Summer has at last hit us. So, with just 122 days to go until christmas, it must therefore be time to start thinking of how to broach that whole visit back to parents/family. What on earth should you do with that horrid snotty nephew? Or, to put it another way: To Panto Or Not To Panto?

Now, sorry is this causes offence, but pantomime IS generally rubbish. (*Insert compulsory "oh no it isn't" reference here*).

Oh, Come On - we've all had that slightly crappy sinking feeling on the train out from London to the family, ending up near the back of some tiered seating in a naff towncentre hall to sit through three hours of god-awful jokes, pap innuendo and the odd fleeting glimpse of some old bloke in drag.

So this year, why not do something a little different? At The Old Vic, Stephen Fry is putting on his own version of Cinderella. Londonist will be heading there in a move to recover from the seriously naff nature of the whole festive period, but we can also see that it might be a viable alternative for some of you to take the rellies.

We have little idea what to expect, but our best guess would be that Fry will have taken a normal panto, turned it on its head, and then added lots of irreverent wit, heaps of naughtiness and a healthy dollop of cross-dressing. Oh yes, and some cake. To quote some early bumph we've seen, there will be "So much cake you won?t believe".

Cinderella's on from 4 December until 20 January. More details here, or on 0870 060 6628. And don't forget you've only got a few days left to do all that shopping.

Here's what else has been going on while you've been at The Notting Hill Festival:

This weekend's news:

It's possible there could be a new Thames Barrier built.

More people have been shot in North London.

Toddler dies in swimming pool.

Authorities agree to give bus drivers more toilets. How nice.

Mum fights web drug dealers. Hooray for cyber mum!

And here's what we think might happen next week:

Pete Doherty arrested. Again.

Amy Winehouse to miss another gig. Due to exhaustion.

There will be another strike. This time about lack of loo roll or something.

It will rain when you don't have a brolly and the sun will shine when you do.

Flickr image from The Dali Lama's photostream. It's possible this is a pseudonym.

We're skint again! We've spent all of your money on festivals only to find that we've spent hours standing in the rain listening to the bands we didn't really want to see but our best mate wanted to because they fancy the singer. This means that yet again, we can't go and do any of the things we want (and yes we're sulking). We can't go to any of the gigs we'd planned to, and we can't go and see the adaptation of All About My Mother at The Old Vic. But fear not, as always (except for last week - sorry about that) we're here to share with you what's fun and free this week:

Monday: We like it when our favourite frontmen have new little projects. It brings us things like Gorillaz. This time it's the turn of Guillemots frontman at The Big Chill House. You can see Fyfe Dangerfield and The Gannets alongside weekly regulars the Mules and also Duncan Brown's Pound Of Flesh. All for free! Flirt like a shameless groupie and you may even get your beer paid for too.

Tuesday: It's been a while since we went to a good exhibition. And ages since we read a good book (seriously, could someone suggest one please). Today we're going to link our love of art and books together with a trip to the Biblion Gallery and the Codex Exhibition. David Breuer Weil is the first to show his stuff at the antiquarian store and you'll get to see how books and writing can influence art. Maybe even pick up something to read on the train home.

Wednesday: It seems there's nothing you can't do at The Scoop. We knew you could pop to see a show after work, but now you can even take a trip there before hitting the office. This time to do a morning T'ai chi class. They're totally free (of course) but you need to get there early to register (7.20am for a 7.30am start). We hope you enjoy this but Londonist will probably still be tucked up in bed with a cup of tea.

Thursday: Sometimes the press really really annoy us. But, we can't deny that there's been some pretty good photojournalism going on recently. At The Royal Festival Hall today, you can see the World Press Photo Exhibition and see for yourself what we're talking about. With images like this, it makes you wonder why they spend half their time snapping Girls Aloud falling out of clubs in Chelsea.

Friday: Since Londonist started this column, we've discovered something wonderful: It seems that if you look hard enough there is always free theatre in London. Luckily, we search for you. This week, it's the turn of Yours Krishna Menon at The Nehru Centre It's a play about young Indian man in London and the campaign for Indian independence.

