Telecom news

• Camden’s iconic Black Cap gay pub to reopen in March 2026

  23-02-2026 14:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Camden’s legendary gay pub, The Black Cap, has confirmed its reopening date, a smidge over a decade since it was forced to close.The pub, which has been a gay haunt since the winter of 1965/66 was forced to close in 2015 when the owners decided they wanted to redevelop the site. The owners themselves closed in 2020, and the company’s administrators sold the building to a new owner who has been working to reopen the venue once again as a gay cabaret pub.
  It had been expected to reopen
  
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• Relief for Stansted Airport travellers as contactless train ticketing arrives in March

  23-02-2026 12:19 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Travellers heading to Stansted Airport will finally be able to use contactless payments for train journeys from next month, after long-delayed approval was given to extend London’s contactless system.
  The lack of contactless payments on the railway to Stansted Airport has often caught travellers out, as they were unaware they needed to buy a conventional ticket, and were often hit with fines when arriving at the airport. Warning signs were added at Liverpool Street ticket barriers to try t
  
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• TfL warns of widespread rail and Tube disruption throughout March

  23-02-2026 11:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  There will be significant disruption to TfL’s rail and tube services throughout March due to large-scale engineering works, and TfL is advising people to plan ahead.
  The new Piccadilly line train at Hammersmith station, Jan 2026 (c) ianVisits
  The Elizabeth line will be particularly affected in the eastern branch as Network Rail carries out engineering works on their tracks. In the central part of the Elizabeth line, TfL will also undertake some track renewals.
  The Overground will be affect
  
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• Royal Docks plans would add floating parkland and residential boat berths

  23-02-2026 10:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Plans are being shown off to encourage more boats to use the Royal Docks for long-term mooring, as well as an intention to create a new floating park in the dock.
  (c) Royal Docks Management Authority
  The plans would affect an area known as Royal Victoria Dock West, which is the end closest to London City Hall and the Cable Car.
  If carried out, the two biggest changes will be a range of floating walkways reaching into the dock, lined with water plants. There already is one small floating park in
  
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• London’s Alleys: Ship Tavern Passage, City of London, EC3

  23-02-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  This central London alley, next to Leadenhall Market, is named after a ship but dominated by a swan.The alley likely came into existence when the first Leadenhall Market, as a market for herbs, opened, with a long passage leading from the market to Gracechurch Street.
  William Morgan’s Map 1682
  OS Map 1875
  The alley used to be longer and straighter, but the eastern half was cut off when a building was constructed on the site. That building was demolished in 2000, and archaeologists research
  
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• Altice France liabilities add around €1bn to debt pile

  21-02-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Rival telecoms groups are considering new bid for Patrick Drahi’s French business
  
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• Altice France liabilities add about €1bn to debt pile

  21-02-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Rival telecoms groups are considering new bid for Patrick Drahi’s French business
  
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• Tickets Alert: Half price tickets to see Zippos Circus

  20-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The travelling circus is coming to town and will be popping up around London throughout 2026, and there’s a way of getting half-price tickets to the show.
  (c) Zippos Circus
  Prices to watch the shows vary depending on how close you are to the action, but range from £21 for the rear seats to £35 for ringside seats. However, the opening-night preview show, just after they settle into each location, offers half-price tickets, so from £12 to £15 per seat.
  Which, for a 2-
  
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• Four free exhibitions at the V&A South Kensington

  20-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The V&A has several large paid-for temporary exhibitions, but dotted around the building are a number of smaller free exhibitions worth seeking out.
  They range from a single display case to several rooms – and all are free to visit.
  Photography Now
  Until 12th September (rooms 96-97)
  A collection of recent acquisitions by the V&A, including, unusually for a photography collection, sculptures. A case of small tear bottles has been made from the remains of photos burnt by their owners
  
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• Musk’s Starlink to be tested against Eutelsat on French shipping fleet

  20-02-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Move by CMA CGM comes amid European efforts to support OneWeb as a rival to SpaceX’s satellite network
  
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• Free tickets to visit the Barbican’s heated greenhouse conservatory

  19-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  If you’re looking for an escape from the winter, the Barbican Arts Centre includes London’s second-largest heated conservatory, and it’s totally free to visit.The conservatory wraps around the huge fly tower that supports scenery for the theatre beneath your feet, and while the Barbican’s concrete is still very evident, it adds to the overall effect. Imagine a city centre abandoned by humans and overrun by plants, and that’s what you are walking through when you vis
  
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• Dot by Dot, Sea by Sea: Seurat’s painting glow at the Courtauld

