4.5 London Zoo Lates

 

London Zoo's late-night openings return for 2014, with events taking place every Friday during June and July. Zoo Lates offers a chance to visit the animals (175,000 of ’em, apparently - we admit we haven’t actually counted) after-hours (including the Sumatran tigers in the zoo's Tiger Territory enclosure), as well as enjoying a programme of entertainment covering talks, improv comedy, physical theatre, roving performances, carousel rides and an acoustic stage. There are wine-tasting opportunities and pop-up bars – and street-food stalls serving global cuisine mean human feeding time's well catered for. Age 18+.

4.5 Should London be the world’s first urban national park?

 

London is many things. But is it a place of outstanding natural beauty, such as the Yorkshire Moors, Yellowstone National Park or the Sahara desert? Anyone who has taken a train through Croydon or driven along the North Circular will answer that question with a fervent, resounding and forceful ‘fuck, no’. And there’s no denying that London’s natural beauty is oftenoverlooked in favour of its grand buildings, dingy back alleys and myriad public houses. But perhaps people just aren’t looking hard enough, or in the right places. That’s certainly the idea behind a campaign which aims to have London declared the world’s first urban national park.