• Vodafone Germany first European operator to launch standalone 5G

    When we talk about 5G, it is all too easy to forget that most deployments of the new technology around the world are still heavily supported by 4G spectrum. While this has allowed many operators to rollout 5G at a far larger scale than would otherwise have been possible, this non-SA 5G cannot deliver the ultra…read more on TotalTele.com »
  • Up to third off tickets for the Tina Turner musical

    The musical, based on the life of Tina Turner, made a huge splash in the UK during its West End premiere. It is based on the often tumultuous life and legendary music of international recording artist Tina Turner.
    Ticket prices currently start from just £20 for mid-week performances.Tina Turner was born Anna Mae Bullock and raised in Nutbush, Tennessee. From humble beginnings, she rose to fame as the Queen of Rock n Roll and sold more concert tickets than any other solo artist. After her a
  • Charing Cross Road’s restored Welsh Chapel opens for Nan Goldin’s exhibition

    There will be a chance to step inside Charing Cross Road’s gothic-looking former Welsh Chapel later this month as it opens its doors for an art exhibition.
    Welsh Chapel (c) ianVisits
    The Welsh Chapel, built in 1888 by James Cubitt on Charing Cross Road, was a busy place of worship until the 1950s, when urban populations drifted to the suburbs. In the 1980s, it became the Limelight nightclub, an Australian-themed pub, and eventually ended up as a squat.
    It was recently restored for use as a
  • The City of London’s Leadenhall Market is to open at weekends

    Situated in the heart of the City of London, Leadenhall Market is usually closed at the weekends, but for a couple of months, it will be open as a craft fair marketplace.The weekend series will see the grand Victorian marketplace return to its roots as a trading ground, but instead of selling meat, poultry and game, stalls will be filled with furniture, fashion and crafts.
    A number of the market’s restaurants, cafes and bars will also be open, serving food and drink.
    Judy’s Vintage F
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  • Demolition of the old Museum of London will go ahead

    The old Museum of London site on London Wall will be demolished after the government decided not to call in the planning application for review.Last month, the City of London approved the plans, which will see the 1970s Museum of London building and the monolithic Bastion House office block that sits next to it demolished to be replaced with new public spaces and offices.
    At the very last minute, though, Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, issued an Ar
  • Lumo applies to run trains between Manchester and London

    Low-cost train operator Lumo has applied for permission to run services between Manchester and London, adding to its existing Edinburgh to London services. It is also in talks to run services to Glasgow.
    (c) Lumo
    FirstGroup, which owns Lumo, says that it plans to offer six return journeys a day, restoring the direct Rochdale to London link via Manchester, which last ran in 2000.
    The trains will run from Rochdale to London Euston, calling at Manchester Victoria, Eccles, Newton-le-Willows and Warr
  • America’s ‘cable cowboy’ lost out in infrastructure boom

    Wrangling media and telecoms products into business models that produce durable profits has proved to be tough going
  • The Red King – New portrait of King Charles III’s is on public display for a few weeks

    Much lauded and loathed in equal measure, the first official portrait of King Charles III is on public display in London for a few weeks so you can make your own mind up about it.Dominating the ground floor of Philip Mould’s Pall Mall gallery, the portrait is exceptionally red but, maybe surprisingly, not as red as you might have expected from press photos. It is also a lot more textured than seems to be evident from photos taken of it so far.
    In part, that could be due to the photos in th
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  • Derelict industrial buildings to house the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration museum

    A new museum focused on drawing and illustrations has received a grant to convert some derelict industrial buildings in Clerkenwell into its new home.
    New River Head buildings (c) ianVisits
    The 300-year-old former waterworks in Clerkenwell was mainly a pumping site for sending clean water into London and was also one of London’s first major pieces of urban infrastructure. However, its 18th—and 19th-century buildings have been locked up and left empty for over 70 years.
    The Quentin Bl
  • Southeastern set to overhaul its Metro Service with a new fleet of trains

