Telecom news

• From naughty ravens to mischievous cats: Charles Dickens’ pets revealed in this new exhibition

  15-05-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  At a time when animals were expected to work and owning pets for pleasure was still a bit of a novelty, Charles Dickens owned a small zoo’s worth of pets, and now the Charles Dickens Museum is taking a look at the family pets.Some of the pets were known to his readers, as they appeared as inspiration in his stories – such as the talking raven and his bull terrier dog – and others proved the inspiration for characters who could be described with animal characteristics. The raven
  
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• BT should welcome the call of its latest billionaire investor

  13-06-2024 15:43 via ft.com
  Less affluent shareholders in the telco might take heart from Carlos Slim’s interest
  
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• EU faces telecoms ire over new Standard Essential Patent rules

  13-06-2024 06:00 via ft.com
  
  While companies may agree on need for more transparency, questions are raised over draft law’s practicality
  
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• Tickets Alert: Chatley Heath semaphore tower open weekend

  12-06-2024 19:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Peeking just above the trees by the M25 on the edge of southwest London is a tall octagonal building built as part of Britain’s defence, and it will be open to the public next weekend (22nd & 23rd June 2024).
  Chatley Heath semaphore tower (c) ianVisits
  This is the Chatley Heath semaphore tower, a rare survivor of a series of towers built to send signals to/from London and the coast at a time when a Napoleonic invasion was a very real fear.
  It was a short-lived idea as the modern telegr
  
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• Mexican billionaire Slim takes 3% stake in BT

  12-06-2024 18:41 via ft.com
  Latin America’s richest man is latest high-profile investor in telecoms group
  
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• Gin tours with the Household Cavalry Museum

  12-06-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  There’s going to be a couple of evening openings of the Household Cavalry Museum in central London, with gin.
  Household Cavalry Museum (c) ianVisits
  The Household Cavalry Museum is based in Horseguards Parade in central London and tells the story of, well, the Household Cavalry.
  It’s very much a military museum, full of uniforms, old weapons, metals, and memorabilia. A big attraction for many people though is that the museum is in the same building that looks after the horses, so you
  
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• Tim and Siddy return with more Secrets of the London Underground in July

  12-06-2024 12:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Yesterday TV’s Secrets of the London Underground will return in July with its fourth series, peering into the depths of the tube network. Over the ten weeks of the fourth series, rail historian Tim Dunn reunites with Siddy Holloway from the London Transport Museum to unearth more secrets about the Tube’s rich history.
  (c) UKTV
  As part of her work developing the museum’s Hidden London programme of tours, which takes the public into secret parts of the London Underground, Siddy h
  
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• Cold War tunnels under Holborn approved to become a tourist attraction

  12-06-2024 10:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A network of Cold War tunnels under Holborn has taken a step closer to opening up as a public venue now that the City of London has approved planning permission for the change of use.
  One of the tunnels (c) DBOX for The London Tunnels
  Built during WWII as shelters from bombs but never used by the public, the tunnels were converted into deep-level telecoms exchange during the Cold War. They became rather legendary in the subterranean world when details about them emerged.
  They were put up for sal
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Whitfield Gardens, W1

  12-06-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  This pocket park next to Tottenham Court Road, which is more park in name and plaza in reality, is a busy home for pigeons and cycle delivery drivers waiting for their next customer. It wasn’t always such, as it’s a former graveyard which gained an unexpected extension following the diligent attention of WWII bombs.Before all that, though, this part of London developed from fields into homes fairly quickly in the second half of the 18th century and was pretty much as we recognise it
  
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• Camden’s Buck Street Market transforms into Boxpark ahead of Tube station upgrade

  11-06-2024 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A plot of land that will be needed when Camden Town tube station gets a second entrance is to become a Boxpark instead — at least until the tube station upgrade goes ahead.
  Site layout – over Google map
  The site, to the north of Camden Town station, was occupied by Buck Street Market until it was taken over by shipping containers from Lab Tech, the firm behind the wider redevelopment of Camden’s markets.
  In October 2023, TfL bought the site to secure it for the tube station upg
  
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• Wimbledon, Football and Olympics outdoor screenings

  11-06-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  There’s a summer of sports ahead, with Wimbledon, Euro football and the Paris Olympics — and away from watching at home or in the pub, several large outdoor screens are set up across London.
  As you might expect, seats tend to get grabbed fast for the big matches, but you’ll often be able to sit on the floor or grass, so bring a rug.
  The ones I have found so far are below. If I’ve missed any, add them to the comments at the bottom of this page. Thanks.Battersea
  Summer spor
  
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• Capturing the human psyche: Charles Lutyens’ paintings at Bethlem Museum of the Mind

