82 London Underground stations to get free Wi-Fi for the Olympics

The last sanctuary from the incessant red light blinking on BlackBerry devices will begin to vanish in the next few weeks as Wi-Fi coverage is extended to the London Underground.

Passengers will be able to check emails, browse the internet and even attempt to watch live TV on their mobiles, tablets and laptops while waiting for trains at 80 stations across the network. Another 40 will be connected by the end of the year.

The service, which will be free to everyone for the whole summer, is expected to come online at some stations, including King's Cross, Leicester Square, Oxford Circus and Stratford, within the next couple of weeks.

Virgin Media, which is providing the service in partnership with Transport for London (TfL), said passengers would be able to connect to the internet in ticket halls, on escalators and platforms and from inside trains waiting in stations.

Coverage will be lost when trains enter tunnels, but Virgin said customers would be automatically reconnected upon arrival at the next station.

"Your pages will update as soon as you enter a new station, so you will be able to tweet your journey," a Virgin spokeswoman said.

The first tweet from the underground was posted by Rory Cellan-Jones, the BBC's technology correspondent, who managed to stream an episode of The Apprentice on the BBC's iPlayer on his iPad.

Ordinary users, however, will struggle to get speeds anywhere near fast enough to stream video as the service is likely to be overloaded by the number of passengers trying to connect.

Virgin said speeds would be "comparable" to the planned 4G mobile phone internet.

The service will only be free for everyone until the end of the London 2012 Olympic Games. Customers of some Virgin broadband packages will continue to receive free access; pay-as-you-go access will be available to others.

The telco said that it planned to connect 82 stations on the Tube network by the end of July. The remaining 38 stations earmarked for the wireless service are expected to be offering internet access at platform-only level by the end of the year, Virgin Media added.

As we reported previously, the monopoly underground Wi-Fi network will be offered to punters for free during the London 2012 Olympics.

Once the games are over, Virgin Media customers will continue to get free access while waiting at a platform for the next tube to pull in.

But everyone else will have to pay, apart from a limited offering "including TfL’s journey planner and entertainment and news content useful for a commute to work or trip into town", which will continue to be free.

“Bringing a next generation WiFi service to one of the world’s oldest underground transport networks is progressing as planned and the forthcoming service is testing well," London Underground's director of strategy and service development Gareth Powell said.

“The first stations include some of our busiest and most well-known destinations and we’re on-track for a successful launch this summer - all delivered at no additional cost to fare payers or tax payers.

Drew Barrymore

Drew Blyth Barrymore, born February 22, 1975 is an American actress, film director, screenwriter, producer and model. She is a member of the Barrymore family of American actors and granddaughter of John Barrymore. She first appeared in an advertisement when she was 11 months old. Barrymore made her film debut in Altered States in 1980. Afterwards, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. She quickly became one of Hollywood's most recognized child actresses, going on to establish herself in mainly comic roles.
Following a turbulent childhood which was marked by drug and alcohol abuse and two stints in rehab, Barrymore wrote the 1990 autobiography, Little Girl Lost. She successfully made the transition from child star to adult actress with a number of films including Poison Ivy, Bad Girls, Boys on the Side, and Everyone Says I Love You. Subsequently, she established herself in romantic comedies such as The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates.
In 1995, she and business partner Nancy Juvonen formed the production company Flower Films, with its first production the 1999 Barrymore film Never Been Kissed. Flower Films has gone on to produce the Barrymore vehicle films Charlie's Angels, 50 First Dates, and Music and Lyrics, as well as the cult film Donnie Darko. Barrymore's more recent projects include He's Just Not That into You, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Everybody's Fine and Going the Distance. A recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Barrymore appeared on the cover of the 2007 People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful issue.
Barrymore was named Ambassador Against Hunger for the UN World Food Programme (WFP). Since then, she has donated over US$1 million to the program. In 2007, she became both CoverGirl's newest model and spokeswoman for the cosmetic and the face for Gucci's newest jewelry line. In 2010, she was awarded the Screen Actors Guild Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film for her portrayal of Little Edie in Grey Gardens.

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London Underground

London Underground, often shortened to the Underground is a rapid transit system in the United Kingdom, serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. It incorporates the oldest section of underground railway in the world, which opened in 1863 and now forms part of the Circle, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan lines; and the first line to operate electric trains, in 1890, now part of the Northern line.
The Underground system is also colloquially called the Tube. As commonly used today both by Londoners and in most official publicity, this term embraces the entire system. Originally, though, it applied only to the deep-level lines with trains of a smaller and more circular cross-section, and served to distinguish them from the sub-surface "cut-and-cover" lines that were built first and originally used steam locomotives.
The earlier lines of the present London Underground network were built by various private companies. They became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) or London Transport was created. The underground network became a separate entity in 1985, when the UK Government created London Underground Limited (LUL). Since 2003 LUL has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL), the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, which is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.
The Underground serves 270 stations and has 402 kilometres (250 mi) of track, 45 per cent of which is underground. It is the second largest metro system in the world in terms of route miles, after the Shanghai Metro and part of the largest system in terms of route miles when taken together with the Docklands Light Railway and the London Overground. It also has one of the largest numbers of stations. In 2007, more than one billion passenger journeys were recorded, making it the third busiest metro system in Europe, after Moscow and Paris. The tube is an international icon for London, with the tube map, considered a design classic, having influenced many other transport maps worldwide. Although also shown on the Tube map, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and London Overground are not part of the London Underground network.
Currently, 86% of operational expenditure on the London Underground is covered by passenger fares. Almost all London Underground trains currently lack air-conditioning, which leads to the network getting very hot in the summer, although plans are under way to mitigate this problem with new air-conditioned trains and other schemes. Because of engineering work being carried out under the 2010–2012 upgrade plan, lines were regularly closed during weekends.


