Telecom news

• London’s 2023 bonfire night firework displays

  03-10-2023 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  It’s time to start plotting how we shall remember the downfall of a papist plot, and watch the skies over London explode with fireworks. And in a few locations, the displays still include the traditional bonfire as well.
  One of the nice things about this year is that with Bonfire Night on a Sunday, there are fireworks taking place all weekend, so you can have three days of displays if you want to.Most of the fireworks shows that are listed below need booking in advance this year, with few
  
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• Trent Park House of Secrets – London’s WWII spy museum has opened

  21-07-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  A grand country house that became one of Britain’s most closely guarded wartime secrets has opened as a new museum, revealing the little-known intelligence operation that helped shorten the Second World War.Trent Park House, in north London, looks every inch the elegant country mansion. Rebuilt in the early 20th century in a mock-Georgian style, it was home to the fabulously wealthy and well-connected Sassoon family, who entertained royalty, politicians and celebrities within its lavish re
  
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• The London Buzz – 20th July 2026

  20-07-2026 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Old London – Clapham Park Road circa 1900
  Today’s London news round-up:
  A mum-of-two says she feels “victimised” after claiming her housing association told her children’s toys must be removed from a communal garden following a request to install a trampoline. News Shopper
  Lea Bridge Road shisha bar forced to turn music down Waltham Forest Echo
  Plans have been revealed for a major development that could bring hundreds of new homes, co-living apartments, shops and pu
  
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• London is getting a new museum showing off Roman and medieval fortifications

  20-07-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  London is set to gain a new museum later this year, when an important section of the Roman Wall and a medieval bastion are opened to the public.
  From a previous visit (c) ianVisits
  The remains were discovered in the 1900s during the construction of a Post Office building on the site of a former monastery near St Paul’s Cathedral. At the time, archaeological remains did not enjoy the level of legal protection they do today, and the monument came close to being demolished before being saved.
  
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• A colourful exhibition of Afghanistan’s disappearing textile traditions

  20-07-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  If someone said Afghanistan, you’d probably conjure up a lot of images, but maybe not an image of skillfully embroidered clothing. And that’s what’s on display at the SOAS Gallery at the moment.Drawing primarily from the Karun Thakar collection, alongside loans from the V&A, the exhibition brings together around 100 embroidered objects spanning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Rather than presenting Afghanistan as a single cultural entity, the displays reveal the dis
  
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• London’s Alleys: Victoria Passage, St John’s Wood, NW8

  20-07-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  This short industrial passage can be found in the genteel housing around Regent’s Canal in St John’s Wood and is both old and modern in its layout.The original Victoria Passage was a long, back-of-house mews passage that ran east-west behind the houses and was built in the early 1800s, as London expanded over the fields that had long dominated the area. That mews, later renamed Victoria Place, still exists, but you’d not recognise it today as massive rebuilding around the area
  
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• Telecom Italia backs Poste Italiane takeover bid

  18-07-2026 16:48 via ft.com
  Cash and paper offer would give state-controlled postal service full control of telecoms group
  
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• The London Buzz – 17th July 2026

  17-07-2026 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Old London – Broadhurst Gardens, Hampstead in 1923
  Today’s London news round-up:
  Government issues notice due to ‘serious concerns’ about how Hillingdon Council is run Harrow Online
  Brockwell Park cygnet deaths – local resident accuses Lambeth Council of mismanagement Brixton Buzz
  A Wandsworth tenant threatened with eviction last year, at the age of 82, has been told by the new council administration that no eviction process was ever formally opened. Putney News
  Pla
  
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• Tickets Alert: Attend the City of London’s ancient Silent Ceremony

  17-07-2026 16:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Each year, the new Lord or Lady Mayor of London is sworn into office in a ceremony as rich in pomp as it is ancient in history, and in total silence. And a smallish number of the public are invited to attend.
  (c) City of London
  For over 800 years, on Michaelmas Day, the City of London’s liverymen elect a new Mayor for the year ahead, and a few weeks later, the Silent Ceremony takes place. It’s not absolutely silent, as, apart from the occasional muffled cough or ringing of a mobile p
  
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• London Overground’s Suffragette line to get four new railway bridges

  17-07-2026 15:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Several 130 year old railway bridges supporting the London Overground are to be replaced this summer, Network Rail has announced.
  The four bridges to be replaced (c) Network Rail
  All the bridges that need to be replaced can be found on the London Overground’s Suffragette line, between Leytonstone High Road and Woodgrange Park stations.Talbot Road – E7 0DX
  Strode Road – E7 0DU
  Stracey Road – E7 0HG
  Latimer Road – E7 0LHNetwork Rail says that work will begin at the Ta
  
