Latest news with #MaidaVale
The Independent
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Independent
National Grid boss: Heathrow and TfL outages not ‘systemic' network issues
The boss of National Grid has said recent outages at Heathrow airport and the London Tube are not evidence of reliability issues in the UK's power network. John Pettigrew told the PA news agency the two incidents were 'isolated and unconnected' and added that the resilience of the power grid is 'very robust'. Heathrow was forced to close for most of the day on March 21 because of a fire at a nearby electrical substation which started the previous night, disrupting more than 270,000 air passenger journeys. And on Monday, Transport for London (TfL) was forced to close the Elizabeth, Bakerloo, Jubilee and Northern lines after a fault on National Grid's transmission network. The malfunction also caused a blaze at an electrical substation in Maida Vale. Mr Pettigrew said on Thursday: 'In terms of broader resilience for network, I'd say that these incidents are not pointing to anything systemic.' Power networks are being more closely scrutinised across Europe after a massive outage hit vast swathes of Spain last month. The country's energy minister Sara Aagesen said earlier this week that the blackout was triggered by a sudden loss of power at a substation in Granada. However, investigations are ongoing into what caused the failure, and why it triggered such a huge power cut. Mr Pettigrew said: 'It will be important to look at the outcome of that investigation and see what it means for us.' National Grid, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, owns vast swathes of the power grid across Britain. It is partway through a £60 billion investment programme across the energy networks it manages, including the so-called Great Grid Upgrade in England, Scotland and Wales. The works are a large part of the Government's plans to decarbonise the power grid by 2030, which also involves building vast amounts of new wind and solar farms. Mr Pettigrew said the switch to renewable energy sources and the fast changes to how the energy grid works would not raise the risks of blackouts in the UK. He said: 'The UK, we have world class reliability. We invest massively in the asset health and resilience of the network. 'If you look at some of the core indicators of the overall condition of the network (such as unplanned unavailability of assets) that actually continued to improve over the last decade.' He added: 'There's no evidence of any deterioration in the reliability of the network. We just have to keep focused on it.' Mr Pettigrew is to step down later this year after nearly a decade in the job, to be replaced by Shell executive Zoe Yujnovich.
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Most Underground lines normal after power failure
Normal service has resumed on most lines on the London Underground network after a power failure caused major disruption on Monday afternoon. The Elizabeth, Jubilee, District, Northern, Waterloo & City, Circle and Piccadilly lines are now operating a good service, according to Transport for London (TfL). However, Metropolitan line passengers face severe delays due to the "late finish" of engineering works at Baker Street and the Mildmay line on the London Overground is partly suspended due to a points failure. TfL said disruption on several lines on Monday was caused by a short power outage in south-west London at about 14:30 BST, which caused caused knock-on problems across the network. The malfunction also caused a fire at an electrical substation in the Cunningham Place and Aberdeen Place area of Maida Vale, a London Fire Brigade spokesperson said. Firefighters were called to the substation and brought the flames under control, but three metres of high voltage cabling were destroyed, the fire service said. The National Grid has apologised for the disruption caused by the power failure. A spokesperson said: "The fault was resolved within seconds and did not interrupt supply from our network, but a consequent voltage dip may have briefly affected power supplies on the low voltage distribution network in the area. "We once again apologise for any inconvenience and ongoing travel disruption." Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to Power failure knocks out London Underground lines Transport for London
BBC News
13-05-2025
- General
- BBC News
Underground service mostly normal after power failure
Normal service has resumed on most lines on the London Underground network after a power failure caused major disruption on Monday Elizabeth, Jubilee, District, Northern, Waterloo & City, Circle and Piccadilly lines are now operating a good service, according to Transport for London (TfL).However, Metropolitan line passengers face severe delays due to the "late finish" of engineering works at Baker Street and the Mildmay line on the London Overground is partly suspended due to a points said disruption on several lines on Monday was caused by a short power outage in south-west London at about 14:30 BST, which caused caused knock-on problems across the network. The malfunction also caused a fire at an electrical substation in the Cunningham Place and Aberdeen Place area of Maida Vale, a London Fire Brigade spokesperson were called to the substation and brought the flames under control, but three metres of high voltage cabling were destroyed, the fire service National Grid has apologised for the disruption caused by the power failure.A spokesperson said: "The fault was resolved within seconds and did not interrupt supply from our network, but a consequent voltage dip may have briefly affected power supplies on the low voltage distribution network in the area."We once again apologise for any inconvenience and ongoing travel disruption."