    Southeastern has confirmed that it is looking for a fleet of new or upgraded trains to replace its ageing Metro service trains.
    Class 465 train at Gravesend (c) Southeastern
    Southeastern operates a mixed fleet of trains across its network, which includes HS1 services, long-distance services, and local metro services. The metro services are a mix of old Bombardier Electrostar trains, even older Networkers, and some newer City Beam trains acquired from South Western Railway.
    The state-controlled c
  • BT’s CEO says she ‘loves to squeeze’ short sellers while unveiling £3bn of cost cuts

    Shares in UK’s biggest telecoms group rise 10% as Allison Kirkby announces strategy and raises dividend
  • BT’s CEO says she ‘loves to squeeze’ short sellers as shares jump

    UK’s biggest telecoms group rises 13% as Allison Kirkby announces strategy and raises dividend
  • BT to cut another £3bn of costs

    Shares rise 8% as chief executive Allison Kirkby says telecoms operator at an ‘inflection point’
  • London’s Pocket Parks: Hatton Cross tube station, TW6

    London’s Pocket Parks: Hatton Cross tube station, TW6
    A series of neglected spaces outside Hatton Cross tube station in west London have been given an ecological makeover.The raised beds were created in the 1970s along with the tube station, and although at times looked after, they have generally not been that well cared for over the decades and had become rather overgrown. It has now been transformed thanks to two projects coming together to improve the station. The gardens have been given a makeover, while a new mural has softened the brutalist b
  • Monopoly updates its London Underground themed board game

    Monopoly updates its London Underground themed board game
    There’s been a London Underground themed version of the Monopoly board game for some years, but it’s been refreshed for 2024 to include some new changes.Apart from the tube map in the centre, the other changes include the fact that the money no longer has a currency, but the banknote designs include a tube map impression in the background.
    The stations have been tweaked — including Victoria (replaces Fenchurch Street), Paddington (replaces Liverpool Street), King’s Cross
  • DLR testing improved accessibility at their unstaffed stations

    DLR testing improved accessibility at their unstaffed stations
    Transport for London (TfL) has started a trial to improve accessibility at DLR stations by offering staffed assistance for people who require it. The new Access DLR trial aims to enable customers to travel who may otherwise encounter barriers to getting around London.Although TfL offers a ‘turn up and go’ assistance service on the other rail services, it hasn’t been possible to offer that on the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) until now as the stations are unstaffed.
    As part of a
  • From naughty ravens to mischievous cats: Charles Dickens’ pets revealed in this new exhibition

    From naughty ravens to mischievous cats: Charles Dickens’ pets revealed in this new exhibition
    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
  • London Underground’s experiment with a carpeted tube train

    London Underground’s experiment with a carpeted tube train
    Fifty years ago, the London Underground put a carpet on the floor of one of their tube trains to see what the public thought. The verdict was not favourable.
    At the time, tube train floors were made of slatted wood, but London Underground faced a problem. The floors were usually made from hard-wearing Canadian maple, but in the 1970s, there was a growing shortage of Canadian timber, and prices for what they could get were soaring.
    LT Museum’s 1938 stock carriage (c) ianVisits
    So, in March
  • Moorgate’s shabby lawn to be revamped with bust of the poet John Keats

    Moorgate’s shabby lawn to be revamped with bust of the poet John Keats
    The rather neglected lawn next to Moorgate tube station is to get a makeover, to be replaced with a number of raised planted beds, and a bust of John Keats to commemorate the poet’s birthplace and work.
    Moorgate and London Wall junction
    The lawn was laid out as part of the neighbouring Moor House office development when it was completed in 2004, and was always intended to be a temporary greenspace until long-term plans were made. The current lawn has lasted rather longer than expected.
    Alt
  • Plans shown off for 1,500 homes above ASDA’s Park Royal superstore

    Plans shown off for 1,500 homes above ASDA’s Park Royal superstore
    A large ASDA superstore in west London could be redeveloped into a new housing site with around 1,500 homes close to the future Old Oak Common station.
    Early concept for the new development (c) ASDA
    Assuming planning permission is granted, the Park Royal Superstore site will have a replacement superstore built on the existing car park, with up to 1,500 new homes built on a podium above the store. Around a third of the new homes would be classed as “affordable”, although at this early
  • Barnes railway bridge to close for a week of repairs

