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Leisure and entertainment
Bond Street, one of Mayfair's main shopping streets within the City of Westminster, the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements. London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district, and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops. The United Kingdom's Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet are based in London and perform at the Royal Opera House, the Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall. Shoreditch and Hoxton in the East End contain a plethora of bars, nightclubs, restaurants and galleries. Islington's one mile (2 km) long Upper Street, extending northwards from The Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK.
Europe's busiest shopping area is Oxford Street, a shopping street nearly one mile (2 km) long—which makes it the longest shopping street in the world—and home to many shops and department stores including Selfridges.The adjoining Bond Street in Mayfair is an extremely upmarket location, home to fashion, jewellery, and accessories design houses. Knightsbridge—home to the Harrods department store—lies just to the southwest. Together with these, the fashionable shopping areas of Sloane Street, and Kings Road represent London's prestigious role in the world of fashion. London is home to designers Vivienne Westwood, Galliano, Stella McCartney, Manolo Blahnik, and Jimmy Choo among others; its renowned art and fashion schools make it an international centre of fashion alongside Paris, Milan and New York. London also has a high number of street markets, including Camden Market for fashions and alternative products, Portobello Road for antiques, and vintage and one-off clothes, and Borough Market for organic and specialist foods.
Within the City of Westminster, the entertainment district of the West End has its focus around Leicester Square, where London and world film premieres are held, and Piccadilly Circus, with its giant electronic advertisements.London's theatre district is here, as are many cinemas, bars, clubs and restaurants, including the city's Chinatown district, and just to the east is Covent Garden, an area housing speciality shops.The United Kingdom's Royal Ballet and the English National Ballet are based in London and perform at the Royal Opera House, the Coliseum, Sadler's Wells Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall.Shoreditch and Hoxton in the East End contain a plethora of bars, nightclubs, restaurants and galleries.Islington's one mile (2 km) long Upper Street, extending northwards from The Angel, has more bars and restaurants than any other street in the UK.
The Trooping the Colour held in 2006 to mark the Queen's 80th birthday. It is held every year as a military parade performed by regiments of the Commonwealth and the British Army.London offers a great variety of cuisine as a result of its ethnically diverse population. Gastronomic centres include the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane and the Chinese food restaurants of Chinatown.Soho's variety of restaurants includes Italian- and Greek-influenced establishments among others, as well as all manner of novelties and oddities. More upmarket restaurants are scattered around central London, with concentrations in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Notting Hill.
There are a variety of regular annual events. The Caribbean-descended community in Notting Hill in West London organises the colourful Notting Hill Carnival, Europe's biggest street carnival, every summer.The beginning of the year is celebrated with the relatively new New Year's Day Parade, while traditional parades include November's Lord Mayor's Show, a centuries-old event celebrating the annual appointment of a new Lord Mayor of the City of London with a procession along the streets of the City, and June's Trooping the Colour, a very formal military pageant to celebrate the Queen's Official Birthday.
Literature and film
Charles Dickens (1812–1870), whose works formed a pervasive image of Victorian LondonLondon has been the setting for many works of literature. Two writers closely associated with the city are the diarist Samuel Pepys, noted for his eyewitness account of the Great Fire, and Charles Dickens, whose representation of a foggy, snowy, grimy London of street sweepers and pickpockets has been a major influence on people's vision of early Victorian London.James Boswell's biographical Life of Johnson mostly takes place in London, and is the source of Johnson's well-known aphorism: "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford." The earlier (1722) A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe is a fictionalisation of the events of the 1665 Great Plague.William Shakespeare spent a large part of his life living and working in London; his contemporary Ben Jonson was also based in London, and some of his work — most notably his play The Alchemist - was set in the city.Later important depictions of London from the 19th and early 20th centuries are the afore-mentioned Dickens novels, and Arthur Conan Doyle's illustrious Sherlock Holmes stories.Trollope's Palliser novels are largely set in London, vividly depicting Westminster and its surrounds. The 1933 novel Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell describes life in poverty in both cities.A modern writer pervasively influenced by the city is Peter Ackroyd, in works such as London: The Biography, The Lambs of London and Hawksmoor. Academic Bloomsbury and hilly Hampstead have traditionally been the liberal, literary heartlands of the city.
London has played a significant role in the film industry, and has major studios at Pinewood, Ealing, Shepperton, Elstree and Leavesden, as well as an important special effects and post-production community centred in Soho in central London. Working Title Films has its headquarters in London.Many films have also used London as a location and have done much to shape international perceptions of the city. See main article London in film.