  11-06-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A pair of dark, wide eyes stares out at visitors as they pass by, but not judging or scary, but with youthful vigour. This is the very young Charles Lutyen, an artist but, more than that, a therapist who helped people suffering from mental health problems turn to art for support.Charles Lutyens, born in London in 1933, studied oil painting and sculpture at the Chelsea, Slade and St Martin’s schools of art, before initially settling at the Fabyc community — a sort of London kibbutz, a
  
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• TfL-style contactless payments expanding on Chiltern Railways: More stations go live this month

  11-06-2024 12:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  TfL-style contactless payments for train tickets are expanding and will be added to several Chiltern Railways stations at the end of this month.
  Photo by Steph Gray on Unsplash
  The expansion of the pay-as-you-go contactless payments on Chiltern services is part of “Project Oval”, a government scheme to expand TfL’s service across much of the southeast of England. The £20 million rollout is being funded by the Department for Transport (DfT) and carried out by TfL with the
  
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• Wider footbridge planned for Silvertown housing development

  11-06-2024 11:30 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A curvy footbridge planned for east London will be wider than originally planned after the local council agreed to fund a larger bridge to carry more people.
  Original width: Source – planning documents, Moxon Architects with Buro Happold and Eadon Consulting
  The Royal Victoria Dock Bridge will span the docks, linking a large housing development of around 6,500 new homes around the derelict Millenium Mills to Custom House station for the DLR and Elizabeth line.
  The development on the south
  
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• Potential revival of direct Tonbridge-Gatwick train service explored by Network Rail

  11-06-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Nearly twenty years after direct trains were cancelled, Network Rail is considering resuming a direct link from Tonbridge to Gatwick Airport.
  Gatwick-Tonbridge route highlighted on Network Rail map
  A research paper by Network Rail looks at options to increase train passenger use along an existing railway link and see if that would reduce road traffic between Kent and the airport.
  At the moment there is a shuttle service along the railway that links Tonbridge and Redhill, then people need to swap
  
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• Big military flypast over London on Saturday

  10-06-2024 19:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Weather permitting, a military aircraft flypast will take place over central London on Saturday to mark the King’s official birthday.
  The flypast is part of the Trooping the Colour ceremony, the ceremonial event that takes place on Horseguards Parade in the morning, and once that has finished and people have time to get into place — a flypast over London concluded by the Red Arrows.
  King’s birthday flypast 2023 (c) ianVisits
  As it happens, there’s also a rehearsal over th
  
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• Tickets Alert: Climb down into an Ice Well

  10-06-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Once a year, two large ice wells near King’s Cross are opened for the public to climb down into and learn about how ice was stored before the refrigerator was invented.
  Canal Museum ice well (c) ianVisits
  Ice Wells were usually subterranean chambers of varying sizes that kept ice cool enough that it would melt very slowly. Originally something only the rich could afford, a winter’s supply harvested from local lakes could last into the summer months.
  Later, much larger ice wells were
  
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• Heritage makeover for Blackheath station to restore historic canopies

  10-06-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  South London’s Blackheath Station will get a heritage makeover soon to restore and repair some of the Grade II listing station’s canopies. Both platforms are partially covered by weather canopies, and Network Rail says that the canopies’ current condition is poor, necessitating repair and, in some places, replacement work.
  Source: Aecom / Planning documents
  The state of the canopies can be seen by looking at the “daggerboards” that run around the edges. In many plac
  
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• London’s Alleys: Albert Place N17

  10-06-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  This narrow, and currently very yellow passageway near Bruce Grove station in Tottenham has seen a lot of changes in it’s fairly short life.The alley leads off Tottenham High Road, squeezing in between two shops and leading to a road behind the shops. However, when first laid out in the early 19th century, it was a dead-end passage that led to a wider courtyard surrounded by houses.
  It’s possible that the passageway and surrounding buildings were constructed by Mr Ives, as there&rsqu
  
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• Billionaires Mittal and Ambani take on Musk in India’s internet space race

  09-06-2024 04:28 via ft.com
  Bharti Airtel’s joint venture with Eutelsat OneWeb could start operating in June
  
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• Archipelagic Void: A blend of art and architecture in the Serpentine’s summer pavilion

  07-06-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The 23rd Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Seoul-based Korean architect Minsuk Cho and his firm Mass Studies, has landed in Kensington Gardens next to Hyde Park.Conceived as five artistic islands, the Archipelagic Void pavilion is a collection of ideas ranging from a library to a children’s climbing frame. Although each of the five arms is unique, they all share some common structural themes. The charred wooden timbers sit on top of concrete pillars, all a foundation for the five spaces abo
  
