Roisin Teeling

The annual Big Caribbean Lunch is taking up residence in Windrush Square this Sunday for a Windrush Day celebration, turning the heart of SW2 into a kaleidoscope of food, music and culture. Ostensibly a day honouring the Windrush generation and their unparalleled impact on British life, it doubles as one of the best free community events on London’s calendar. While the headline act is the heartwarming complimentary lunch provided to Windrush elders, everyone else is fully catered for with a sprawling Caribbean food market, live music and family fete vibes courtesy of event planning and entertainment collective Just Vibez. Take a breather from the food to browse the outdoor 'Windrush Untold Stories' storyboard exhibition. Do yourself a favour, skip your standard Sunday pub roast, grab the family and head down to the square.

Even if the name Peggy Gou doesn't immediately ring a bell, your eardrums are almost certainly familiar with her work. The South Korean cultural phenomenon is the brains behind ‘(It Goes Like) Nanana’, the inescapable, planet-conquering dance anthem that soundtracked every single festival and pub beer garden back in summer 2023. Now, the global DJ and fashion icon is playing fairy godmother to East London. To celebrate her euphoric new single ‘Wo,man’ (featuring Ayra Starr), she’s opening a one-day-only pop-up called The Gou,tique at Shoreditch’s Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes, where fans can custom cocktails while Gudu Records DJs spin some tunes. The main draw, though, is that Peggy will be gifting 200 mystery items from her personal archive, alongside 100 pieces of classic merch, completely free of charge. It’s strictly first-come, first-served, and you can expect the queue to stretch all the way to Dalston by lunchtime, so bunk off work early and bring your sharpest elbows.

Is Tokyo on your 2026 travel list? Well, we’ve got some not-so-great news: travel to Japan from July 1 is becoming a lot more (as in, five times more) expensive. In the first revision to its visa costs since 1978, Japan is quintupling visa fees for tourists and business travellers starting next week.  So, how much will travellers have to pay? A single-entry visa for one-time visitors will increase from ¥3,000 (£14) to ¥15,000 (£71), while a multiple-entry visa, for those who visit Japan many times a year, will shoot up from ¥6,000 (£28) to ¥30,000 (£141).  Photograph: ShutterstockBullet train in Japan going past Mount Fuji with pink flowers in the foreground The Japanese government says it’s the first time fees have been revised in nearly half a century, and that the increase reflects decades of inflation and exchange rate shifts. Price hikes for permanent residents It’s not only tourists who can expect to dig deep – the new fees are part of a wider immigration overhaul. Japan’s upper house passed legislation in May that raises the cap on fees for longer-term residents. Permanent residency applications could eventually cost up to ¥200,000 (around £1,050), up from ¥10,000 (£47) currently. Very steep. Visa-waiver exemptions Travelling to Japan from the UK soon? You can breathe a sigh of relief, as the July visa updates don’t apply to British passport holders. However, the relaxed entry rules won’t last forever. By 2028, Japan plans to roll out JESTA (Japan Electronic System f

Nine months since it closed, the former home of G-A-Y has opened as a new queer venue. Reclaiming the legendary space at 30 Old Compton Street is Coven: Headquarters. The massive new club proudly bills itself as a space for ‘every letter of LGBTQIA’ and, better yet, it’s spread over a whopping five storeys. The venue is the brainchild of Matthew Jacobs Morgan, who started Coven as a club night in Hackney Wick just last year. Morgan has rapidly scaled the concept into a major queer cultural project and its bricks-and-mortar venue opened this week.  G-A-Y permanently closed its doors in October, with owner Jeremy Joseph blaming rent issues, the area’s dwindling gay identity and NIMBYs. He announced on Instagram he’d be prioritising Heaven nightclub instead.  Frequenters of G-A-Y may find plenty of the old bar’s remnants in the new venue. One of the screens downstairs still has the old logo dimly but permanently burned on, while stacks of branded plastic cups still sit in the cupboards.  Photograph: Roisin TeelingCoven nightclub's grand piano Morgan told Time Out: ‘A month or two before [G-A-Y] closed I came here with a friend and it did feel a little bit sad.’ ‘A lot of the energy that used to be there wasn’t anymore. But it is and always has been a very important space for the community – I want to make sure I’m doing it for them.’ Coven aims to honour the history of the location while confidently establishing its own identity. In the main room, an antique fountain sits cent

The online fashion giant single handedly responsible for the nation’s ‘jeans and a nice top’ epidemic is reportedly eyeing up its first ever permanent physical space. ASOS is apparently currently scouting for a unit of between 4,000 and 8,000 sq ft in a high footfall London location. On the shortlist are the usual suspects for big-brand shopping in the capital: Oxford Street, Regent Street, Long Acre and King’s Road. Photograph: StockStudio Aerials / Shutterstock.comOxford Street, London The ecommerce powerhouse has spent over two decades operating online but has been slowly dipping its toes into physical retail. In 2023, ASOS staged a four storey ‘In Real Life’ pop-up on Rathbone Place, complete with an AR catwalk where visitors could watch life-sized, virtual models through their phones. ASOS followed that up with a Carnaby Street winter pop-up in 2025 featuring exclusive collabs and partywear. Most recently, the brand partnered with Adidas for a pop-up at the sportswear chain’s Oxford Street flagship to celebrate a third collaborative collection. Speaking to Drapers, an ASOS spokesperson said the brand is ‘always exploring new ways to bring the ASOS experience to life’ for customers.   That said, little else is confirmed about ASOS’ potential new bricks-and-mortar London shop. The spokesperson added that ‘there’s nothing to share just yet’,  so for now Londoners will have to keep adding to their digital shopping bags. But rest assured, we are keeping our eyes firmly peel

Consider this your warning in the intermission. The lobby lights are finally flashing for The Broadway in Barking and the east London theatre is officially on track to reopen. Last week, council leaders voted unanimously to appoint artsdepot as its new operator, with the Finchley-based arts organisation planning a partial programme from 2027 before a full reopening in 2028.  The Broadway’s sudden curtain-drop happened in January 2024, thanks to crumbling RAAC. Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete, as it is in longform, is a structural menace that’s been holding public buildings and schools hostage nationwide. The council says the building material will be cleared from the Broadway for good by November of this year.  And thank goodness for that, because this isn't just any old suburban black box theatre. The Broadway has a stranger history than its rep as a local council theatre might suggest. Construction began way back in 1937 as part of a grand Barking Town Hall complex, but war broke out before the auditorium was finished. By 1939 only the basement existed, and it was immediately pressed into service as a public air raid bunker and gas decontamination centre. The theatre above didn’t open until 1961, taking an agonising 24 years to complete. When you’re sitting in the stalls, you’re essentially sitting on a piece of Blitz history.  ShutterstockBroadway Theatre, Barking In the swinging sixties, the venue hosted gigs by British pop rockers the Tremeloes, known for hits l