The city also hosts a number of performing arts schools, including the Central School of Speech and Drama (alumni: Judi Dench and Laurence Olivier), the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (alumni: Jim Broadbent and Donald Sutherland) and the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (alumni: Joan Collins and Roger Moore). The London Film Festival is held each year in October.
Music
The Royal Albert Hall hosts a wide range of concerts and musical eventsLondon is one of the major classical and popular music capitals of the world and is home to major music corporations, such as EMI and Decca Records, as well as countless bands, musicians and industry professionals.
London is home to many orchestras and concert halls such as the Barbican Arts Centre (principal base of the London Symphony Orchestra), Cadogan Hall (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra), the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Promenade Concerts), the Royal Festival Hall (Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Sinfonietta) and Wigmore Hall.London's two main opera houses are the Royal Opera House and the Coliseum Theatre.
As a cultural centre for the United Kingdom, London has had a major role in many popular music movements. It has numerous renowned venues for rock and pop concerts, including large arenas such as Earls Court, Wembley Arena and the Arena, as well as numerous mid-size venues, such as Brixton Academy, Hammersmith Apollo and The London Astoria.The area around the northern end of Charing Cross Road in Westminster is well-known for its shops that sell musical instruments and audio equipment. London was home of one of the legs for both the Live Aid and Live 8 concerts.
London and its surrounding Home Counties have spawned iconic and popular artists. London is home to the first and original Hard Rock Cafe and the illustrious Abbey Road Studios where The Beatles created many of their hits. Musicians such as Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix and Freddie Mercury have lived in London.A large number of musical artists originate from or are most strongly associated with London, includeing David Bowie, Ian Dury, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Madness, The Jam, Blur, Iron Maiden, Elvis Costello, The Yardbirds and The Small Faces.London was instrumental in the development of punk music, with figures such as the Sex Pistols, The Clash, and Vivienne Westwood all based in the city.
London and the surrounding areas are also well known for large summer music festivals that take place annually and feature dozens of performances ranging from local acts and DJs to nationally recognised headline performers. Some of the most popular of these festivals include the Wireless Festival and Latitude Festival (held in July).Although London festivals typically attract large numbers of locals, visitors travel from throughout the UK and Europe to attend the events.
As Britain's largest urban area, London has played a key role in the development of most British-born strains of "urban" and electronic music, such as drum and bass, UK garage, grime and dubstep, and is home to many UK hip hop artists.
The largest entertainment venture of all time, The Phantom of the Opera, a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, premiered here at Her Majesty's Theatre, and emerged as the highest grossing entertainment event in history, making US $3.3 billion, and earning an attendance of 80 million worldwide.
Sport
Wembley Stadium is home to English football and is the most expensive stadium in the world.
The Wimbledon Championships, a tennis Grand Slam tournament.
London has hosted the Summer Olympics twice, in 1908 and 1948.In July 2005 London was chosen to host the Games in 2012, which will make it the first city in the world to host the Summer Olympics three times.London was also the host of the British Empire Games in 1934.
London's most popular sport (for both participants and spectators) is football.London has thirteen League football clubs, including five in the Premier League: Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United.London also has four rugby union teams in the Guinness Premiership (London Irish, Saracens, Wasps and Harlequins), although only the Harlequins play in London (all the other three now play outside Greater London).London also has many other rugby union clubs in lower leagues, including Richmond F.C., Blackheath R.C., Rosslyn Park F.C. and Barnes R.F.C.
There are two professional rugby league clubs in London - Harlequins Rugby League who play in the Super League at the Stoop and the National League side the London Skolars (based in Haringey). In addition London has a strong presence in the Rugby League Conference with sides including the Elmbridge, West London Sharks in Isleworth and South London Storm in Croydon.
Since 1924, the original Wembley Stadium was the home of the English national football team, and served as the venue for the FA Cup final as well as rugby league's Challenge Cup final.The new Wembley Stadium serves exactly the same purposes and has a capacity of 90,000.Twickenham Stadium in west London is the national rugby union stadium, and has a capacity of 84,000 now that the new south stand has been completed.
Cricket in London centres on its two Test cricket grounds at Lord's (home of Middlesex C.C.C) in St John's Wood,and The Oval (home of Surrey C.C.C) in Kennington.One of London's best-known annual sports competitions is the Wimbledon Tennis Championships, held at the All England Club in the south-western suburb of Wimbledon.Other key events are the annual mass-participation London Marathon which sees some 35,000 runners attempt a 26.2 mile (~42 km) course around the city,and the Oxford vs. Cambridge Boat Race on the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake.
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