OK so the sun might not be shining 24/7 (as was promised by the professionals) but all over the capital that Summer Feeling is still taking hold, keeping everyone’s spirits running high and meaning you want to spend your weekend out and about doing cool fun stuff rather than holed up indoors watching re-runs of Friends.

So here are a couple London festivals taking place this weekend to keep you entertained:

London Vintage Festival

The Vintage Festival, brings together a huge variety of retro and vintage film, fashion, art and music elements with catwalk shows throughout the day featuring model such as Pearl and Daisy Lowe and top fashion designers. You can even have a go at some dance lessons, get a retro makeover or take a workshop in anything from cross-stitching lessons to designing your own vintage tees!

For the first time, eight different nightclubs will be pumping out music from 1950s to the present day and each evening the Royal Festival Hall will host a themed vintage revue.

Day and weekend passes plus a ticket to the Revue show start at £75 (only £60 without the evening show) – head on over to the website to book yours today. And if you like the sound of that, keep an eye out for the Qype Does London newsletter for more festival fun.

Foodies Festival

Image courtesy of Flickr user AC.graphics

Head down to Battersea Park this weekend to experience the Foodies Festival – a dream day out for foodies all over London with masterclasses, tasting sessions and demonstrations from top chefs including Angela Hartnett and Jun Tanaka.

Restaurants will be opening pop-up stall for the weekend and you can even take home the tastes of the day with purchases from the specialist produce market.  Tickets are only £15 or £25 for all 3 days.

Studio Ghibli’s beautifully enchanting new animation, Arrietty, lands in cinemas later this week. Adapted from Mary Norton’s children’s classic The Borrowers and scripted by the Oscar-winning director of Spirited Away, Hayao Miyazaki, the film tells the story of 14-year-old adventurous Arrietty.

Despite being warned by her family of “little” people to never let humans see her, she is determined to explore the world beyond the floorboards of a sprawling mansion, set in the magical, overgrown garden in the suburbs of Tokyo.

To celebrate the cinema release, we’ve got a collection of Studio Ghibli DVD’s including Ponyo, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle to give away. And as if all that wasn’t enough, we’re also giving away a £50 voucher to spend at the Japan Centre, where the goodies on offer include sake, sushi kits, manga, magazines and much more.

For a chance to win, all you need to do is enter is email us with the subject line ‘Arrietty’ before 12pm on Tuesday 2nd August. Good luck!

Qype events in the past have covered everything from erotic masterclasses to tequila tasting. But thanks to last night’s event, we can add competitive eating to the list!

Ten heavyweights, greenhorns (a nicer word for lightweights) and their cheerleaders descended on The Blues Kitchen in Camden last night for an evening of competitive hot dog eating. Based on the world-famous July 4th competition in Coney Island, competitors have to finish as many hot dogs as they can manage in 30 minutes.

It got messy.

The rest of the competitors powered through despite meat sweats and a series of worrying groans. By the end of the competition, two heavyweights had to be disqualified because they couldn’t keep their hot dogs down and one had backed out altogether.

Techniques varied throughout the competition. Some (like Scott) favoured the slow and steady approach, making good use of the mustard…

…while others (like Judith and Toby) washed down their hot dogs with Jager shots:

But the winners made it through unscathed! Craig won the heavyweight category, packing away 18 hot dogs, while Stuart was our greenhorn champion and managed a very respectable 12. They took home a £50 voucher for The Blues Kitchen each, as well as a bellyful of frankfurters.

Thanks to The Blues Kitchen for having us! Check out the reviews from the event on their Qype listing.