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• Redbridge council greenlights new Lido for Valentine’s Park

  07-06-2024 15:35 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Thirty years after the original was demolished, Valentine’s Park in East London will get a replacement open-air swimming pool – with a new lido.
  Early concept image (c) Redbridge Council
  At a planning meeting, Redbridge Council approved proposals to build the new Lido in Valentines Park, and construction is expected to begin later this year. Barring any delays, the lido is expected to open to the public by autumn 2025 – almost exactly 30 years after Valentine’s Park&rsquo
  
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• 40 years of Gay Times magazine front covers at the Outernet

  07-06-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  To mark 40 years of Gay Times magazine, the magazine’s archive of front covers is being exhibited at the Outernet in central London.The exhibition is actually a video wall presentation rather than the actual magazine covers, and it can be a bit too fast if you want to look at the covers themselves. Still, they say this is the first time the full archive has been exhibited publicly.
  The video footage is divided into four decades, with short intro texts, a montage of the front covers, and ke
  
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• National Gallery to exhibit Van Gogh’s original Sunflowers triptych layout

  06-06-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Two of Vincent van Gogh’s sunflower paintings, which haven’t been seen together since they were created in 1889, will be reunited at the National Gallery later this year. They will also be shown for the first time in the Triptych layout that Van Gogh originally planned.
  Extract from Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers, 1888 (c) The National Gallery, London
  The National Gallery owns one of his sunflower paintings, which was originally made in August 1888 for Van Gogh’s brother T
  
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• The transition from the Queen’s to King’s Gallery

  06-06-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  A few weeks ago, the King’s Gallery next to Buckingham Palace reopened with a new exhibition, but also with a new name.Since opening in 1962 and up to just a few weeks ago, it has been The Queen’s Gallery. Although it was initially indicated that the name wouldn’t change with the changing of the monarch, late last year, they announced the name would change after all.
  It remained the Queen’s Gallery for a while longer, until the end of their last exhibition.While the galle
  
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• Merton Priory’s Chapter House ruins open to the public

  06-06-2024 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The remains of an important monastery broken up by King Henry VIII and almost lost to history can be found underneath a busy road in south London. It’s also open to the public, having recently added a new visitor centre and mini-museum.The significance of Merton Priory and the Chapter House is evident in the ecclesiastical, royal, and government activity that was conducted at the priory and in the meetings held in the Chapter House itself. King Henry III called a council meeting in January
  
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• Free cycle rides in London: TfL offering unlimited 30-minute rides every Sunday in June

  06-06-2024 07:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Throughout June, TfL’s cycle hire scheme will be free on Sundays, offering unlimited 30-minute cycle rides for free.The TfL Cycle Sundays offer can be claimed by downloading the Santander Cycles app or heading to a docking station terminal, choosing a Day Pass, and using the code CYCLESUNDAYS.
  Once you have unlocked a bike, you can ride it for 30 minutes free of charge. Then, you can drop the bike into another docking station and repeat as often as you like throughout the day.
  You won&rsqu
  
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• TfL’s latest railway upgrades: New trains, signalling, and station enhancements detailed

  05-06-2024 18:45 via ianvisits.co.uk
  If you want to know what railway upgrades Transport for London (TfL) has been carrying out in recent months, a summary can be compiled from the latest Commissioners Report for the board.
  The report will be discussed at TfL’s board meeting on Wednesday 12th June, but ahead of that, here is a summary of recent railway upgrades within TfL.
  New Piccadilly line train on test tracks in Germany (c) ianVisits
  DLR
  To date, 30 new DLR trains have been built and are in various stages of testing.
  The
  
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• Mayfield lavender farm reopens on 15th June

  05-06-2024 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  Row upon row of purple lavender fill the fields near Croydon, and you can walk through them from next Saturday.
  Mayfield Lavender Farm opens to the public annually to take in the remarkable sight and get all their purple-toned photos. It’s one of those places that is exceptionally photo-friendly, whether you’re taking serious photos or sharing on Instagram.
  (c) Mayfield Lavender Farm
  They’ve now confirmed that the farm will reopen to the public from Saturday 15th June through t
  
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• Decades of pollution removed from the National Gallery’s facade

  05-06-2024 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  The National Gallery’s grand stone frontage has been restored to its 1830s appearance now that decades of pollution has been cleaned off the front of the building.
  Ahead of the gallery’s 200th anniversary, the external façade overlooking Trafalgar Square underwent a major phased cleaning and refurbishment programme, made possible by support from the late Julia Rausing and her husband Hans Rausing.
  With the final scaffolding now removed, the stone looks as fresh and clean as it
  
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