  19-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  An artist who died young, and whose painting method was almost mechanically precise, has somehow filled two rooms at the Courtauld Gallery with seascapes that are unexpectedly calm and contemplative.Georges Seurat was a French post-Impressionist best known for a technique later dubbed pointillism: painting not with expressive brushstrokes, but by patiently placing thousands of tiny dots onto the surface. Rather than mixing colours on a palette, Seurat relied on the viewer’s eye to do the w
  
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• Tate tries to turn an advertising campaign into a Cultural Event

  19-02-2026 09:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Tate Modern has announced an advertising campaign, and that is a very odd thing to announce.
  Spitalfields – Image courtesy Tate and Jack Arts (part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD)
  It’s not that advertising campaigns are never announced, but when they are, it’s usually in advertising trade magazines, and generally by the agency that did the work. The client doesn’t normally issue a press release that essentially says, “We are putting up some posters.”
  Yet that is exactly wh
  
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• How Londoners tracked death figures to survive the Great Plague of 1665

  19-02-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  New research has uncovered how Londoners reacted in real time to the Great Plague of 1665, revealing that people reshaped their daily lives around published death figures – using them to decide where to go, who to meet, and whether to remain in the city or flee.
  From a 2015 exhibition at Guildhall Library
  The study, from the University of Portsmouth, shows that weekly death reports, known as the Bills of Mortality, served as a practical guide to survival. Rather than being distant or abstr
  
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• Orange CEO warns there is ‘no incentive for investment’ in Europe

  19-02-2026 07:30 via ft.com
  French telecoms group will prioritise growth in the Middle East and Africa, says Christel Heydemann
  
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• Oscar Wilde’s trial dock set for public access following restoration work

  18-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  You will soon be able to stand in the very trial dock where Oscar Wilde stood trial, after funding was secured to restore it.
  Front page of the Police News – 20th April 1895
  Funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund will support the conservation and reopening of the original dock from Court No.2 at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court – the place where Wilde appeared following his arrest in April 1895, ahead of his trial at the Old Bailey for “gross indecency”.
  His p
  
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• Liberty Global agrees to buy out Vodafone in Dutch joint venture for €1bn

  18-02-2026 16:02 via ft.com
  The telecoms and media company aims to list planned ‘Ziggo Group’ in Amsterdam next year
  
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• New exhibition explores how an English merchant and his Chinese colleagues changed botanical art

  18-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A small exhibition at the Garden Museum is restoring the story of a botanist who is little known today, but was on the cusp of honours before he died tragically young.At its centre is John Bradby Blake, an English botanist working in Chinese Canton in the late 1760s while employed by the East India Company. But the exhibition’s real achievement is in restoring visibility to the Chinese collaborators without whom his work would have been impossible.
  Bradby Blake’s botanical ambitions
  
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• Royal Mail steams ahead with Hornby centenary postage stamps

  17-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The Royal Mail has issued an eight-stamp set marking more than a century of Hornby Model Railways.
  Four of the eight stamps (c) Royal Mail
  Founded by Frank Hornby, whose first clockwork Hornby Series trains appeared in 1920, the company began producing models of real British locomotives in 1929. For many railway enthusiasts, Hornby became a parallel record of railway history — preserving classes, liveries and eras long after the originals had disappeared from the network.
  Each stamp in the
  
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• Star Trek beams into the Science Museum with films, props and late-night events

  17-02-2026 14:13 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The Science Museum is boldly going where no science museum has (probably) gone before, opening a season of Star Trek events that beam sci-fi imagination straight into the realm of real science.
  M CBS Studios Inc. (c) 2026 Par. Pics.
  To mark Star Trek’s 60th anniversary, the Science Museum will launch several months of events with a late-evening opening of the museum for adults next month.
  The museum late takes place on Thursday 26th March, and will feature a range of Star Trek themed event
  
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• Who really made Dickens? New exhibition credits the women he depended on

  17-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Charles Dickens’s novels are often criticised for their idealised passive female characters, but as the Dickens Museum now shows, he was, in life and in death, surrounded by formidable, intelligent and independent women.
  Charles Dickens Museum
  A new exhibition at the museum shifts attention away from Dickens as a solitary genius and instead places women at the centre of his creative world and cultural afterlife.
  One of the exhibition’s most moving threads centres on Mary Hogarth, Dic
  
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• Northern line upgrade could bring a new train depot to a former horse hospital

