongue Fu at Rich Mix, with John Hegley, Anna Freeman, Adam Kammerling and guests from the Roundhouse Poetry Collective. £8, just turn up, 8pm 

FOOD: Gordon Ramsay’s York & Albany restaurant in Camden Town opens a ‘pop-up hunting cabin‘, with gamey food, winter warming drinks, antlers and taxidermy.

FOLKLORE: Find out how South London Folklore Society started with a talk from someone who was there, then watch a film about Austin Osman Spare at the first SELFS meeting of the year, upstairs at the Old Kings Head, off Borough High Street. All welcome. £2.50, just turn up, 8pm

HILARIOUS POLITICS: Question Time comes from Lewisham this week, but more fun will be had in Hackney Picturehouse with BBCQT Watchalong. Helen Arney, Nish Kumar and Radcliffe Royds join Nat Guest for drinking, shouting, tweeting and Dimbledancing. £5, prebook, 8pm

FILM: Kensington Roof Gardens’ marquis cinema is screening Back to the Future…unarguably one of the best films ever made, yet now something of a predictable cliche for pop-up cinemas. Still, if you haven’t seen it for a while, there aren’t many sweeter venues in this or any other decade. £20, prebook, 8pm

Random London Fact Of The Day
More people live in the London Borough of Croydon (363,000) than in the whole of Iceland (320,000). Or, put another way, Croydon is worth two Samoas, or four times the Seychelles. At least in terms of population.

London Weather
Set timbers to shiver. Four degrees Centigrade is all we can expect. It’s hardly Ernest Shackleton territory, but given the relatively mild days of late, you’ll certainly feel it. Here’s a print-out-and-keep placard that you can hold up to any office colleague who makes a predictable comment:

Th Atlas Gallery has a large and varied collection of photographs from shots of icons like Jimi Hendrix and Che Guevara through to sweeping landscapes of the African savannah and Scott’s trip to the Antarctic. This group show displays the highlights of the collection, headlined by the works of Jeremy Hunter.

Hunter was granted rare access to photograph the Arirang games – a North Korean spectacle of propaganda art that pays tribute to their former leader Kim Jong-il.  It’s an amazing feat as 100,000 performers in perfect synchronicity use flipcharts to create 150 of the largest pictures in the world. With 6 months and 250 million man hours dedicated to its rehearsal it’s practised until flawless and rivals the spectacle of Olympic opening ceremonies.

As Kim Jong-il died last year, Hunter has probably captured the last ever version of this mass participant art work, which visitors can see at the Atlas Gallery in Marylebone.

High Resolution is on at Atlas Gallery, 48 Dorset St, W1U 7NF from 16 January until 16 February. Admission is free. 

Continuing our series of art and photography capturing subterranean London, tying in with the Underground’s 150th birthday.

Yesterday’s iPad art depicted a platform full of travelling fish. Today’s entry in our Londonist Underground series shows what they might see, with some fish-eye photography from the Tube. The shots are taken by Viktor Németh, whose distorted pics of London we’ve featured before.

We’re still looking for further entries for this series. All you need to do is imagine something — anything — beneath London, and create some kind of image (painting, drawing, collage, sculpture…) to share your idea. The image could be fictional or fact-based — from a balrog’s lair beneath Westminster, to a sculpture of a sewer. So long as it’s underneath London, we want to see it. Send entries to matt@londonist.com as soon as possible (no deadline, but we’re hoping to organise an exhibition soon).

• The secret caverns beneath Upper Street, Islington 
• Things which don’t exist beneath London
• Who is Inspector Sands?
• Weird creatures holding up London
• iPad drawings of the Tube

This is a sponsored competition from the National Theatre.

Simon Stephens returns to the National Theatre with this richly colourful portrait of Stockport.

Stockport, 1988. A pivotal moment and the beginning of a thirteen-year odyssey for eleven-year-old Racheal and her brother Billy, growing up in the deprived suburban shadows of Manchester.

Abandoned by their family and pushed to the margins of society, Port follows the siblings on their very different paths, and tells the hopeful story of Racheal’s struggle for love and life and for something better.

Want to win a pair of tickets to see Port? Enter your name and email address below.

We’ll pick and winner and notify them by email after 5pm on Friday 18 January. Terms and conditions below*. Good luck!

Port is at the National Theatre from 22 January to 24 March. There are over 230 £12 Tickets for every performance. For more information and to book tickets please visit nationaltheatre.org.uk/port or call 020 7452 3000.

*Competition terms & conditions: Tickets valid for performances from 6 February. Subject to availability, exclusions may apply. No cash alternative. Non transferable. Additional expenses are the responsibility of the prize winner. Promoter reserves the right to exchange all or part of the prize to that of equal or greater value. Usual Londonist policy applies.

Want to take part in the world’s largest wildlife survey? All you need to do is sit for one hour, on the weekend of 26-27 January, count the birds in your garden or local park and tell the RSPB what you see.

If you’re hoping to spot a good selection and number of birds now is the time to make your back garden, yard, balcony, windowsill or local park a treat of a feeding place. Forget crusts. Put out leftover pastry bits, cut up bruised or part rotten apples, cooked potatoes (baked, roasted or mashed are all good, especially with fats added), dried fruit, cake crumbs, suet, nuts and seeds. If you can hang a foodsource up (or provide a bird table) as well as scatter on the ground, you’ll lure a wider variety. Don’t overdo it though, unless you want rats joining the feast.

The Big Garden Birdwatch takes place on Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 January. Sign up now.

Photo taken in Phoenix Garden by Stephskimo via the Londonist Flickrpool.