As festivals go, the East End Film Festival is one of the shaggier. The problem is, it finds itself caught between two stools: it’s both a festival celebrating East London filmmaking and a film festival that happens to be based in East London.

The programme is dotted with things that have only a notional connection to the East London area, such as its gala screening of the documentary The Libertines - There Are No Innocent Bystanders.

There are also seemingly random events, such as a screening of Taxi Driver “presented” by Adrian Utley from Portishead, or a screening of the director’s cut of Ken Russell’s The Devils.

Either would be a treat to go and see, but what’s the connection? Perhaps the randomness of it all is meant to reflect the idiosyncratic nature of the East End, but it’s hard to not flick through the festival programme and wish there was a bit more shape.

What separates a film festival from being a collection of interesting films to being something truly special, is a sense of there being a curatorial impulse - the idea that the screened films can illuminate things about each other by their presence together.

This doesn’t mean that the festival isn’t filled with worthwhile films and events, but I can’t imagine someone seeing a programmed afternoon by Guillemots during the Camden Crawl feeling inclined to check out the strong Romanian strand in the Festival’s European section, or vice versa.

You could do either and still have a great time, of course, but you might not feel like you’re a part of something. Sometimes that’s enough, if you see a good film. But perhaps a great film festival is one where you see a bad one and that’s still okay.

Everyone loves a good market, and there's a new one in the making at the Islington Mill, an art and studio space in Salford.

Called The Sunday Market, it will be held every weekend from 24th April and is open to anyone who makes their own products, objects, art, zines, clothing, jewellery or even furniture.

You can also trade if you're selling vintage wares or just about anything that isn't found on the high street. Sounds excellent to me.  

Not too long ago I moved to Cambridge and one of the things I miss about living in London is The Tea House in Covent Garden. It's a great shop to visit, largely because they have walls of different tea flavours to explore.

Recently, however, I found an inspiring flavour of tea in the most surprising of places: ASDA supermarket in Cambridge. The tea in question comes from an even more unexpected source, namely the DJ and illustrator, Mr. Scruff.

His album Keep it Unreal got me through Art class in school and now his brand of tea Make Us A Brew is getting me through my university degree. You'll recognise the boxes by the whimsical cartoons that he has drawn on the back. 

His 'Organic lemongrass, yerba mate and mint' brew is particularly effective for those early mornings before work. 

Sometimes clothes just make me feel better. And I feel better the more I know about Element Eden, a fashion brand with an eco-conscience and a group of very fantastic women advocates behind it.

Element's Conscious by Nature collection, for example, presents simple, fitted T-shirts and tops made using environmentally kind materials and manufacturing processes.

Their Summer 2011 lookbook is online now. Have a flick through and get excited about the summer ahead. For now, Element are also running a wee competition where you can win some of their designs. 

We had a small party for friends and contributors to celebrate issue five in Tatty Devine's lovely shop in Brick Lane. Next issue will be our one year anniversary, though, so we're planning something big and you're all invited. We'll keep you posted. There are more photos of the issue five party on our Flickr.

If you're into autobiographical comics about music-loving, photograph-taking, twenty-something London ladies, then chances are Anika Mottershaw's new book Anika In London is right up your alley. The book promises "a peek into the adventures of her life, her musical loves (and occasionally hates) and the ups and downs of living in the Capital". Apart from her autobiographical comic-style drawings, Anika has done illustrations for various places, including a particularly cute Folk Map Of Glastonbury for the British Underground, and her music photography can be seen in a variety of publications (The Wall Street Journal ain't too shabby). She also helps run the wonderful Bandstand Busking. Anika In London will be out on the 3rd of May, and it's the first book to be published by UK record label Something In Construction. Accompanying each book will be a 13 track 'mix' CD curated by Anika, with bands including Wood Pigeon and Wildbirds & Peacedrums.

If you're in London tonight, Something In Construction are throwing a party to celebrate (and it also means you'll be able to pick up a copy of the book before it goes on sale anywhere else). It's all happening at The Strongrooms from 7pm. There'll be live sets from Peggy Sue, Laura Hocking and The Head and the Heart, and DJ sets from The Line Of Best Fit and Wears The Trousers. And if that's not enough, there's free cake and shots to boot. See the Something In Construction site to get yourself on the guestlist. In the meantime, have a peek at Anika's work online: AnikaInLondon.com.

Any illustrator who can combine exquisitely beautiful paintings with a dark undertone gets my vote. Riikka Sormunen is one such artist.

Originally hailing from Finland, Riikka steps away from the conventional and creates a fantasy world of her own. She pairs languid figures and rich patterns with a surreal feeling about them. 

Take a look at Riikka's website for more work, or her blog for a peek at her sketchbooks.

The club night Radio Gagarin has been going for a couple of years now. It's organised by Max Reinhardt of BBC Radio 3 fame, and has been described as a mini-festival with bands and artists collaborating to bring something Russian to London.

To quote Radio Gagarin's official mission statement, it's a night, "fuller than an oligarch's bulging current account with a tundra melting mix of live music, digital DJ prowess, performance art, east European cinema, poetry, puppetry, poverty, posterity, suppositories, sailors, mutineers, rainy day women, heart throbs, natural gas, latkes, blinis and vodka." 

The next Radio Gagarin is this Thursday at the Bethnal Green Working Mens Club. It's being held to celebrate 50 years since the cosonaught Yuri Gagarin's first space flight. A musical highlight is sure to be the outrageous Shetel Superstars.