We've gone a bit lah-di-dah this week - classical music, opera and even the Bible gets a mention. But, in true le cool style all three are with a twist. The classical music takes place in pubs in all four corners of the city. The opera is in a Georgian mansion and features puppetry, and the Bible? Well you'll have to wait and see....

Posh like Portsmouth say Chloe, Tom, Josh, Mat, Clare and everyone else at the le cool London hacienda.

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Once upon a time, a café was simply a café. But, in these days of super-compartmentalisation, of phones that order dinner and help you get dressed, that sort of one-dimensional approach just won't cut the proverbial mustard. So step forward new Hoxton brekkie-and-brunch eaterie Long White Cloud. On the one hand, yes, it's simply a caff - albeit a New Zealand-themed caff that serves mightily delicious nosh, including homemade Kiwi classics like bacon and egg pie and Monmouth coffees, and London’s best banana bread. But it's also a gallery, with purchasable art lining its walls, and private views. And it’s been a mini sculpture park. And there’s live music, with a late bar. And cabaret. There's even talk of a vegetarian pop-up evening. / Richard Mellor

We've banged on about London Fields Radio before - the online stuff featuring the best of London music and local features, the live shows from a tiny east London cafe that sometimes feature a le cooler or two, and and now we can bang on some more because it's the launch of their very first club night. Well, pub club night, because the setting is the compact and bijoux London Fields pub. God knows how they're going to fit it all in because as well of all you lot (you are going aren't you?) they'll need room for The Reverend Milo Speedwagon and Lucy Pink and a whole host of DJs spinning London faves, dancehall, disco and hip-hop. Fabulous stuff. / Rob Valid

A reputable music publication recently published the results of their ‘Best Dance Act Of All Time’ poll. Very near the top of this illustrious pile were Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons, aka The Chemical Brothers. It was in 1992 that these two created their first piece of music, Song to the Siren. Since then, they have grown into one of the very few truly arena-ready dance acts and if you watch their new film ‘Don’t Think’, you will understand why. Filmed using 21 cameras at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan in front of 50,000 fans, the film is shot specifically from a fans’ perspective and seeks to really bring to life what it’s like to go to a Chemical Brothers concert. Expect stunning lights shows, off-the-hook visuals and of course, Block Rockin' Beats. / Alex Goddard

I was a student, drinking cafe au lait in Paris, spring sunshine spilling over wooden floors, when I first heard Nick Drake's Cello Song. It was the most perfect soundtrack and I've never forgotten that moment. An exhibition at the Idea Generation Gallery shows TV composer Michael Burdett’s images of 167 similar moments. He found a version of Cello Song in a skip that he didn't listen to for twenty years. But when he did, he was astonished to find an unknown version of the track. He took it all over the UK and gave people headphones to listen to the piece, photographing them as they heard it. The Strange Face Project captures those moments: the light on the landscape, the emotion on their faces, the perfect tribute to a lost singer-songwriter. / Johanna Derry

How's your morning? Been a bit of a slog? Feel like you've been doing boring repetitive tasks all day? Well, spare a thought for Daniel Rapley. Over the last 18 months he's been copying out the King James Bible, in biro, onto that ruled paper you used to get at school. To get some perspective that's 783,137 words in 31,102 verses and a big chunk of his working life. How does this work as an exhibition? Well you have to be interested in questions of authorship and authenticity (especially as you can only really see the top page... hmmm...) while the only other works on show - seven hand-drawn manuscripts inspired by the mundane matters like his dinner, or the drip of a tap, that came to obsess him as he worked on the Bible - make this an austere, thoughtful little show. / Rob Valid

Q magazine has been celebrating new and upcoming talent all this week with Q Now: The Sessions.  The last of the sessions takes place this Friday at London's XOYO and it should be an explosive finale: it's those talented Brighton scamps Rizzle Kicks. If you’re over 18 head down to XOYO to banish those winter blues and get down to your favourite funky tunes from the hip-hop duo’s debut record Stereotypical. If you've had even half an ear open this year you'll have caught some of their goofy, cartoonish hip-hop - if not, imagine if Will Smith had been the Fresh Prince of Brighton & Hove rather than Bel Air and you should have some idea of the fun that's in store for you. / Deni Kirkova

We all sing along at the end of The Life of Brian, so this weekend the Southbank Centre is calling for an encore to look on the bright side of death (in an unironical way) through a celebration of what will surely come to us all. Consider this four-day festival an awakening from your January blues. Sandi Toksvig will be giving her memorial lecture and Jon Snow will be poking around the ethics of assisted dying. Explore the pimped up Ghanaian coffins (think cocoa beans and Mercedes rather than boring boxes); tune in to the Desert Island Death Discs; or digest the made-to-order Poetry Takeaway and the selection of Death Bites talks on topics, from what happens to your data when you go to the art of obituary writing. We have a pair of day passes up for grabs - check our facebook page on Friday. / Esther Barney

