Telecom news

• Interserve shareholders may decide they deserve better

  13-11-2018 20:51 via ft.com
  Investors are sick of being forced into emergency share issues under threat of dilution
  
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• What I wish I’d known before my smartphone was snatched

  11-05-2024 05:00 via ft.com
  As phone theft surges, how can you protect your financial data?
  
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• Tickets Alert: Tours of the BBC studios at Alexandra Palace

  10-05-2024 11:45 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Next month, there’s a chance to tour the original BBC studios inside the Ally Pally where television was born.
  BBC Studios May 2023 (c) ianVisits
  The space is pretty run down now, but still has the echoes of the time that actors and musicians would perform in the rooms and the many technicians stood off screen to control what went on.
  When it started, the BBC leased the entire East Wing of the Alexandra Palace for the new television service, with former dining rooms transformed into studio
  
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• Large light show filling Trafalgar Square tonight for the National Gallery’s 200th birthday

  10-05-2024 07:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  If you head to Trafalgar Square tonight and tomorrow evenings (10th & 11th May), you’ll see a large light show projected onto the National Gallery for its 200th anniversary.The show is part of the Gallery’s Big Birthday Weekend, and the light show is a completely free and unticketed way to celebrate the Gallery’s 200th birthday home in the heart of central London.
  Conceived by the National Gallery, produced by Nvisible Productions, and designed in collaboration with Visual
  
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• Charity abseiling off landmark London buildings

  09-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  If you fancy flinging yourself off the top of some tall buildings, and doing so for charity, there’s a number of chances to abseil down them this year.
  Several are in the City of London, one in Stratford, Whitechapel, and next to the Thames.
  Most have a modest registration fee, and then there’s a minimum amount that you need to raise from people sponsoring you to perform the deed.Leadenhall Building (the cheesegrater)
  This June, the Lord Mayor’s Appeal will take you up to the 4
  
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• See inside one of the legendary Isokon flats

  09-05-2024 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The Isokon Flats in north London are famous as much for their architecture as for the bohemian lifestyle of the residents in their early years. Now, one of the residents occasionally opens their flat to the public.The Isokon Flats were designed in the early 1930s by Canadian engineer Wells Coates for Molly and Jack Pritchard as an experiment in minimalist urban living. The flats had modest kitchens but also a communal kitchen for everyone to share.
  The flats attracted a wide range of residents,
  
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• Government set to approve £1 billion tunnels for HS2-Euston link

  09-05-2024 14:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The government is expected to confirm that HS2 will dig tunnels linking the high-speed railway to Euston station, although there’s still no confirmation that Euston station will be built.
  HS2 tunnel entrance next to the M25 motorway
  The Financial Times reported, citing industry sources, that approval for the £1 billion pair of tunnels from Old Oak Common to Euston is expected to be given shortly. The £1 billion cost is based on the 2019 figures, so the final bill will be higher
  
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• Architects invited to redesign the British Museum

  09-05-2024 12:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Plans to redevelop about a third of the British Museum building have taken a step forward with an invitation to architects to propose their designs.
  Great Court of the British Museum (c) ianVisits
  The western side of the Museum, where the redevelopment will take place, currently houses houses collections from Ancient Egypt, Greece (including the Parthenon Sculptures), Rome, Ancient Assyria, and the Middle East. Including the galleries, the redevelopment will encompass about a third of the Britis
  
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• Rediscovering Tropical Modernism: From colonial imposition to sustainable architecture

  09-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A style of architecture born in damp Britain for use in hot colonies would have been expected to die off when independence arrived, but it flourished until it was killed off by something we’re trying to get rid of today.
  The style, Tropical Modernism, is universally recognisable. It adopts and adapts ancient building ideas to keep interiors cool in hot climates, but it strips away decorative flourishes to create a very obviously modernist look.This exhibition at the V&A Museum focuses
  
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• Clapham Common incident exposes gaps in London Underground staff training, RAIB finds

  08-05-2024 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  London Underground staff were not trained to handle a situation in which people smashed a window to get out of a carriage at Clapham Common tube station, according to a report by the Rail Accident Investigation Branch (RAIB).
  The damaged train in depot after the incident (c) TfL/RAIB
  The incident saw a tube train stop after an alarm was pulled, and then passengers tried to break out of the train after reports of smelling smoke. The report found that station staff were not equipped to deal with a
  
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• South by Southwest (SXSW) is coming to London