  17-02-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A long-term aspiration to run more trains on the Northern line could see a new depot being built on the site of a former railway horse hospital in North London.
  Totteridge and Whetstone station
  Transport for London (TfL) aspires to increase the number of trains on the Northern line at peak times to 36 per hour, but doing so would require 45 additional berths to accommodate the extra trains required for the more intensive service.
  TfL has worked out that this would require at least two new depots
  
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• Newham to get its museum back after 30 years with new heritage centre

  17-02-2026 07:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  More than thirty years after Newham closed its local museum, a replacement is set to open in Canning Town following a £2.7 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The council is currently converting the Grade II-listed Old Library into the Newham Heritage Centre, and the grant will assist with that work and ensure it can house Newham Council’s historic archives.
  As part of that work, the borough’s museum collection will also go on display for the first time in ov
  
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• Unfinished Mozart manuscript going on display in Mayfair museum

  16-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  There will be a rare opportunity to stand face to face with music written in Mozart’s own hand as an unfinished manuscript goes on display at the Handel Hendrix House for a few months.
  Handel Hendrix House (c) ianVisits
  The sheet is modest in size but immense in significance. Carefully inked across the page are the opening 20 bars of a fugue – not Mozart’s own invention, but his transcription of a harpsichord work by George Frideric Handel, composed more than sixty years earlie
  
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• Tickets Alert: Chevening House garden’s 2026 open day

  16-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The date for Chevening House’s annual garden open day has been confirmed, and it’s a chance to wander around an impressive garden normally reserved for government ministers and their staff.The building, Chevening House, was built around 400 years ago, and it would probably still be a private house, but the last Earl Stanhope, childless and with his brother killed in WW1, effectively gifted it to the nation.
  A trust was set up in 1959 that allows a government minister nominated by the
  
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• Morph, Wallace and evil penguins: Inside Aardman at Young V&A

  16-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Wallace and Gromit may have travelled to the moon for some cheese, but they did so in a vegan rocket made from lentils. Or at least, the rivets, carefully glued to the rocket by Nick Park, were made from painted lentils, and that’s a small nugget of information you learn at Young V&A’s new exhibition about all things Aardman.As an exhibition, it’s a chance for people (mostly the younger generation) to learn about the art and craft of making animations, as most of the inform
  
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• London’s Alleys: Martin Lane, City of London, EC4

  16-02-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Martin Lane is a narrow cobblestone passage next to London Bridge that was once longer, used to reach down to the riverside, and is linked to a rhyme about oranges and lemons.For most of its life, the alley’s main feature was the church of St Martin Orgar, possibly named after Ordgarus, a Dane who donated the church to the canons of St Paul’s.
  Sadly, most of the church was destroyed during the Great Fire of London. The badly damaged remains were restored and used by French Protestant
  
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• Tickets Alert: Animal Dissection Live!

  13-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Trigger warnings and squeamish alerts…
  Sometimes there’s a chance to see or experience something you probably never thought you would want to – and in April, the dissection of a dead lion will take place in public.
  The original Golden Syrup logo is a dead lion surrounded by bees
  Hosted at the Royal Institution, the lion, which died of old age and was then donated to science, will be dissected to demonstrate how animal biology works. Medical and veterinary students will be used
  
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• The City of London adds its 114th Livery Company — and it’s for HR

  13-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The City of London’s list of ancient and modern Livery companies has got a bit longer, as the Court of Aldermen has approved a new applicant.
  The Aldermen’s Court Room (c) ianVisits
  The City of London’s Livery Companies trace their origins to medieval guilds, acting as both regulators of their trades and, in the centuries before the modern welfare state, as social care services.
  Some are ancient, with origins in the earliest trades, such as ironmongery, swordmaking, brewing bee
  
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• We’ll Meet Again – in the Museum: Dame Vera Lynn’s letters to be displayed at IWM

  13-02-2026 13:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Some of the archive belonging to the “Forces’ Sweetheart”, Dame Vera Lynn, will go on display at the Imperial War Museum this Spring after it was donated to the museum by Dame Vera’s daughter, Virginia Lewis-Jones.
  Some of the archive (c) IWM
  The Imperial War Museums will preserve the personal archive of the woman whose voice promised, “We’ll meet again,” to a generation living through war.
  Born Vera Margaret Welch in East Ham in 1917, Lynn became known
  
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• Shop windows tell the story of London’s revolutionary illustrated newspapers

  13-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A corner shop in central London has recently been turned into an exhibition space, and is currently exploring the history of 19th-century printers who worked in the area.Printing on the Strand in the 18th century was a major hub of London’s popular print culture, characterised by vibrant publishing activity that wasn’t constrained by rules affecting printers within the City of London.
  Key sites included Bear Yard, near present-day King’s College London, which hosted significant
  
