Telecom news

• Mayor to push London council tax precept above £500 to fund policing and rail plans

  15-01-2026 21:08 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The Mayor of London is raising the GLA’s take from London’s council tax to fund an increase in policing and support the potential West London Orbital railway link.In total, the Mayor is proposing that council tax increases by an additional £20.13 a year for an average Band D household, subject to final approvals next month. Consequently, the Band D council tax payable in the 32 London boroughs (the adjusted precept) is proposed to increase by 4.1% from £490.38 in 2025-26
  
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• Tickets Alert: 200th anniversary tours of London Zoo

  15-01-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  To celebrate its bicentenary, London Zoo is launching a programme of monthly history tours that delve into two centuries of animals, architecture and scientific discovery.The guided walks are included as a free extra with a paid Zoo visit and run on a rotating theme throughout the year, allowing visitors to choose tours that match their particular interests in the Zoo’s long and varied past.
  Each tour starts at 11:30am from the main entrance once you are inside the Zoo, and lasts for aroun
  
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• SpaceX partner EchoStar struggles to reach escape velocity

  15-01-2026 16:22 via ft.com
  Charlie Ergen’s future will probably be guided by what happens to Elon Musk’s company
  
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• Imber Bus confirms its 2026 date for a surreal ride through Salisbury Plain

  15-01-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  An early notice that the annual Imber Bus Day has already confirmed its 2026 date, so you can reserve the date in your calendar now.ImberBus is a standard London bus route that runs just one day a year, weaving its way through the sealed-off military lands of Salisbury Plain, past burnt-out tanks and military bases to an abandoned medieval church in the middle of a military training village before scattering off to various random outposts all around the firing range and local villages.
  It’
  
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• Strawberry Hill’s new exhibition chases a lost dagger with a questionable past

  15-01-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Two daggers that didn’t belong to King Henry VIII have gone on display, as part of an exhibition about another lost dagger that also didn’t belong to Henry VIII.
  With me so far?We’re in Horace Walpole’s gothic manor house at Strawberry Hill, and he owned a richly decorated dagger that he was told had belonged to the King.
  However, more recent research has indicated that it was likely a decorative dagger made at the imperial workshops in late 16th-century Istanbul and expo
  
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• Archaeologists uncover Victorian children’s schoolwork in east London

  15-01-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Archaeologists working in East London have made a rare discovery that is seldom preserved in the historical record — an unusually intimate glimpse into the lives of Victorian children.
  Brick cellars heavily covered with soot (c) MOLA
  Among the finds uncovered by MOLA at the excavation site in East London was a fragment of a slate school tablet, still bearing the faint scratches of children’s handwriting and doodles, alongside a hoard of ceramic marbles – known as “al
  
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