The London Tweed Run

Are your sartorial senses dismayed by today’s lycra-clad cyclists? Celebrate proper cycling attire at the annual Tweed Run, a refined bike ride through London in which all participants are dressed in tweed. Many of the bicycles used match the traditional clothing, and you’ll see unicycles and vintage bikes amongst the mass of cyclists. Places for participants have now been allocated, but spectators can watch along the route – keep an eye on the Tweed Run website for details. 13 Apr

The E4 Udderbelly Festival

Get ready to giggle as the upside-down purple cow returns to the South Bank for another summer of top comedy, circus and cabaret. Not only does the E4 Udderbelly Festival give you the chance to see hilarious acts such as Richard Herring and Stephen K Amos, but the festival space also boasts a huge outdoor bar which is great for sunny afternoons. Visit the festival website for ticket and schedule information. 12 Apr-14 Jul 

Asia House Festival

Immerse yourself in the Orient at the fourth Asia House Fair, which features the best in arts, crafts and design from across Asia. More than 35 stalls will be present, offering unusual handmade gifts from the likes of China Life, Memsahib and Treasures from the Silk Road. Visitors can also enjoy Afternoon Tea in Mackwood’s Tea Room. Entry is free and you can check the fair’s opening times on the Asia House website. 12-14 Apr

The RHS Orchid and Botanical Art Festival at Royal Horticultural Halls

See spectacular displays of orchids at the Royal Horticultural Society’s show, which presents displays from prominent British and international growers. Visitors can also shop for beautiful plants, listen to talks by orchid experts and marvel at the largest botanical art display of the year. Tickets are £8 and can be booked on the RHS website, where you can also view the show’s opening times.  11-13 Apr

Spring Open Weekend at the London Transport Museum Depot, Acton

Celebrate the 150th anniversary of the London Underground at the London Transport Museum’s Depot, which houses more than 400,000 items. As well as seeing the Metropolitan Steam Locomotive No. 1 in steam, families can ride the model railway, listen to talks, see fascinating displays and even make their own model steam train. Tickets are £10 and the event runs from 11am-5pm both days. 13-14 Apr

More London events

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the London Underground, the oldest subterranean railway in the world. A major exhibition at the London Transport Museum opens this week, celebrating one of the most distinctive elements of the Tube – design. The multicoloured lines on the iconic map make order out of chaos, and also provide inspiration for artists and scientists alike. Here are some of our favourite re-imaginings.

The Real-time Tube Map

This fascinating map plots the live location of each train on the Tube network, using departure data from Transport for London. Matthew Somerville created it in 2010 at a ‘hack’ weekend – a gathering of designers and web developers who create projects from scratch over several days.

The History of Music Tube Map

Pop, rock, punk and funk are all there on this brilliant Music on the Tube map, which charts 100 years of popular music thanks to the efforts of the folks on the Guardian’s Culture Vulture blog. Each station is an artiste, and it’s fun to see where Michael Jackson intersects with Basement Jaxx and Bob Dylan links up with The Rolling Stones.

The Geographically Accurate Tube Map

Have you noticed that stations on the London Underground’s map can appear to be in different parts of the capital, yet are minutes away by foot? The map is designed to be easily read and understood, but this geographically accurate version from Project Mapping reveals the true locations of the stops, relative to each other.

The Electric Tube Map

The recently-completed Overground network (the orange line on the map) can take you in a complete ring around the city, albeit with several changes in between. Taking this as artistic inspiration, The Electric Tube uses concentric circles for the orbital sections of the Circle Line and Overground network and straight lines for the Central and Piccadilly Lines. It accurately shows where each train line connects, and uses a sine wave for the Northern Line’s Bank branch which crosses the Circle Line no fewer than three times. The map was the brainchild of Oliver O’Brien from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at University College London.

 The Bikes on the Tube Map

Bicycles are only permitted on certain parts of the Tube (mainly lines outside of the centre, such as the Circle and District lines) and at certain times (outside of rush hours). This handy map from Transport for London points them out, as well as detailing the lines on which carrying a fold-up bike is allowed while a regular bike is not. An invaluable resource for cyclists wanting to take the Underground to speed up part of a journey.

Find more events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Tube.

By Bengt Bjorkberg

Standing on a platform in Moorgate station and seeing a steam train roll in is not an everyday occurrence, but I had the pleasure of experiencing it this month. OK, it was not a surprise as such, I had gotten my tickets, and London Transport Museum had pulled out all the stops to ensure that this would be a truly unique experience. Not only were there a station manager and police constable in period clothing, there was even a brass quintet entertaining passengers in the station lobby, not to mention the number of passengers that had put on their Sunday best. In fact the number of fellow commuters who seemed to have period Sunday best, ca. 1880-1940 surprised me and I felt under dressed myself!

