This weekend’s a corker: the Paralympic Games have arrived, St Paul’s is open late and Kings Cross is staging a festival with a truly delicious concept.

Summer Lates at St Paul’s Cathedral
Take advantage of extended opening hours and free entry at St Paul’s Cathedral on selected nights during the Paralympic Games. Sir Christopher Wren‘s English Baroque masterpiece tends to invoke hushed awe, so it’s appropriate that the Summer Lates openings are intended for quiet reflection. Guides and priests will be on hand to  explain the cathedral’s history and spiritual life, while organ notes drift around you. The cathedral floor will be open from 6pm until 9pm with a short service at 8.45pm, and the cool underground crypt will be selling “Best of British” refreshments until 10pm.
31 Aug, 3 Sep and 7 Sep

London Live at Trafalgar Square
As the Paralympic Games take the stage in the UK’s sporting summer, BT London Live has moved its site offering free London 2012 celebrations to Trafalgar Square. You’ll be able to try out Paralympic sports like sitting volleyball, wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis, chill out to live music or watch coverage of the Paralympics on a giant screen. It’s free entry and unticketed – just turn up.
Until 9 Sep

King’s Cross Ice Cream Festival
The organisers of the King’s Cross Ice Cream festival don’t just want you to eat the cool white stuff. They’re calling on ice cream fans to get hands on with the creative process, from milking a cow at the petting farm to experimenting with the latest nitrogen technologies to whip up some frozen delights. The festival is being held in the new Granary Square in Kings Cross and will showcase the best local ice creams from London and the South East.
1-2 Sep

Bowiefest at the ICA
The first ever festival dedicated to David Bowie’s film career will touch down at the Institute of Contemporary Arts this weekend for screenings, talks and a Bowie themed party on the opening night. Re-aquiant yourself with cult classics from the 1970s and 1980s like Labyrinth, where Bowie played Jareth the goblin king, alongside a cast of puppets from Muppets creator Jim Henson. 
31 Aug-2 Sep

Chelsea AutoLegends
Classic cars will take over Royal Hospital Chelsea‘s grounds on Sunday, as the third Chelsea AutoLegends event brings motoring fever to west London. The bill includes supercar and rally car parades and the chance to meet celebrities like five-times Le Mans winner Derek Bell. One exciting addition is the festival’s new celebration of women in motorsport, fronted by model and race driver Jodie Kidd. Another highlight will be seeing Bloodhound SCC, a car that looks like a rocket with good reason: its team are trying to break the elusive 1000mph speed barrier.
2 Sep

Got another event to add to our list? Add it in the comments below.

If you’re feeling brave this Halloween, there’s plenty of ghoulish food and drink to try in London.

At Artesian bar, you can enjoy a scary Vieux Carre cocktail, containing cognac, rye whiskey, vermouth, bitters and herbal liqueur, plus two special ingredients: Columbian giant ants and mopani worms!

Or perhaps you’d prefer The Living Room’s spine-tingling Zombie, Corpse Reviver or Blood & Sand cocktails? (These cocktails are a little tamer: despite the names there are no creepy ingredients.)

Over at Gelupo in Soho, you can enjoy a Sanguinaccio gelato, made from chocolate, pigs’ blood and Marsala. Or head to Harrods for some more traditional treats: chocolates in the shape of witches, ghosts, pumpkins, skulls and eyeballs.

Even cupcakes are going spooky this Halloween. There’s a devilishly delicious selection available at The Hummingbird Bakery, topped with spiders’ webs, monsters, ghosts and pumpkins.

AAGGHH! It’s Alive! comes to Fortnum & Mason’s Demonstration Kitchen on 27 October. You can find out how to make scary Halloween dishes, from finger pies to worm cakes, perfect for Halloween parties.

Or pop into Carluccio’s for some terrifyingly good gifts for trick-or-treaters, including pumpkin lollies, ghost and pumpkin biscuits, ghost meringues, bat biscuits, Halloween jellies and chocolate pumpkins.

Happy Halloween!

This week, we’ve spotted this great video from lebensgeniesser1, although the credits say it was written by Dave Hughes, with co-writers Chris, Fiona, James, Joleen, Niamh, Richard, and Stuart.

They describe it as follows:

an experiment — mixing (a) old friends, (b) new friends, (c) the capital city of a kingdom, (d) 1,200 photos, and (e) late afternoon ice cream in the park.

It certainly looks like they had a great time. Look out for the V&A, Harrods, Hyde Park and Old Compton Street in Soho on a pretty packed day out in London. Plus great music from The Killers!

Another successful Ben and Jerry’s Sundae on The Common came and went this weekend. Millions of calories of delicious free ice cream were consumed (if the amount we ate was anything to go by!), there were great sets from the likes of Doves and Idlewild, and there was all the usual Ben and Jerry’s fun to be had (toe wrestling anyone?)

Festival-goers paid their respects to gone-but-not-forgotten ice creams at the Flavour Graveyard, and were rewarded with pieces of the legendary ‘Wich (ice cream sandwich) which was resurrected for one weekend only.

This year’s event had a Fair Trade focus as the ice cream brand is committed to making all its products Fair Trade by 2011. As if we needed another reason to eat ice cream!

It’s definitely ice cream weather in London and we hope you’re all out and about and enjoying the sunshine.

Should you wish to cool down with an ice cream, where would you go? Are you a Mr Whippy fan, do you prefer the American style cold stuff from Ben & Jerry’s, or perhaps a fro-yo from Snog?

Visit London wants to know: where do you go for the best ice cream in London?