    Barnes railway bridge to close for a week of repairs
    A key rail link across the Thames in west London will be closed for a week in late July due to bridge repairs.
    Barnes rail bridge (c) ianVisits
    The rail bridge crosses the Thames at Barnes,, and Network Rail says that it needs to replace all 48 solid wooden “wheel timbers” supporting the track across the Grade II-listed structure. Wheel timbers differ from traditional railway sleepers in that they provide extra strength and length in areas such as river bridges and are generally wide
  • Tickets Alert: Dry dock tours of the Golden Hinde

    Tickets Alert: Dry dock tours of the Golden Hinde
    A few Sundays this summer will offer an opportunity to go down into the dry dock around the Golden Hinde replica ship and get up close to the restoration work being carried out at the moment.
    (c) The Golden Hinde
    The ship is a full-size replica of Francis Drake’s original and was launched 50 years ago, in 1973, on a global tour.
    Since 1996, she has been berthed in a dry dock next to Southwark Cathedral as a tourist attraction. At the moment, a restoration project is underway, and tours wil
  • A day trip to Stansted Mountfitchet – Castle, Churches, Toys and a Windmill

    A day trip to Stansted Mountfitchet – Castle, Churches, Toys and a Windmill
    Not far from London is a small village old enough to appear in the Doomsday book that’s now far better known for the airport that stole its name. This is Stansted Mountfitchet, and for such a small village, it has a heck of a lot to see on a day trip.
    The town boasts an ancient church, a gothic church, an old windmill, one of Europe’s largest toy museums, a dinosaur park, and a large replica castle.
    Mountfitchet Castle and Norman Village
    Right in the centre of the village is a full-s
  • Expanded mobile phone coverage goes live on Elizabeth line and Underground

    Expanded mobile phone coverage goes live on Elizabeth line and Underground
    Mobile phone coverage on the London Underground and the Elizabeth line has expanded again, with more sections going live in recent weeks.On the Elizabeth line, 4G phone coverage is now live in Paddington, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf, and Woolwich stations, completing the rollout to all the new Elizbaeth line stations. Work to deliver coverage within the tunnelled sections of the Elizabeth line continues, with the first sections between Bond Street and Liverpool Street expected to get coverage with
  • Investors place record £300mn bet against BT

    New chief executive Allison Kirkby is battling to reverse adeclining share price
  • Wallpaper maker to return to former offices nearly a century after moving out

    Wallpaper maker to return to former offices nearly a century after moving out
    An Arts and Crafts wallpaper factory inChiswick built in 1902 has recently been restored and will again be occupied by the firm that commissioned it, along with the William Morris wallpaper designs that form its archive.
    Voysey House (c) Jack Hobhouse
    Sanderson, a manufacturer of fabrics and wallpaper, was founded in 1860 and in 1879 built a factory just off Chiswick High Road. In 1902, they expanded into a brand new modern factory, now known as Voysey House.
    However, Sanderson left the building
  • Tickets Alert: Vintage tube train to travel through central London

    Tickets Alert: Vintage tube train to travel through central London
    Next month, a 1938-era vintage tube train will travel through central London, and you can either wave as it goes past or be inside waving back if you want.The restored 1938 art-deco tube train will travel along the Piccadilly line on Sunday 9th June 2024 between Acton Town station in west London to Oakwood station in north London.
    At Oakwood station guests can enjoy a mini talk about the architect Charles Holden and how his innovative station design has played a major role in shaping the appeara
  • London’s Alleys: Oriel Court, NW3

    London’s Alleys: Oriel Court, NW3
    This is a short but charmingly cobbled little passage in Hampstead that unexpectedly leads to a cluster of hidden cottages.There is a hint in John Roque’s map from 1746 that the alley ran through the block to the road on the other side, although that could be a reference to Oriel Place or Perin’s Court, two longer alleys on either side of Oriel Court. It’s a tad difficult to be certain though.
    Whatever its origins, today the alley is a short L-shaped dead-end passage. The name
  • What I wish I’d known before my smartphone was snatched

    As phone theft surges, how can you protect your financial data?

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