The Independent
12-05-2025
- General
- The Independent
Cable fault causes London Underground disruption and fire
A cable fault has caused travel disruption and a fire in London. The Elizabeth, Bakerloo, Jubilee and Northern lines were all disrupted on Monday afternoon after a fault on the National Grid's transmission network. The malfunction also caused a blaze at an electrical substation in the Cunningham Place and Aberdeen Place area in Maida Vale, a London Fire Brigade (LFB) spokesperson said. Firefighters were called to the substation and brought the blaze under control, but three metres of high voltage cabling were destroyed, the LFB said. It comes weeks after a fire at the same substation, which saw elderly and vulnerable residents among those moved out of their homes. However, Monday's fire is understood to have involved different equipment to the blaze on April 29. A spokesman for Transport for London (TfL) told the PA news agency there was an outage in south-west London for 'a matter of minutes' and 'everything shut down' because of a 'National Grid issue'. He went on: 'When the power goes out, the trains will have stopped, obviously, there's emergency power on trains and stations so everything wouldn't have gone completely black, if you were on there, but the trains would have stopped and we would have cleared some stations because there's no electricity it might not necessarily be safe for them to be open… some people would have probably been stuck in a tunnel for a little bit of time.' TfL officials were seen directing passengers with suitcases away from Elizabeth line services at Paddington station, recommending they use buses to get across central London instead. The Bakerloo line entrance had been completely shut at Paddington. TfL staff said they did not know when the entrance would reopen. They said: 'It was a power outage. The lights just went off, we don't know anything else. 'It's been about an hour-and-a-half now. We can't say when it will be fixed.' Alison Hendry, 33, and Joseph Richardson, 37, came on the Heathrow Express to Paddington after flying from Glasgow earlier on Monday. Ms Hendry said: 'It's a bit annoying they only told us when we got here. We walked all the way across the station, we have to go all the way back.' The pair carried suitcases from their travels and hoped to reach Walthamstow in time for a comedy show on Monday evening. A National Grid spokesperson said: 'We apologise for any inconvenience following a fault on our transmission network in central London this afternoon. 'The fault was resolved within seconds and did not interrupt supply from our network, but a consequent voltage dip may have briefly affected power supplies on the low voltage distribution network in the area. 'We once again apologise for any inconvenience and ongoing travel disruption.' Claire Mann, TfL's chief operating officer, said: 'We apologise to customers whose journeys will have been affected. We are working to get the whole network up and running again as quickly as possible.'
Euronews
02-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
Come in and tune out: Europe's vinyl junkies embrace the Listening Bar
ADVERTISEMENT "This is the Kronos Quartet and Asha Bohsle. I love this album," smiles Paul Noble, seated on a stool opposite me wearing a cloth cap. From the industrial ceiling hang small spotlight cylinders, super high-spec speakers and a glitter ball. A projector beams mildly psychedelic imagery onto one wall, while another boasts a generous spirits collection that basks invitingly in the effulgence. Sonically obsessed from an early age, Noble had a lengthy career with BBC radio, notably producing the much-vaunted Maida Vale sessions. But in 2012, he found himself in Japan, and that's where his idea took shape. "I went to Japan where they have a tradition of listening bars," he tells Euronews Culture. "And they could be tiny with six seats in them, maybe eight seats in them, and they just play records from start to finish on an amazing sound system. Usually there's a cover charge. So you're kind of already predisposed to go and listen and pay attention. They are all divided by genre so it's kind of an expression of the owner's personal taste so there'll be a jazz bar, there'll be a blues one, a classical music one. There's some kind of soft rock ones. It's nothing to do with club culture. It's nothing to do with DJing. Some might have you know, one turntable one CD player. I just completely fell in love with it. I couldn't get enough of it." Trend or bandwagon? Listening bars have become something of a trend in recent years but since the end of the pandemic (which cut short Spiritland's presence at the Royal Festival Hall) more and more bars are, wittingly or otherwise, becoming seen as part of the audiophile phenomenon. What qualifies a premises to exist in this burgeoning category, however, is up for debate. After all, what separates a 'listening bar' from a normal bar that plays music or has DJs? For Noble, it starts with the sound system. At Spiritland, the system is made by high-performance audio product trailblazer Living Voice , who engineer speakers to represent as faithfully as possible the sound of the acoustic instrument and not to seemingly compress the sound, which Kevin Scott, who heads up the Derbyshire manufacturer, believes conventional speakers do. "I was already buying stuff from them," says Noble. "I was on my own audio journey. They make some wild high-end speakers that can cost up to a million pounds with rare woods and gold finishes, but they also make some real-world ones, so I got rid of my whole