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• The Crick Institute’s ancient DNA exhibition Does Not Appeal

  17-07-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  I think I’ve just visited the first exhibition for the podcast generation, where the exhibits have to be listened to rather than looked at and read about.It’s the Francis Crick Institute’s look at ancient DNA and how it helps track human evolution, migration, culture and disease.
  Naturally, the big problem with DNA is that it’s not exactly something you can put on display for people to look at, but the science that investigates it is very big, visible, and quite fascinati
  
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• First GBR Anglia trains unveiled as Greater Anglia and c2c merge their fleets

  16-07-2026 16:06 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Two new GBR-branded trains were side by side at Liverpool Street this morning, showing off the merger of Greater Anglia and c2c rail services.Greater Anglia and c2c are now managed jointly along with Network Rail’s East of England division to create GBR Anglia as a unified organisation.
  Merging the passenger and infrastructure functions to form regional operations has already been implemented in the Southeastern and SWR regions, and the aim is to reduce the bureaucratic and contractual red
  
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• Hackers who crippled TfL systems sentenced to more than five years in prison

  16-07-2026 14:40 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Two teenagers who hacked into Transport for London’s (TfL) computers, causing nearly £30 million in damages, have been jailed for five years and six months after admitting to carrying out the attack.Thalha Jubair, 20, from east London, and Owen Flowers, 18, from Walsall, both pleaded guilty at Woolwich Crown Court
  Apart from the cost to TfL, the cyberattack caused considerable disruption for staff and passengers, as TfL took large swathes of its systems offline while each was inspect
  
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• Free exhibition brings centuries of London’s working people to the streets

  16-07-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  For centuries, images of countless Londoners, both famous and forgotten, have been recorded as they go about their daily work in the capital.And there’s an outdoor exhibition telling the stories of some of those people captured in paintings and photographs. The oldest photo is of William Anthony, a night watchman, taken shortly before he died in 1863, with the most modern being a young man working in a Southwark shoe factory in 1954
  There’s the disabled street musician, a lot of ladi
  
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• Crystal Palace’s famous dinosaurs restored to their Victorian glory

  16-07-2026 09:11 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Crystal Palace’s famous dinosaurs have been removed from Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register following several years of restoration work.
  Iguanodon (c) Andy Bate
  The multi-million-pound project, jointly delivered by Bromley Council and the Crystal Palace Park Trust, is the largest programme of improvements to the park since the Crystal Palace itself was destroyed by fire in 1936.
  At the heart of the scheme was the restoration of the Grade I listed dinosaur sculptures and the
  
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• London’s Pocket Parks: Moorgate Corner, EC2

  16-07-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  This is a recently revamped corner park near Moorgate tube station, sitting next to the site of one of the ancient gates through the Roman Wall.The site of the pocket park was developed by the 1600s as a small cluster of houses and workshops surrounded by roads, and for the next few centuries, very little changed. The buildings were torn down and rebuilt at times, but the layout didn’t change.
  Faden’s 1819 revision of R Horwood map
  It would probably look the same today, but for WWII
  
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• The London Buzz – 15th July 2026

  15-07-2026 18:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Old London – St Paul’s Church and Essex Road, Islington
  Today’s London news round-up:
  Former Hackney councillor ‘debanked’ by HSBC after Ukraine trip  Hackney Citizen
  Gatwick Airport chaos as flights declare emergency and diverted after sudden runway closure Standard
  Rainham Launders Lane fire: Pictures show charred earth Romford Recorder
  A leading Newham councillor has dodged questions over whether her pledges to roll out free parking in the borough will lead
  
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• Tower of London to open historic architectural archive to the public for the first time

  15-07-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The Tower of London’s architectural archives will be opened to the public for the first time as part of a revamp of the Tower’s educational facilities.When it opens, the new Archive Study Centre will bring together more than 25,000 drawings encompassing over 200 years of design, building and conservation work across the Tower and other palaces cared for by Historic Royal Palaces.
  The decision to open the archives is part of a wider revamp of Historic Royal Palaces (HRP)’s educa
  
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• Austrian master returns to Britain after 170 years in free National Gallery exhibition

