• The Crick Institute’s ancient DNA exhibition Does Not Appeal

    The Crick Institute’s ancient DNA exhibition Does Not Appeal
    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
  • Telecom Italia backs Poste Italiane takeover bid

    Cash and paper offer would give state-controlled postal service full control of telecoms group
  • The London Buzz – 17th July 2026

    The London Buzz – 17th July 2026
    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
  • Tickets Alert: Attend the City of London’s ancient Silent Ceremony

    Tickets Alert: Attend the City of London’s ancient Silent Ceremony
    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

    London Overground’s Suffragette line to get four new railway bridges
    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
  • First GBR Anglia trains unveiled as Greater Anglia and c2c merge their fleets

    First GBR Anglia trains unveiled as Greater Anglia and c2c merge their fleets
    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
  • Hackers who crippled TfL systems sentenced to more than five years in prison

    Hackers who crippled TfL systems sentenced to more than five years in prison
    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
  • Free exhibition brings centuries of London’s working people to the streets

    Free exhibition brings centuries of London’s working people to the streets
    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

    Crystal Palace’s famous dinosaurs restored to their Victorian glory
    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
  • London’s Pocket Parks: Moorgate Corner, EC2

    London’s Pocket Parks: Moorgate Corner, EC2
    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
  • The London Buzz – 15th July 2026

    The London Buzz – 15th July 2026
    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
  • Tower of London to open historic architectural archive to the public for the first time

    Tower of London to open historic architectural archive to the public for the first time
    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
  • Austrian master returns to Britain after 170 years in free National Gallery exhibition

    Austrian master returns to Britain after 170 years in free National Gallery exhibition
    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
  • London Underground’s Central line is getting more trains at weekends

    London Underground’s Central line is getting more trains at weekends
    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
  • London Open House 2026 preview goes live

    London Open House 2026 preview goes live
    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.
  • Visitng St Swithun’s Church, East Grinstead

    Visitng St Swithun’s Church, East Grinstead
    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,
  • Airtel Africa taps more bankers for rare London IPO of mobile money business

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

    Work begins on £15m Barking Eurohub to revive London rail freight
    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
  • Clerkenwell Green’s subterranean Victorian toilets are being demolished

    Clerkenwell Green’s subterranean Victorian toilets are being demolished
    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
  • Award-winning jewellery exhibition opens at the Goldsmiths’ Centre

    Award-winning jewellery exhibition opens at the Goldsmiths’ Centre
    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
  • The UK’s telecoms industry is now a billionaire’s playground

    Xavier Niel and Sunil Mittal are poised to shake up Vodafone and BT after placing big bets on the UK’s major operators
  • How the UK’s telecoms industry became a billionaire’s playground

    Xavier Niel and Sunil Mittal are poised to shake up Vodafone and BT after placing big bets on the UK’s major operators
  • Billionaire Xavier Niel could be the jolt Vodafone needs

    Investors hope £4.4bn move for telecoms group augurs quicker and sharper improvements
  • The restored Banqueting House reopens fully next month

    The restored Banqueting House reopens fully next month
    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
  • This week’s theatre ticket sale offers from London Theatre Direct

    This week’s theatre ticket sale offers from London Theatre Direct
    This week’s sale and discount theatre ticket offers from London Theatre Direct.
    Royal Court Theatre (c) ianVisits
    From £10The Enormous Crocodile – Lyric HammersmithOpens 29 July 2026For my lunch today I would like… a nice juicy little child!From £10 – SAVE UP TO 47%
     CinderellaOpens 14th November 2026When the shoe fits… a fairytale begins.From £13 – SAVE UP TO 41%
     August Wilson’s FencesOpens 6th October 2026A powerful Ameri
  • Flash sale on Eurostar tickets to the European mainland

    Flash sale on Eurostar tickets to the European mainland
    Eurostar has launched a flash sale offering up to 50% off its premium train tickets, with one-way fares from London starting at £35 for a limited time.
    But only for couples and friends. If you’re a single person, then catch a plane instead.
    (c) ianVisits
    The sale cuts the price of selected one-way Eurostar Plus and Eurostar Premier tickets to Paris, Lille, Brussels, Amsterdam and Rotterdam, but does not apply to Standard class tickets.
    The offer is available for purchases before 11pm
  • Giant embroidery exhibition celebrates 400 years of London’s Upholders

    Giant embroidery exhibition celebrates 400 years of London’s Upholders
    A large circular embroidered artwork has gone on display for a couple of weeks to mark the 400th anniversary of the Worshipful Company of Upholders‘ grant of a royal charter.The artwork is a 2.3-metre diameter embroidery using the ancient English embroidery technique known as Opus Anglicanum. Designed by international iconographer Aidan Hart, the artwork brings together the skills of the Royal School of Needlework, Fine Cell Work and embroidery teams from 12 English cathedrals.
    The twelve
  • Bayeux Tapestry arrives in Britain under overnight police escort

    Bayeux Tapestry arrives in Britain under overnight police escort
    The Bayeux Tapestry has arrived in the UK.
    It arrived in the UK yesterday, and, escorted by the Kent and Metropolitan police, it was taken from Folkestone to the British Museum in an overnight operation.
    That journey marked the first time the tapestry had been in the UK since it was made, probably by Canterbury embroiderers, and it was soon afterwards sent to Bayeux Cathedral in France. It has remained in France ever since.The British Museum says that it spent the past year working with colleagu
  • Xavier Niel becomes largest Vodafone shareholder

    French billionaire purchases stake from Emirati group e& in move to bolster European telecoms businesses
  • French billionaire Xavier Niel becomes Vodafone’s top shareholder

    Niel’s Vega entity acquired £4.4bn stake from Emirati group e&

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