Saturday: We are going free food festival crazy this weekend and we can't wait. Oh joy! Today sees the start of the Singapore Chilli Crab Festival Basically all you need to do is listen to music, drink beer and eat chilli prawns at the Vibe Bar, The Boiler House and 93 Feet East. Sounds good to us.

Sunday: Oysters. We can't decide if we love them or hate them. (This Londonista is staying firmly on the hate side of the fence.) For those of you who do love the slimy balls of 'aphrodisiac' sludge, you can continue your seafood weekend and pop down to the Rosemary Branch Oyster festival today.

Or, you could stay in and get pissed on that old bottle of cooking sherry you found last night.

There's lots of stuff to do here, and lots of opening and closing times. Londonist thinks you should take a peek at the websites before you go for more information.

It seems that half the country (and Londonist staff) is on holiday at the moment. Still, here's the best of what's on musically across the capital this week.

Jazz singer-songwriter Norah Jones  is the highlight of Bank Holiday Monday night, playing with M. Ward at Hammersmith Apollo. Tickets are sold out, however be sure to check out scarlet mist and other providers. Meanwhile hardcore punk stars Bane play Underworld, with £10 tickets available either on the door or on Ticketweb for box office pickup.

Utah rockers The Used play a sold out Islington Academy on Tuesday night, with support from Mute Math, who claim to combine “rock, industrial, reggae, jazz, new wave, electro, rave and psychedelia, with ambient vocals” (so just about everything going). Currently riding high in the NME club chart with “Crimewaves”, Crystal Castles play Corsica Studio, with £7.50 tickets available from See tickets.

Wednesday night sees Icelandic geniuses Múm play the Museum of Garden History (yup, you did hear me right) – tickets are by invitation or prize draw only, so it’s eBay or who you know to get you into this one… Progressive rock stars Aereogramme play their last ever headline show at the Luminaire. Tickets are £10 through WeGotTickets, but seem to be all sold out at the moment. Mute Math, Parlotones and Envy Corps all play Monto Water Rats for a showcase of American bands. Tickets are £10 from Ticketweb.

Sonic Youth play the Roundhouse on Thursday night for the first of three consecutive nights performing their classic album Daydream Nation. As could be expected tickets are sold out. New Yorkers The Hold Steady play the Electric Ballroom, tickets are £15. Hot Hot Heat play Kings College SU, though tickets are sold out.

The highlight of Friday is undoubtedly the geniuses known as Ladytron at ULU (well, for this Londonista anyway). Tickets are long gone, unless you try the usual dodgy back-waters. If you like things a tad heavier then maybe Eagles of Death Metal over at Koko would be more your sort of thing, though again tickets are long gone. Finally Drowned in Sound are holding their end of summer party at Monto Water Rats, with Russian Circles, DARTZ!, I Was a Cub Scout and Youthmovies. Tickets are £12 a pop.

Photo of Ladytron is taken from Crazybobbles' flickr stream under the Creative Commons License.

It would seem that right here, right now, the zeitgeist is pink and fluffy and dripping with bling.
News reaches us that after 25 years out of London, and indeed away from these shores, Playboy and the Bunny empire are on their way back. And in style.

Founder Hugh Hefner upped and offed in 1981 after the government cast aspersions on his business practices, and his company has faced a struggle for survival in recent years. But with his (scarily-efficient-looking) daughter, Christie, at the helm, the whole Playboy thing has been re-marketed as a fun, logo-led brand designed to appeal to women as well as men.

The 14th September sees the opening of a vast new Playboy emporium in Oxford Street, selling clothes, accessories and memorabilia. There is talk of a new club casino to follow.

We invariably get the shops and the nightlife we deserve, but quite apart from what it says about our collective taste as a capital city, the move highlights a slightly worrying economic trend:

It follows other U.S. retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch , which are making a move into London as the city's status grows as a playground for wealthy Russians and Arabs as well as Europeans.

Anyway, Londonist is not pro-drinkin? ?n? gamblin? ?n? womanisin? as a general rule, nor does it support ruthless commercialism. The fact that a lot of the iconic bunny-adorned merchandise, with its innate sexual connotations, is aimed at tweenagers is actually slightly nauseating.