Whatever interest you may have in trains and underground transportation; there is something magical about the old carriages being pulled by a steam locomotive. I admit that I, like most six-year-olds, dreamt of becoming a train driver for at least a week, but also must admit that I have been known to call roadside assistance for a flooded engine, so I have no specialist interest as such.

Saying that, the sound, smell and sight of this mode of transportation still awakes some romantic interest in the old days and this journey showed me what it may have been like. From the old “What to do in air raids” posters that are still in the third-class carriages to the detailed re-creation of the gas lamps in first-class carriage 353, to the Metropolitan Railways coat of arms on the locomotive, it all served to make it a unique experience of how it used to be.

Even if you did not have tickets, there was a chance to see the train along its route as it travelled from Moorgate to Edgeware Road and back. Judging by the number of smiling TfL workers, Transport Police officers and commuters who took the opportunity so snap a picture, it was worth the standard fare to see the train go by.

Did you encounter any of the Steam and Heritage Train Journeys this January? Tell us about it in the comments below

London Transport Museum

Your first stop for any transport-related tourism. At the London Transport Museum you can find out all about the world’s first underground railway, learn about its famous roundel logo and pick up Tube merchandise in the shop, from Tube map iPad covers to books about the Tube.

The museum is great for kids, with plenty of interactive exhibits, including vintage buses to climb on and a simulator giving you the chance to drive a Tube train. This year, the museum is hosting a special anniversary exhibition about poster art on the Tube and has a programme of special events to mark the 150th anniversary.

London Transport Museum Depot at Acton

If the London Transport Museum whets your appetite, head to the museum’s store in West London where you can see the rest of the collection which is not in display in the main museum. There are more than 370,000 objects here, including vehicles, signs, posters, uniforms and photographs. The depot is not open every day and can only be visited on a guided tour or during open weekends. This year’s open weekends are in April and October.

Brunel Museum

The Tube isn’t the only London icon celebrating a big birthday this year; the Thames Tunnel, which connects Rotherhithe and Wapping, turns 170. Built by Marc Brunel and his son Isambard Kingdom Brunel, this is the oldest tunnel in London.

It was designed to carry cargo from one side of the river to the other, but that proved too expensive and so the tunnel opened instead as a tourist attraction in 1843, with visitors paying a penny to walk beneath the river.

In 1869, the first passenger trains ran through the tunnel. It was later used as part of the East London Underground line and is now part of the London Overground. Take one of the Brunel Museum’s excellent guided tours, where you can enter the Grand Entrance Hall of the tunnel.

Museum of London and Museum of London Docklands

At these two museums, you can learn about the Tube’s construction and how it affected a growing city. At the Museum of London’s People’s City gallery, which looks at the rapid expansion of the city between the 1850s and 1950s, you can find out how the Tube and new technologies in transport transformed the way people navigated the city.

Over at the Museum of London Docklands, the New Port, New City gallery examines how the docklands area has boomed in the past few decades, including the building of the Docklands Light Railway (DLR). You can also see part of a DLR carriage on display.

Have we missed anything? Let us know where else you can learn about the Tube

London throws up some dilemmas for the eager event-goer this weekend. Should you check out the contenders for the biggest prize in modern art, or delve through the Transport Museum’s rarely-seen depot collection? There’s also cut-price gastronomy and the chance to see a British music icon reborn as a hologram on stage. You might find it hard to choose.

London Transport Museum Depot Open Weekend

The London Transport Museum’s depot in Acton holds more than 400,000 objects that are not on display in the main museum – from historical cars, trains and buses to posters, signs and engineering drawings. This family-friendly open weekend lets you explore the collection and dabble in activities like craft workshops, miniature railway rides and storytelling with children’s book character Toby the Taxi. 6-7 Oct

Turner Prize 2012 at Tate Britain

The four short-listed artworks for this year’s Turner Prize are being hailed as some of the most though-provoking in the award’s 28-year history. Film is the medium of choice for two of the finalists: Luke Fowler blends archive footage and new film to explore the life and work of Scottish psychiatrist RD Laing, while Elizabeth Price’s video installations dissect our relationship with consumer culture. Perhaps the most fascinating pieces are Paul Noble’s detailed drawings of an entire fictional city called Nobson Newtown. The exhibition is at Tate Britain and the winner will be announced in December. Until 6 Jan

Best of Britannia at The Farmiloe Building

You’ll spot Made in Britain labels all over the place at the Best of Britannia show, a new celebration of British-made and British-designed products at The Farmiloe Building in Clerkenwell. The eclectic lineup of talks features a Cumbrian shepherdess and the folks behind men’s health charity Movember, and each evening hosts live music including an appearance from a hologram of an iconic British superstar who has yet to be revealed. 5-7 Oct

London Restaurant Festival

Snap up some grub from Michelin Star restaurants like Trishna at seriously reduced prices at the London Restaurant Festival. Over 800 resturants have laid on two and three-course menus from £10 for this celebration of the capital’s gastronomy. At the other end of the price scale, if you can stump up £145 , the Gourmet Odyssey event takes you on a tour of top establishments on an old-fashioned red routemaster bus, tasting one course at each venue. Until 15 Oct

What events will you be at this weekend? Post below and let us know.