  15-07-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The first-ever UK exhibition of paintings by the 19th-century Austrian artist Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller has opened at the National Gallery, showcasing his range of landscapes, from arid to forested. He worked mainly around Vienna, Salzburg and later Italy, giving the works on display a slight air of tourist diary travelling around central Europe.Waldmüller is one of the most important figures in 19th-century Austrian art, known for his work as both an artist and an influential teacher
  
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• London Underground’s Central line is getting more trains at weekends

  15-07-2026 12:02 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Passengers on the Central line will see a new timetable introduced from Monday 20th July, bringing more frequent weekend services through central London but also reducing weekday trains on the Ealing branch.The biggest change is an increase in weekend services between White City and Leytonstone, with additional trains also running on Sunday early evenings to cater for growing leisure travel demand.
  However, the Ealing spur branch will be reduced to six trains per hour on weekdays — from an
  
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• London Open House 2026 preview goes live

  15-07-2026 11:06 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  It’s an early Christmas present for London architecture fans as the annual Open House London preview has gone live this morning.
  Euston Tower – from the top of the BT Tower
  The annual event sees hundreds of buildings open to the public for free, allowing visitors to wander in and take a look around. The vast majority are free to wander in and have a look around, but some are reserved for prebooked tours, and the very best will be in such high demand that they are allocated by ballot.
  
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• Visitng St Swithun’s Church, East Grinstead

  15-07-2026 08:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  It’s St Swithun’s Day, when traditionally the weather is fixed for the next forty days, and a good day to visit St Swithun’s Church in East Grinstead.Obviously, I visited on a different day to publish the article today, and judging by the weather forecast for today, and what it’s been like recently, let’s hope the saintly weather giver is having a day off. I don’t fancy another 40 days of a heatwave.
  Back to East Grinstead, where there’s a large church,
  
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• Airtel Africa taps more bankers for rare London IPO of mobile money business

  15-07-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Flotation could raise around $1.5bn and provide a much-needed boost for the UK’s depressed public markets
  
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• Work begins on £15m Barking Eurohub to revive London rail freight

  14-07-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Work has started on the redevelopment of Barking Eurohub in east London, in a project intended to bring regular international rail freight services through the Channel Tunnel back to the capital.
  Barking Eurohub (c) Network Rail
  The 40-acre site is being transformed into an international intermodal freight terminal capable of handling containers and liftable lorry trailers arriving from continental Europe by rail. Once completed, the hub will support freight services linking the UK with markets
  
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• Clerkenwell Green’s subterranean Victorian toilets are being demolished

  14-07-2026 14:59 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  Six years after they were blocked off with hoardings, a block of Victorian toilets in Clerkenwell Green is now a large hole in the ground.The subterranean toilets were installed by the sanitary engineer George Jennings around 1900 to replace a freestanding urinal in the middle of the road.
  Sadly, opening the new convenience was associated with a tragedy as the attendant who looked after the previous urinal, Denis Sheehan, was assaulted just a few weeks before the new convenience opened, and seem
  
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• Award-winning jewellery exhibition opens at the Goldsmiths’ Centre

  14-07-2026 13:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  If you want to see what the next generation of jewellery makers and metalworkers are up to, then there’s an exhibition of their works on display at the moment.Hosted at the Goldsmiths’ Centre, this annual exhibition showcases a selection of winning entries from the 2025/26 GC&DC awards – the UK’s most prestigious accolades for jewellery, silversmithing, smallwork and the allied crafts.
  Among the highlights on display is Downy Feather Brooch by Janet Barber, recipient
  
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• The UK’s telecoms industry is now a billionaire’s playground

  14-07-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Xavier Niel and Sunil Mittal are poised to shake up Vodafone and BT after placing big bets on the UK’s major operators
  
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• How the UK’s telecoms industry became a billionaire’s playground

  14-07-2026 06:00 via ft.com
  Xavier Niel and Sunil Mittal are poised to shake up Vodafone and BT after placing big bets on the UK’s major operators
  
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• Billionaire Xavier Niel could be the jolt Vodafone needs

  10-07-2026 19:03 via ft.com
  Investors hope £4.4bn move for telecoms group augurs quicker and sharper improvements
  
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• The restored Banqueting House reopens fully next month

  10-07-2026 17:00 via ianvisits.co.uk
  
  The restored Banqueting House in central London will be formally reopening in August, following a major restoration and a year of smaller previews.The Banqueting House has witnessed dramatic moments in history, including the execution of King Charles I. Originally created as a space to stage entertainments and completed in 1622 as part of the Palace of Whitehall, the Banqueting House is a masterpiece of classical architecture designed by Inigo Jones for James I. It was intended to host extravaga
  
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