  08-05-2024 15:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  America’s world famous festival, South by Southwest (SXSW), will be coming to London next year.
  SXSW has been running in Austin, Texas, for nearly 40 years and attracts some 300,000 people to the festival. London is unlikely to garner such attendance numbers in its first year but could well grow into one of London’s larger annual festivals over time. The risk could be that it crowds out other similar concept events in London all year round as the organisers choose to join the SXSW br
  
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• You can now rent Tube stations for private events

  08-05-2024 14:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Transport for London (TfL) has started allowing some of its tube stations to be used for private events.
  Tube stations and similar locations have long been used for filming everything from heritage films to adverts and even Star Wars movies, but they’re very rarely used for events – until now at least.
  TfL is now offering to hire out several tube stations, some of its river piers, and the cable car for events.
  Charing Cross platforms (c) ianVisits
  That includes the closed ticket hall
  
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• Ham House’s rare opening of their cabinets to show off their interiors

  08-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  This weekend, loads of highly decorated doors will be unlocked for a rare chance to see what’s behind their ornate panels.
  An ebony cabinet, made in around 1675, decorated with floral marquetry, in the Long Gallery at Ham House, London | (c) National Trust Images/John Hammond
  These are a rare collection of wood cabinets that are opened just twice a year for visitors to explore their unique artisanship during the Cabinets Unlocked showcase. The collection of cabinets, held at Ham House near
  
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• The London Eye is now a permanent London attraction

  08-05-2024 11:10 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  It’s been a fixture of the London skyline for so long that it can be a surprise to learn that the London Eye is technically a temporary structure – but not anymore. Last night, Lambeth Council granted permanent planning permission for the London Eye, removing the temporary status which would have needed to be renewed in 2028.
  Photo by Ismail Merad on Unsplash
  The updated planning permission now includes a clause that 1% of the attraction’s annual turnover will be paid towards t
  
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• A visit to the John Lewis and Waitrose heritage centre

  08-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A small village not far from London contains over a century’s worth of information about that most British of retailers — John Lewis.
  It’s here in Cookham for a reason, as this is where John Spedan Lewis bought land to set up a country retreat for staff. However, plans drawn up in 1927 for a large estate never came to fruition, but the company still owns the land. Although the country club never arrived, a pottery was set up by Spedan Lewis to provide work for ex-servicemen, an
  
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• Overnight delivery for the Natural History Museum’s new Diplodocus skeleton

  08-05-2024 07:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Late at night last week, a huge skeleton of a Diplodocus dinosaur was delivered to the Natural History Museum, but when it goes on display, you won’t call it Dippy.
  Long lorry delivery of the bronze Diplodocus cast arriving at the Natural History Museum (c) The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London
  Although you won’t call it Dippy, the newly delivered Diplodocus is a brand new bronze cast that’s based on Dippy, which itself was a plaster cast donated by Andrew Carnegie
  
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• Half price entry to top London venues for Londoners

  07-05-2024 19:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A number of London venues are offering half-price tickets to residents for the next few weeks, so now is your chance to visit those touristy venues you’ve never really got around to.Living in London can mean there are so many things to do all the time that the permanent venues can feel like they’re something that can be visited another day. Before long, you’ve lived in London for a decade and still haven’t been to them.
  Now, they’re half-price, so if you’re in
  
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• Tickets Alert: See inside the Bishopsgate Goodsyard arches

  07-05-2024 16:15 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Ahead of their redevelopment, there will be a chance to visit the empty arches underneath Spitalfields’s Bishopsgate Goodsyard.
  Brathwaite Arches (c) Ballymore and Hammerson
  Proposals to redevelop the old goods yard after it was destroyed in a massive blaze in 1964 have been stalled for decades over what to do with the site that stretches across the borough boundary between Tower Hamlets and Hackney.
  The redevelopment plans, which have been controversial at times, will see much of the site
  
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• Nick Waplington’s photography explores the private lives of 1980s Britain

  07-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  If you want a glimpse of late 1980s Britain, visit an art gallery in Mayfair, where huge photographs of ordinary households are on display.Taken by Nick Waplington, who released a book of photos taken around Nottingham in the late 1980s offering a candid look at the lives of the people of the time.
  It’s an uneasy exhibition, at once fascinating as if visiting an exhibition of the past is to learn about how things were done there, but at the same time awkward as you’re peering into th
  
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• Uncovering Michelangelo at the British Museum: From bums and willies to spiritual redemption