But the whole Playboy thing is so gloriously politically incorrect, so very over-the-top, so hard to take seriously, and ultimately so girly, that it should be welcomed to London. For all the arguments of the morally outraged, liberated woman about town, ?Hef? clearly worships women, and at a time where in-your-face sexuality abounds, there is something slightly endearing and old-fashioned about his bunny girls. The vices mentioned above are hardly new, nor are they going to go away. So why shouldn?t they be swathed in pink and fluff, with even a slightly comical glamour of sorts?

Image courtesy of drhunter?s flickr stream.

It would seem that Mayor Livingstone, famous for courting the unusual, is at it again. He is new-best-friends with the Polish community in London. His jolly japes this time include a Polish reception at Town Hall, replete with pierogi and pickles, and a trip to POSK, the Polish Community Centre in Hammersmith. He is quite the darling of the Polish press, by all accounts.

Of course only the very cynical would suggest that it has something to do with the fact that there are 55,000 (and counting) Polish voters in the capital and the mayoral election is just round the corner.

Londonist can see nothing wrong with getting to know the different components of London ? pretty essential stuff, we reckon, for a mayor ? and undoubtedly a certain amount of schmoozing goes with the job.

And we like Polish people (although we wish they wouldn?t put so much salt in their food) ? they are for the most part bright and hard-working, and integrate splendidly into the buzzing throng that is London.

No, our raised eyebrow on this occasion is the fact that neither Polish officials nor them up at mayoral HQ seem to be doing anything about the very few Poles who are spoiling it for the rest of us, the alcoholics, the crack addicts and the scroungers. The new Polish ambassador to Britain seemed to distance herself from the less law-abiding of her compatriots:

But the Ambassador insisted that she had never heard anything else than Poles contributing to the British economy. ?If you stay here it means that you must have employment and pay taxes.? But perhaps the trouble is those on the black market who do not contribute? ?Black market is something that your authorities have to fight against,? she replied.

Our friend The Shopkeeper tells us that currently 4 out of 5 shoplifters in his neck of the woods (Southwark) are young men from Poland (until a year or so ago an honour held by mid-European gypsies), and that around 50% of anti-social behaviour in or around his shop involves the same demographic. They reel into the shop, with reeking breath and blood-shot eyes, in search of alcohol or (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) crack cocaine in exchange for Polish cigarettes. Later they slump drunken in the street, or worse, engage in street brawls.

These lost souls are not representative of the Polish immigrant population, many of whom have been here for generations. In view of the huge swell in the numbers of Poles entering the UK, it is in fact hardly surprising that we will end up with a few undesirables. But if the mayor wants to get to know and help his citizens, then he needs to address the needs of the whole community, warts and all, and not just the voting part.

Image courtesy of bennylin0724?s flickr stream.

Londonist was deeply shocked and saddened at the weekend when we learned of the death of promising Queens Park Rangers striker Ray Jones. Tomorrow would have been his nineteenth birthday, but just after midnight on Saturday morning a car he was travelling in collided with a double decker bus in East Ham and Jones, along with two of the four other occupants of the vehicle, Idris Olasupo and Jess Basilva, died from their injuries. Of the two survivors, one has left hospital, but the other is reported as still being in a serious condition.

We witnessed Ray appear as a substitute against Leeds on August 10th last year when the power and presence of the six foot four frontman, rumoured at that time to be interesting Liverpool, created several late chances. Injury prevented him from adding this season to his career total of six goals from 37 first team appearances, but last season's exciting performances had earned him his first full professional contract as well as England Under 19 recognition and many Rangers fans were looking forward eagerly to his contribution to their Championship campaign.

A fan has posted a tribute to Ray's talent on YouTube, featuring a goal against Cardiff City who this weekend allowed a QPR fan to lay a pennant on the spot where Jones slid the ball home to steer Rangers to victory. The highlight of the video has to be Jones's deft dispossession of Southampton goalkeeper Kelvin Davies on the way to stroking the ball into an empty net.