sound system at home and bought from them for my lounge. And then we talked and they built this system for us. It was their tech but we had input on the design." Living Voice set-up at Spiritland Ed Reeve "We just put our flag in the sand saying 'this is a listening bar'. Lots of people came in and were saying "oh you can't dance, there are chairs all over the dance floor". It's not a club. We didn't put a kitchen and a radio studio in the corner accidentally. This is us saying this is what we're about. There's DJs playing every night, we do talks, we do lots of work with the record industry, with literature and film, and because of the room and the design and the sound system, we do lots of album launches," Noble explains. "We've done Dylan, The Beach Boys, Bruce Springsteen, Jack White." Friends in hi-fi places A few miles east of here is a bar that has been linked with this hi-fi culture in some quarters, but perhaps the categorisation is misplaced. "Whilst we have high quality sound and audio in the space, we wouldn't really coin ourselves strictly as a listening bar," explains Karl Fuller, part of the collective behind Hackney Wick hangout All My Friends . Hackney Wick's All My Friends Jez Fielder/Euronews "This space was created with the intention of giving our community a more laid back space to hang out and exchange ideas. With our roots in clubs and dance music, connecting with music be it on the dance floor, or in a more laid back environment has always been extremely important to us." So here, while musical devotion is clearly observable (the lower floor houses a record shop), and money has been spent on sound, we're not finding quite the same culture of listening. It's more about connection between people here. The Record Shop @ All My Friends Jez Fielder/Euronews "The place caters for a wide range of ages and demographics," Fuller goes on. "But being that it isn't a ticketed space and is open access, it's certainly a lot more accessible for a wider pool of people. It's a place for our friends to eat, drink, buy records, listen to great music and when night hits and we move the chairs, have a proper dance too." Listening in Lisbon Back in Kings Cross, although the chairs are staying firmly where they are, the operation has spread its wings into continental Europe. Noble shows me a picture of the bar he and his business partner Sophie Uddin have just opened under the Spiritland name in an old Lisbon library with huge double-height ceilings. It certainly has the wow factor. ADVERTISEMENT Spiritland Lisbon Charlie McKay "It's a really lovely space," Noble is happy to concede. "We've just put ourselves forward for a design award." Spiritland has in fact opened six bars in Lisbon and the two that are music focussed are sister bars of the one in which Noble and I are chatting. Why Lisbon? Because he likes it. "I was travelling there loads, going to the bars, meeting everyone. We did a load of parties in the run-up, warehouse parties," he says of the lead up to opening Spiritland Lisbon and Kissaten (which also boasts the Portuguese capital largest whisky collection), both housed in the Locke Hotel. The Kissaten in Lisbon Charlie McKay One of the key differences from what's happening in Europe to the initial Japanese inspiration is generalisation. Reproducing genre-specific listening establishments is simply too niche. ADVERTISEMENT "It's just not going to work here. The audience is very, very broad, musically." Divinyl Inspiration When you walk into a bar of this nature, it's almost guaranteed that you will see lashings of vinyl. According to a report by Luminate , vinyl album sales increased from 13.1 million in 2016 to 49.6 million in 2023, a growth of nearly 300% over eight years. But what's behind the vinyl resurgence? Is it really better? "We're not vinyl-only at all," Noble says, perhaps surprisingly. "We've got CD players, we've got digital players. We do have a big record collection. Vinyl is a really nice way to file your music and the format of an album is great. But the sound, I think, has been blown out of the water by digital high-res recording. Vinyl is a nice way to build a library, a nice way to categorise it but with an amazing collection of music on a USB drive, although you can't see it, and can't hold it, the quality would be better than anything you're going to hear on record." Related The Vinyl Paradox: Why independent record stores are struggling despite the boom in physical media This is perhaps a diplomatic way to blow off arguments from vinyl purists that their chosen format is the most faithful way to replicate any given musical recording. There is a sense with vinyl collectors that it's somehow more honest but Noble makes the interesting point that you have to look at the full set up in any format to ensure that there's no weak link for the listener, regardless of the ephemera surrounding the format. ADVERTISEMENT Turntables at Kissaten in Lisbon Charlie McKay "When you're playing vinyl, every link in the chain from the cartridge to the pre-amp and the needle needs to be matched. So you could have one excellent piece that's then let down by another element." And it's this meticulous care and attention that recapitulates the listening bar's Japanese origins, where reverence for quality sound and engagement with the music was akin to religion. This is not to say that vinyl is not a huge feature of the Spiritland universe. "Every day from 6pm here we play music on turntables and it sounds amazing," Noble says. "But is it technically better than 24-bit hi-res digital recording? Well, I guess it's a preference." ADVERTISEMENT