  07-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A man who was rather fond of drawing men’s bums and willies has filled a room in the British Museum with drawings of bums and crosses. Michelangelo’s willies were largely covered over in later years by scandalised puritans within the Catholic church.
  The museum has put on a mixed exhibition that looks at the last few decades of Michelangelo’s work, ranging from his close friendship with a nobleman, described as a “friend”, his spiritual friendship with a lady, archi
  
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• Gatwick Express 40th anniversary – From British Rail to Supertrain

  07-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Later this week marks the 40th anniversary of the official opening of the Gatwick Express, but not the 40th anniversary of when it carried its first passengers – that’s next week.
  That’s because although the official launch, with the dignitaries and speeches, took place on Thursday 10th May 1984, the first passengers couldn’t catch their first trains until Monday 14th May 1984. So while there are two “first days”, Gatwick Express correctly considers the day it
  
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• Cuckfield’s Cold War bunker open days announced

  03-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  If you fancy a nice summer’s day trip to the picturesque town of Cuckfield to see a relic of nuclear war, then some open days have been announced.The Cuckfield Royal Observer Corps post is a small underground bunker, one of over 1,500 that were built to monitor the fallout from a nuclear war. Closed down in the 1990s as no longer needed, most are derelict or flooded, but some have been restored, such as the one in Cuckfield.
  It’s been restored to the state it was when it closed down,
  
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• Tickets Alert: Tours of the London Palladium theatre

  03-05-2024 12:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  For the first time in five years, the London Palladium in central London will run backstage tours of the building for a few weeks this summer.
  London Palladium (c) LW Theatres
  Owned by Andrew Lloyd Webber, The London Palladium first opened its doors in 1910 and has hosted legendary performers such as Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, The Beatles and Madonna, and been the home of acclaimed musicals such as Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Sound of Music and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
  Th
  
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• Tickets Alert: Architecture tours of Heals department store

  02-05-2024 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Tottenham Court Road’s Heal’s department store is notable for the early 20th-century building it occupies, for being London’s oldest furniture retailer, and for its impressive architecture.
  (c) Heal’s
  As part of the London Festival of Architecture, tours will be offered of the building, once home to their furniture workshops and mattress factory. The site has evolved and been reimagined over time and has many stories to tell. On the tour,, you will experience and better u
  
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• From Tudor Trumpets to Modern Beats: A journey through Black British music history

  02-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Libraries are places of quiet, reflective study, but not the British Library at the moment, which thumps to the sound of music in an exhibition that spans 500 years of black music in the UK.It starts back in Tudor times, but in fact, most of the exhibition is modern, covering the past century or so, as that’s where the main story lies.
  Back to the olden times, and the earliest record of a musician of African descent in Britain is John Blanke, a trumpeter in King Henry VII and VIII’s
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Talbot Square, W2

  02-05-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  This is a long narrow pocket park next to Paddington Station that may tend to dampness, as it was built on top of an old water reservoir.Long before Paddington Station arrived and this was still on the edges of London, the Grand Junction Canal opened a canal into the area in 1801 to bring goods into the city with a large basin nearby for cargo wharfs. In 1811, the Grand Junction Waterworks Company was created to exploit a clause in the 1798 Act that allowed canals to be built and used as a suppl
  
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• William Morris Gallery to open late every Thursday this summer

  01-05-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Good news if you’ve never been to the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow, as it’s extending its opening hours.
  (c) William Morris Gallery
  Housed in the Grade II* listed building that was once Morris’s family home, the museum is the only public gallery devoted to the designer, craftsman and radical socialist William Morris.
  The Gallery is free to visit and usually open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10am to 5pm.
  However, from this week onwards until September, the museum’s ope
  
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• Tate Modern’s Blue Rider exhibition chronicles the pioneers of the avant-garde

  01-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Just before the advent of WWI, a group of artists came together in Germany to break almost every rule that existed about art — and became the Expressionists. Now, their works are on display at Tate Modern in a collective for the first time in sixty years.
  There have been previous shows, one in 1938 of these new artists in direct response to the German government’s rejection of such decadent and un-German art, and later in 1960, but nothing on this scale since.Known as The Blue Rider,
  
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• London exhibitions to visit in May 2024

  01-05-2024 11:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Here is a selection of ten excellent exhibitions to visit in a month that has two bank holidays to spend in the museums.Set to Stun: Designing & Filming Sci-Fi in West London
  Gunnersbury Park Museum, Ealing
  Free
  From laser beams to paranoid androids, exploring faraway planets to alien invasions – visitors will get to enjoy an engaging and interactive showcase of the sets, costumes, prosthetics, props, and artistic visualisations that went into British Sci-Fi classics, including Doctor
  
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