London has had a great bar and cafe culture for a while and simply buzzes in the summer with so much energy and busstle that it has to be more than just the caffeine and class A drugs.
The city is at the heart of europes New Media and Contempory and Generative art scenes and deserves its place as one of the worlds brightest and exciting cities.

Beetroot - Berkwick Street, Soho.
A funky little cafe and takeaway that serves vegetarian hot dishes, sarnies (I think), and a selection of drinks including Purdeys (first place I found it) and more obscure drinks like organic guyana juice or whatever. A relaxed place with generous portions (for london) and reasonable prices (for london)

OktoberBierFestBorkBorkBork
Venues & Pubs

London Venues: Spitz, spittlefields market.
I spose I should look into this as I go past it on the way to work everyday and I fancy checking out a live band soon. London Pubs:

The Intrepid Fox, Wardour Street. Soho.
A class little pub with amazing decor and a good old fashioned rock/metal atmosphere. Schlock horror fixtures. While I was there they played old (ie decent) metallica, megadeth, deicide, and misc new generation metal, even an iron maiden number cropped up. Definately a cool place if you're a goth or metalhead and safe from the usual london Nathan Barley media types.

CyberUltraTechnoAcid Beats
Clubs and DJs

Only Manchester and Amsterdam can come close to Londons selection of Nightclubs and DJs - from huge commercial clubs with several floors to cosy little clubs with local homegrown djs and a helthy individualism

Hard Copy
Magazines & Listings

ObTimeoutReference:
TimeOut is probably the most read and widely available magazine about going out and life in London.

The Evening Standard and The Guardian (london edition) both have a very healthy coverage of whats going in london overlapping with each other and timeout - if all three mention something then its probably well worth checking out.

Outside of London there are some great local scenes and magazines

Reading: Blah Magazine, Some Guardian/Timeout coverage, close to london, healthy local scene and atmosphere.
Kingston-U-Thames : Heathy Student scene very close to london.

The Knowhere Guide to Greater & Central London

Dale's London Techno Events. A near definitive guide to whats going on covering most if not all Dance genres and Most worthwile clubs.

Sleepless Party Crew site with decent links and listings

Partyvibe Collective - Organisers, DJs, Musicians & Resources. Very Active and lively site with news and listings. Endorsed by Malcom MacLaren no less.

Threads
Clothes

Londons Covent Garden, Camden and Soho are rich in independant clothes, designers and labels. Not to mention the huge slection of clothes available on Oxford St or the markets Like Portabello, Berwick, Camden Lock and that other one near liverpool st station.

Plum - Berwick Street, SOHO.
A nice selection of independant and UK oriented clothes and shoes, including porn star & howies. Reccomended by TimeOut and with good reason. Quite fas # t stock turnover, with new and different gear in each time I visit (every few weeks).

Star Shoes - 139 Oxford Street.
Upstairs is a fair selection of bags and coats but downstairs I found a pair of shoes that were exactly what I was looking for. Nice if not large collection with very reasonable prices varying from 30 to 150 quid.

Vynl
sounds.

Ambient Soho - Berkwick Street, Soho.
A great selection of top vynl, with decks to try before you buy, right in the heart of soho.