This week’s picture is a poster from the new exhibition Painting by Numbers: Making Sense of Statistics at the London Transport Museum.

Turning data into pictures to make it clearer to understand is a hot topic right now, but it’s not just a recent internet phenomenon – in the 2nd century, Egyptians used tables to organise astronomical information. In the 1920s, London Transport got in on the act with posters explaining public transport.

Head to the museum to see these vintage posters alongside an exhibition exploring the future of travel in London over the next decade.

Painting by Numbers: Making sense of Statistics at the London Transport Museum 6 January – 18 March 2012. Exhibitions included in admission price adult £13.50, children under 16 free. www.ltmuseum.co.uk

• Visit one of London’s wonderful parks or take a dip in a London lido
• Party at Ministry of Sound as The Gallery celebrates the launch of Marcel Woods‘ new album. 9 Jul
• If you’re feeling brave get your haircut by children as part of LIFT festival. Haircuts are free. 10 Jul
• Head to Sadler’s Wells for Step LIVE, a performance with more than 200 talented students from schools across London and free dance activities in the foyer. Activities from 4pm, performance 6pm. 10 Jul
• Learn how to ride a unicycle at London Transport Museum – workshops for adults and kids. Advance booking essential. 10 Jul
• Catch the last few days of the Streatham Festival (where Lettice had fun making floral corsages this week). Until 11 Jul
• Watch the World Cup Final in London. 11 Jul

Good luck to those of you taking part in the British 10K on Sunday. And don’t forget to enter our Vinopolis giveaway.

This weekend promises to be an exciting one with both Covent Garden and London Transport Museum celebrating their birthdays, and of course, England’s big game tonight:

• Watch England play Algeria in style at Everyman Hampstead cinema. 18 Jun 2010
• Explore Proud Camden‘s “living jungle” at their new weekly Tales of the Unexpected: The Forbidden Forest party. 18 Jun 2010
• Celebrate Covent Garden’s 180th birthday with one big weekend-long party. 18-20 Jun 2010
• If you missed out on Sonar tickets, head to the Big Chill Bar’s So NOT Barcelona event which promises enough beats and bass to make your forget all about Spain. Until 19 Jun 2010
• Take the kids to Battersea Park for a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party with a free performance of Wayne Sleep’s Wonderland – scenes from Alice. Albert Gate, Battersea Park, 12-4pm, 19 Jun 2010

London Transport Museum celebrates its 30th birthday this weekend with two days of fun events for all the family.

The first 30 visitors (15 on Saturday and 15 on Sunday) will get entry to the museum for just £1.40 (the entrance price in 1980).

Plus, there’ll be:

• a 1950s Routemaster bus outside the museum, which you can climb onboard and explore
• a birthday trail for kids
• handling sessions where you can examine a Gibson ticket machine and a ticket collector’s notebook
• a chance for young artists to create their own transport posters
• competitions and giveaways

London Transport Museum’s birthday celebrations, 19-20 Jun 2010

Early in the 20th century, London’s population grew so much that public transport had to expand, enabling thousands of people to go and live in the suburbs and commute into Central London for work. The Suburbia exhibition is packed with previously unseen posters, Londoners stories and memorabilia celebrating public transport’s contribution to the London suburbs.

Areas formerly outside London became more like London villages and new stations were built. Stunning posters were commissioned for the tube encouraging Londoners to move to the suburbs – work all day in the city, then escape and spend your leisure time in a heavenly paradise like Edgware or Morden.

The exhibition celebrates the great suburban pastime of gardening (hence the gnomes) and includes video clips of entertaining fictional suburbanites like Reggie Perrin and Margo Leadbetter.

The history of commuting is brought bang up to date with suburban inspired pop songs and a loving tribute to the iPod, a necessity for every commuter who needs to drown out the inane blather of the vacuous twit on the mobile phone.

If you know London well, you’ll love searching through the old sepia photos looking for pics of your local high street when it contained a horse and cart instead of a kebab shop!

The Suburbia exhibition is great fun and captures the spirit of the suburbs. Afterwards you can go and play on the old trains. Bliss. The exhibition runs till 31 March 2010.