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• Amersham’s fairground organ museum is starting to offer tours

  12-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The charming Amersham fairground organ museum, which is usually open a few Sundays per year, has now started offering guided tours.The occasional open days are more a chance to sit and listen to the old fair organs playing their pipes, and have a nice lunch at the same time.
  However, the guided tours, which will take place on Saturdays, will offer a deeper dive into their collection of organs and the music cards that control them.
  The tours last a couple of hours and cost £12.94 per person
  
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• Victorian drinking fountain returns to Princes Circus – but the water’s been turned off

  12-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A Victorian drinking fountain has been restored to its original location following conservation, but it is not fully functional and cannot dispense drinking water.The Princes Circus fountain was installed in 1879 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s 60th year on the throne, but was originally in a different location.
  It used to be a bit further north, on the junction of New Oxford Street and Shaftesbury Avenue, opposite Coptic Street. In 2003, it was moved to sit in a fenced-off island space ou
  
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• Ding ding! TfL auctioning off five authentic 1960s Routemasters

  12-02-2026 14:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  If you have ever fancied owning an old London bus, Transport for London (TfL) is selling five authentic 1960s AEC Routemaster double-decker buses at auction next month.
  (c) Wilsons Auctions
  Old Routemasters come up for sale occasionally, but not often five at once and all still owned by TfL and were last used on the heritage Route 15 service.
  RM2089 – ALM 89B
  RM2060 – ALM 60B
  RM2071 – ALM 71B
  RM2050 – ALM 50B
  RM652 – WLT 652
  The five buses are currently at West Ham
  
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• Drawing out Freud: The National Portrait Gallery looks beyond the oils

  12-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  An exhibition about Lucian Freud, an artist famous for his paintings, is generally not about his paintings, except when it is.The National Portrait Gallery, which holds the Lucian Freud archive, has rummaged through it and put on a display of his less well-known sketches, seeking to show that the artist was more than just an oil painter but also a skilled draughtsman.
  I have to start by confessing a heresy – I am not that keen on the artist’s work.
  He’s rightly lauded as one of
  
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• Pyx and Ceremony: London hosts one of England’s oldest legal rituals

  12-02-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Earlier this week, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, was put on trial in Mansion House.
  In front of England’s oldest judicial officer, the King’s Remembrancer, a jury was sworn in, and the proceedings began — not with impassioned speeches, but with the distribution of very large gold coins.
  Mansion House
  This was the Trial of the Pyx — an ancient ceremony that is still, in every sense, a proper legal process. Held annually, it exists to answer a simple quest
  
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• The fading hopes of Europe’s telcos

  12-02-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Sector companies are struggling to win Brussels’ backing for consolidation
  
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• Southbank’s skate undercroft turns 50 with a new exhibition celebrating its concrete legacy

  11-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  People have been skating in the Southbank’s undercroft for the past 50 years, and an exhibition is opening this spring to celebrate 50 years of kickflipping around the space.
  Undercroft Skate Space, 1978 © Tim Leighton Boyce_Jim Slater, Southbank. Images courtesy The Read and Destroy Archive.
  Widely regarded as the birthplace of British skateboarding, the Undercroft Skate Space emerged almost by accident. When the Queen Elizabeth Hall was built in the 1960s, the area beneath was left
  
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• Passenger numbers surge, but the railways still can’t fill the revenue gap

  11-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Rail travel continues to recover from the effects of the pandemic, with an 8% increase in the number of journeys over the past year to reach 467 million journeys in the July to September 2025 quarter, according to figures from the rail regulator, the ORR.
  Liverpool Street station
  However, journeys are also getting shorter, as while the number of trips rose by 8%, the total mileage travelled by all those passengers only rose by 6%. So, while overall revenue also rose by the same 6% in the quarter
  
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• Tickets Alert: Trooping the Colour 2026 tickets ballot now open

  11-02-2026 14:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Trooping the Colour is a big military parade that marks the King’s official birthday in June, and the ballot for tickets to be in the audience is now open.
  Trooping the Colour 2018
  It’s one of those genuine once-in-a-lifetime events to attend, even if the pomp and ceremony isn’t your sort of thing, because it’s a memory you’ll treasure and trigger many envious looks from friends when you tell them you’ve been in the audience for the Trooping the Colour.
  I
  
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• Visiting the Household Cavalry Museum