Saturday's scheduled opponents Burnley showed gracious generosity in not only postponing their fixture, but holding in its place an open training session at which a collection was taken for a charity to be nominated by Rangers. Tributes from far and wide are appearing on supporter websites such as Loft for Words and QPRnet. Londonist's thoughts are with the families and loved ones of all those involved in this tragedy as well as with Ray's club and its supporters as they all mourn their loss.

However, if we had more money than we knew what to do with, and we were also having a bit of trouble hearing, now we know where to shop. A hearing aid supplier based in Balham has designed a hearing aid worth a staggering £25,000. Yes, that is twenty five thousand pounds.

The hearing aid is cast in gold and covered with 220 diamonds. But that's not all! No, it also has a remote control and all the latest technology.

Even so, that seems like an awful lot of money for something that helps you hear. And aren't hearing aids supposed to be inconspicuous? Perhaps we're out of the hearing aid fashion loop.

Maybe this is the next big fashion trend - trendy OAP's taking to the streets to show off their bling gear. But we still think there are better ways to spend £25,000.

Image of non-bling hearing aid advert courtesy of Matt's Flickr photostream

Love-him-or-hate-him-Ramsay has been undisputed king of the London restaurant scene for nearly ten years. Take a large measure of chefly talent, whisk it with lashings of colourful personality, and then cook up with a generous helping of business acumen, and you have got an almost unstoppable catering brand. Anything à la Ramsay is bound to generate media and public interest, and the former footballer now has no less than nine outlets in London alone. And then there?s the books and the TV shows?

Harden?s guide book reckons that therein lies the rub ? the super chef is simply ?spreading himself too thinly?, perhaps causing public confidence in the brand to slip. You cannot be hands on at multiple branches simultaneously. Peter Harden himself seems to feel that Ramsay?s days at the top are numbered:

Mr Harden likened Ramsay's predicament to that of the precarious position of the last Roman emperor "just before the barbarians piled in".

Londonist feels that this is a bit dramatic. We feel sure that our Gordon is working his gastronomic magic to as high a standard as ever. The truth is that the British public has an innate sense of fair play, supporting the underdog and that sort of thing. Ten years of top notch stuff is all well and good, but let?s see who else is out there now. Time to give someone else a chance?.

We don?t think that Ramsay has anything to lose sleep over. The young chefs emerging from catering college today will almost certainly have been inspired in some small way by the Ramsay story ? his culinary genes are more or less indelibly stamped on the industry for the foreseeable future.

Only vaguely relevant but nevertheless highly delicious looking image courtesy of ComeUndone?s flickr stream

Sometimes a burger and fries is the only thing that will satisfy your hunger. Something simple and straighforward that you can hold in one hand, neatly packaged in two pieces of tasty bread that have soaked up the juices and sauces that ooze so delectably out of the multitudinous burger fillings piled up in between. But at other times... at other times, a person needs to pick delicately and carefully through the cracked shells of shellfish, fishing out pieces of tender meat that taste of holidays by the sea and mealtimes that take as long as they need to. Wash all that down with a cool beer and you've had yourself a good time.

Singaporean Tiger Beer is presenting a two day festival this coming weekend which we've already noted as free as well as delicious. On Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 September, the Truman Breweries, Vibe Bar and 93 Feet East will be the venues for cookery demonstrations, lion dances, art exhibitions by Singapore's hottest artists, martial art demonstrations, calligraphy workshops and a specially created grassy area for a little lie-down after all the excitement.

And of course, there will be lots and lots of Singapore's signature dish to enjoy: Singaporean chef Ronald Lim of Kiasu in Bayswater will be on hand both days to cook enough chilli crab for the thousands expected to turn up with rumbling stomachs and watering mouths.

If crab isn't your thing, and seafood brings you out in a rash, there's still chicken satay, the rice noodle dish Char Kway Teow and Hainanese Chicken Rice and the fantastically named desserts Ice Kachang and Bur Bur Cha Cha to try. And of course, rather a lot of Tiger Beer will be available. That crab can be fiery, and a cool drink or two may turn out to be necessary...

Tiger Beer Chilli Crab Festival, Saturday 1 September and Sunday 2 September, 12pm to 6pm at the Truman Breweries, Vibe Bar and 93 Feet East on Brick Lane. Entry is FREE. For more information, go to the festival website here.