Come the new year, come the new indie hopes. In the year where pop overtook rock in the charts, NME/Six Music types have been (yawn) discussing the Death of Rock (again) and waiting for a band to come riding over the hill and save us all from that nasty nasty dance music. And this week that huge responsibility has fallen on the skinny shoulders of Howler. It's easy to see why - debut album America Give Up is a neat melange of the Great White Hopes that came before them; a dash of the Strokes' ramshackle cool, a pinch of the Drums super-indie cuteness and a simian name (like the Arctic Monkeys, of course). Asking them to save rock music might be a bit unfair, but providing a proper singalong, crowdsurfing gig, even the early afternoon? We think this'll be fun... / Rob Valid

If you’re sick to death of friends who – at this late stage in the year – are still shitting on about their effing detox, wave this under their noses. Charlie and Dave from To The Bone Radio are kicking off another year of killer mixes and insane parties, hosted by Legendary Children. If those tee-total losers don’t budge for this one, ditch them. Immediately. The most heinous month on our otherwise radiant British calendar – January – is crying out for an antidote such as this. So thank you to the Bone Radio lads as they bless re-toxers with House music so bloody good, even the first blistering hangover of 2012 will seem dreamy. Plug this in your ears for a taste of what’s to come. / Lou Whitehead

There aren’t many top DJs out there who played their first live show 20 years ago. There are even fewer who can claim to have been a pioneering force behind their country’s electronic music scene and still be making great music today. One that can is Japanese turntablist sensei DJ Krush. Best known for his atmospheric sample-led production, Krush is also a live act of considerable precision, subtlety and intelligence; creating an immersive live experience that will captivate any audience. This Saturday he is celebrating 20 years of live shows by playing an epic three-hour set alongside fellow Japanese prodigy Anchorsong, as well as friend and past collaborator Jon Moore of Coldcut. Don’t miss this chance to see a true master deliver. / Alex Goddard

Ah, London Transport. With its future forecast looking ominous, due to Bob Crow’s and Boris Johnson’s amour fou, the new Routemaster and Olympic fever clogging the city’s haulage veins, it’s time to cast our minds backwards to the glory days of the metropolis’s infrastructure. The Day Off is Tony Hancock’s legendary ‘lost' film, centered around a London bus driver’s pursuit of love on his day off. Dismissed by Hancock for being too colloquial, the Ray Galton and Alan Simpson screenplay is having its dustcover drawn back and given a new lease of life, thanks to an all-star cast’s unique reading of this forgotten comedy. From single-fare farces to double decker delights, this is one encounter with London transport that’s bound to leave you smiling. All aboard. / Caroline Christie

If you like your theatre inventive and fun, this one’s for you. Rough Fiction is a new company which stages existing fictional works in contemporary, impromptu performances.  In the case of The Love of the Nightingale - a little-known play about the Philomela myth by Timberlake Wertenbaker - that means a different venue each Sunday, and a cast which shuffles parts on a weekly basis in the name of different character interpretations. If that all sounds super-serious, fret not: the show is a hoot. It's full of songs and sniggers in amidst some genuinely touching moments. This Sunday's atmospheric venue is St Luke's Church in Holloway; friend Rough Fiction on Facebook for news of subsequent performances in February. / Richard Mellor

Count Rugen: “STOP SAYING THAT!”

How many films have you watched so many times you can literally recite the entire script? The Princess Bride is mine, a film so chock full of quotable lines it’s almost impossible NOT to memorise it. Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles – it has all the classic elements of a great story with a biting wit and cameos from Billy Crystal, Peter Cook and Peter Falk that has made it an absolute cult classic. The kind of film you could take a girl on a date to see. But if you like to watch your films in studious silence, you’d better not take me – I’ll be that annoying person laughing out loud and quoting all the lines. / Johanna Derry

Opera in Space is a new approach to opera, taking it out of the theatre and reinventing it somewhere else, be it a dilapidated warehouse or the delightful home of the Georgian Group. The Semele Project is a performance of Handel’s opera with story-telling, physical theatre, dance, puppetry and clowning. Co-founder Alice De Ville tells us she and Sylvie Gallant met on a clowning course and decided they’d like to do something that made opera more experimental. ‘We’re taken it different places and so many people say they didn’t think they liked opera until they saw this.’ Call or email to reserve one of the limited places for performances Monday and Tuesday quoting 'I love Ois-ters' to get the 2-for1 deal. / Delaina Haslam