  11-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  If you’re a museum in the centre of London and hoping for lots of passing trade, having a great big statue in front of your entrance must be quite annoying.
  That’s the fate of the Household Cavalry Museum, which sits in the Whitehall building made famous by videos of tourists being shouted at for standing far too close to the horses, but with its entrance around the other side and a statue in front of it.But it’s more than just a museum, because you get to peer into the working
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Pat Hickson Garden, Southwark, SE16

  11-02-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  This is a corner park that was once houses, then a plain park, but owes its current appearance to a tunnel dug deep under South London.The tunnel carries electricity, and itself is a result of the huge power failure that plunged most of South London into darkness in August 2003. A later review recommended that Network Rail should improve the security of its own supplies in south London, and the result is a tunnel running from the National Grid disconnector at New Cross National Grid Substation t
  
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• Controversial Liverpool Street station redevelopment gets planning approval

  10-02-2026 17:46 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The controversial plans to redevelop Liverpool Street station have been given the go-ahead by the City of London.
  (c) Network Rail / ACME
  Supporters say the scheme is intended to deliver a fully accessible, modernised railway station capable of handling dramatic growth in passenger numbers. The plans include a larger concourse, step-free access to every mainline and Underground platform, and a substantial expansion of passenger facilities such as lifts, escalators, ticket gates and toilets.
  Netw
  
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• The “Hogwarts Express” will be at the Epping Ongar Railway through April

  10-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A steam train featuring in the upcoming Harry Potter television series is scheduled to visit the Epping Ongar Railway this spring, including the Easter weekend.
  Wightwick Hall photo by Louisa Richards / Bucks Railway Centre
  The nearly 80-year old steam locomotive 6989 ‘Wightwick Hall’ will star as the Hogwarts Express in the TV series. Repainted into red livery for its television role, the locomotive is expected to operate steam-hauled services along the Epping Ongar Railway thr
  
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• Queer Britain gets a refresh but makes a small museum feel even smaller

  10-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The museum devoted to the alphabet soup of sexualities has had a revamp of its displays and turned a small museum into a cramped one.
  It’s always been a small space, with one main room and a second, smaller temporary exhibition space, but they’ve added two more glass cases in the middle of the main room, turning a wide rectangle into a corridor.
  Opening with a temporary display marking 40 years of the BFI Flare film festival, the main space is a selection of nuggets from various LGBT
  
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• BT replaces Openreach boss in latest top-level reshuffle

  10-02-2026 09:12 via ft.com
  Deputy chief Katie Milligan must now decide whether to expand fibre coverage to millions more homes
  
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• Several weekend closures of Liverpool Street station through March

  09-02-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Passengers are being warned that several weekend closures of London Liverpool Street station will take place in March due to Network Rail engineering works.
  Liverpool Street station during the Christmas 2025 closure (c) ianVisits
  This work will affect weekend passengers on Greater Anglia, some c2c services, London Overground’s Weaver line and some Elizabeth line services.
  During the closures, Network Rail will be carrying out track renewals near Ilford station and Gidea Park.
  There will al
  
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• Seahorses, seals and sharks spotted in Thames as conservation boosts Thames habitats

  09-02-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Conservation efforts along the 153 miles of the River Thames have delivered mixed results for wildlife, according to a new report that finds improvements in some species and habitats alongside emerging threats from climate change and pollution.
  Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash
  Researchers recorded increases in several wading bird species, marine mammals and restored natural habitats, including intertidal areas that act as nurseries for many fish. The river continues to support a surprising r
  
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• A medieval Persian allegory takes flight in a London gallery

  09-02-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A King’s Cross gallery is currently alive with birdsong, reimagining the 12th-century Persian poem The Conference of the Birds as a gently immersive exhibition.The poem itself is an allegory: a gathering of birds set out on a spiritual quest, each one embodying a particular human flaw or attachment. Passing through seven symbolic valleys, they face trials and moments of revelation, before realising that the divine presence they seek lies within themselves.
  That sense of pilgrimage carries
  
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• Warning of four day closure on parts of the Metropolitan and Chiltern Railway next week

  09-02-2026 11:32 via ianvisits.co.uk
  There’s going to be a four-day closure of part of the Metropolitan line and Chiltern Railways next week, affecting services north of Harrow on the Hill.
  Affected area on TfL map
  The closure is due to London Underground signalling works between Harrow on the Hill and Amersham, and it means no trains on either the tube or the mainline can run along the line.
  From Thursday 19th to Sunday 22nd February, there will be no service on the Metropolitan line between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Amersham,
  
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