September 1968 – September 2008: Time Out celebrates its fortieth anniversary. Tony Elliott was just a Keele University student when he launched Time Out with the £70 his aunt gave him for his twenty-first birthday. Now he is sixty-one and the chairman of a multimillion-pound empire. To celebrate this success the main story this week covers the forty most famous Londoners in this anniversary edition (today in the shops for £2.95).

Time Out is quite simply the best resource to find out what’s going on in London. It’s a weekly listings magazine, famous for its cultural reference value with listings for film, theatre, fashion, literature, restaurants, clubs, parties, festivals and events – tailored to each city. It expanded from the London edition to cities across the globe. It has established a worthy online presence to provide its readers with news and useful information that constitutes twenty-three different city editions.

You can find Time Out everywhere: London, Chicago, New York, Paris, Beijing, Dubai, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Cyprus, Moscow, Athens, Singapore, Saint-Petersburg, Bucharest, Almaty, Jerusalem, Kiev, Mumbai, New Delhi, Abu Dhabi, Sydney, Shanghai and Barcelona, and from 2008, also in Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong. Every edition is unique and rich with event listings, complemented by articles, typically featuring celebrities appearing in one of the listed events.

40 years, 52 covers per year and 86,000 copies for about 374,000 readers every week: Happy birthday Time Out!