So, how are those resolutions going? Fallen a bit flat have they? Perhaps you need a little kick in the a$$ to get off the sofa? We’ve found just what you need - and with this one, you won’t have to wander far from that sofa (that is, if you live in the epicentre of the universe, ie, east London). Super popular Shoreditch exercise studio, Frame, is popping over to Hackney today for a month-long workout at Netil House. The trendy studio, known for fun and friendly classes like the Jane Fonda Tribute and their very own Frame Method, is also offering pay-as-you-go sessions and some great deals on classes. They’ve got sessions on their timetable for the early risers, the yummy mummys and of course all you freelancing artist types. For schedules and pricing and that, click this right here. / Chloe McCloskey

'Blood represents both life and death. It has the power to fascinate and repel.' This week sees the opening of a photography exhibition with a difference. Eleanor Farmer's Blood, A Circulation of Curiosities is a series of seemingly unconnected works piecing together an understanding of the nature of blood, both as a life-enhancing force and a frightening signifier when seen outside its bodily context. The photographs are candid, rather than gory, and broach diverse subjects, including open-heart surgery, the almost ethereal beauty of a mosquito head photographed through a microscope, a field of poppies and a forensic faculty training site. You can check out the opening view from 5.30pm on Thursday 26th January (RSVP to the email address here), and the exhibition will remain at Guy's Hospital until the 9th of March. / Lara Kavanagh

This is a pub crawl that definitely doesn’t play by the rules, it’s on a Tuesday night, there is no actual crawl between pubs and the soundtrack is provided by a handful of orchestral musicians. Over four nights these musicians from the Age of Enlightenment Orchestra travel the bars and venues of our fair city playing drinking songs from a bygone era – to be specific the songs from the 17^th century composer, Mr Henry Purcell. With me so far? Now here’s the kicker, the sets will be interspersed with and followed by... a DJ. What kind of sweet Restoration Era tunes this superannuated selecta’ will bring to the party I have no idea, but sounds like a hell of a start to the week. / Hugo M

There are folky, female singer/songwriters and female soul singers, but the two rarely combine. Though there are plenty of male soul/folk performers, there are few women with soulful voices standing with guitars in their hands and even fewer female troubadours with the vocal power of a soul singer. Lianne La Havas straddles both genres capably. Her well-crafted and beautiful songs, delivered with a rather wry and beguiling smile, are brought to life by both her classic sounding voice and expressive guitar playing. This is the last of her run of dates at the Social, a venue with an intimacy to match La Havas’ songs. She’s creating quite a buzz after releasing a couple of EPs last year so you would do well to catch her on her way up. / Elliott Childs

Let's face it. We all go a little crackers sometimes. Hell, Tesco have already busted out the Easter candy and it isn't even February. It's enough to drive anyone batty. Old King Georgie Boy The Third didn't have Tesco to send him up the walls, but he did have Charles Fox and a scheming son. And as of 1991, he's had Alan 'History Boys' Benett turning the screws as well. The Apollo is staging a revival of Benett's play about the king who went crazy, with an impressive David Haig tackling the title role. It's definitely worth a look in, if only to remind you how lucky you are to have your wits about you ./ Crystal Bennes
 

During the Arab Spring, the online community were scrambling over each other to post their 140-character comment pieces on how technology is changing the face of democracy. Virtual uprisings, digital insurrections and cybernetic revolutions - technology played a key role in the Middle Eastern uprisings. However, technology is not a faceless field; individuals propel trends and shape how social networks materialise waves of democratic euphoria. Wael Ghonim, creator of the ‘We are all Khaled Saeed’ Facebook page and one-time Google Middle Eastern Head of Marketing talks to Wired editor-at-large Ben Hammersley about the role of social networking in mobilising the streets of Egypt, the role of digital activism in continuing the fight for democracy and the future of revolution 2.0. / Caroline Christie

I’ve a mate in Dublin who didn’t wash for three days because David Shrigley signed his chest. Well, to tell the truth, he didn’t sign it so much as write “this way up” on it. Which my friend then got made permanent by way of a tattoo. So anyway, as stories go, that’s a bit of a non-starter. I have other, better ones, but then so does David Shrigley. But he also has better pictures. And better records. And a rather amazing ability to turn things that are extremely ordinary, and a little bit crap, into things that are more than a little extraordinary and insightful. And when you think about it, that really is one hell of a gift. / Patrick Cannon

le cool is a free weekly magazine distributed every Thursday that features a selection of cultural events and leisure activities, revealing the things you really shouldn't miss. We filter out, among other things, the best art, film, music, and club nights, as well as a careful selection of extraordinary bars, restaurants and other fine places. Our new 2.0-oriented website offers le cool readers new ways of sharing our recommendations and organising their own weekly agenda. le cool content is chosen because we believe it is worth your time and will never be traded for money.

To contact our editorial team, email Mat and send press releases to our lovely assistant editor, Clare. For interviews and photography, it's Tom. For cover art, and silly jokes - always Josh.

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Published by: le cool Publishing

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