First tube lines


Following advances in the use of tunnelling shields, electric traction and deep-level tunnel designs, later railways were built deeper underground. This caused much less disruption at ground level, and it was therefore cheaper than and preferable to the cut-and-cover construction method.
The City & South London Railway (C&SLR, now part of the Northern Line) opened in 1890, between Stockwell and the now closed original terminus at King William Street. It was the first "deep-level" electrically operated railway in the world. By 1900 it had been extended at both ends, to Clapham Common in the south and Moorgate Street (via a diversion) in the north. The second such railway, the Waterloo and City Railway (W&CR), opened in 1898. It was built and run by the London and South Western Railway.
On 30 July 1900, the Central London Railway (now known as the Central Line) was opened, operating services from Bank to Shepherd's Bush. It was nicknamed the "Twopenny Tube" for its flat fare and cylindrical tunnels;the "tube" nickname was eventually transferred to the Underground system as a whole. An interchange with the C&SLR and the W&CR was provided at Bank. Construction had also begun in August 1898 on the Baker Street & Waterloo Railway, but work came to a halt after 18 months when funds ran out.


Nationalisation


On 1 January 1948, London Transport was nationalised by the Labour government, together with the four remaining main-line railway companies, and incorporated into the operations of the British Transport Commission (BTC). The LPTB was replaced by the London Transport Executive (LTE). This brought the Underground under the direct remit of central government for the first time in its history. The BTC prioritised the reconstruction of its main-line railways over the maintenance of the Underground network. The unfinished parts of the New Works Programme were gradually shelved or postponed.
However, the BTC did authorise the completion of the electrification of the network, seeking to replace steam locomotives on the parts of the system where they still operated. This phase of the programme was completed when the Metropolitan line was electrified to Chesham in 1960. Steam locomotives were fully withdrawn from London Underground passenger services on 9 September 1961, when British Railways took over the operations of the Metropolitan line between Amersham and Aylesbury. The last steam shunting and freight locomotive was withdrawn from service in 1971.
In 1963, the LTE was replaced by the London Transport Board, directly accountable to the Ministry of Transport.


Ticketing


The Underground uses TfL's Travelcard zonal fare system to calculate fares. Greater London is divided into 6 zones; Zone 1 is the most central, with a boundary just beyond the Circle line, and Zone 6 is the outermost and includes London Heathrow Airport. Stations on the Metropolitan line outside Greater London are in Zones 7–9. There are staffed ticket offices, some open for limited periods only, and ticket machines usable at any time. Some ticket machines accept coins, notes and credit cards, some accept coins only, and some accept cards only.
In 2003, TfL introduced the Oyster card, a smartcard with an embedded contactless RFID chip, which travellers can charge up with credit and use to pay for travel. It can also be loaded with Travelcards. Like a paper Travelcard, it can be used on the Underground, the Overground, buses, trams, the Docklands Light Railway, and National Rail services within London. TfL encourages passengers to use Oyster cards instead of Travelcards or cash by implementing significant price differences, so travel by Oyster card is significantly cheaper.
Since GLC days there has been a concessionary fare scheme for disabled London residents and those aged over 60. Since 2006, the scheme has been called the "Freedom Pass" and allows for free travel on TfL-operated routes at all times. It is also valid on National Rail services within London, except between 04:30 and 09:30 on Monday to Fridays on some lines. The pass itself is, in effect, a free Oyster card, though it does not bear that name. Since 2010, the Freedom Pass has inc


Safety
Main articles: Safety on the London Underground and Suicide on the London Underground
Accidents on the Underground network, which carries around a billion passengers a year, are rare. There is one fatal accident for every 300 million journeys. There are several safety warnings given to passengers, such as the 'mind the gap' announcement and the frequent announcements to passengers to keep behind the yellow line. Relatively few accidents are caused by overcrowding on the platforms: staff monitor platforms and passageways at busy times and prevent people entering overcrowded areas.
Most fatalities on the network are suicides. Most platforms at deep tube stations have pits beneath the track. These were originally constructed to aid drainage of water from the platforms, but they also help prevent death or serious injury when a passenger falls or jumps in front of a train.

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Drew Barrymore's Lips Are Sealed on Wedding, Pregnancy

Drew Barrymore been in the public eye for most of her 37 years. Born into a legendary Hollywood family, Barrymore starred in her first film when she was just six years old, and wrote her autobiography when she was 14, after two stints in rehab.


Lately, though, she's been keeping mum about some of most important aspects of her personal life. In an age when the public often knows everything about a celebrity's life, Barrymore's has been a mystery lately.


She is reported to be getting married this weekend to her art consultant fiancé, Will Kopelman, but none of the publicly known details about the wedding (if there is one) have come directly from Barrymore herself. Requests for comment from Barrymore's management were not returned.


The small, private ceremony will take place on Barrymore's Montecito estate, attended only by close family and friends, E! senior news correspondent Melanie Bromley told ABC News.


It appears, according to E!, that the bride will wear a Chanel dress (she was recently spotted going for a final fitting at a Chanel boutique in LA, and Kopelman's father is the company's former CEO), and at least part of the wedding will take place outside (tents were seen being unloaded at the estate).

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Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation,wealth taxation, environmentalism, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties
The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party. The two parties had formed the electoral SDP–Liberal Alliance for seven years before then, since the SDP's formation. The Liberals had been in existence for 129 years and in power under leaders such as Gladstone, Asquith and Lloyd George.
Nick Clegg was elected Leader in 2007. At the 2010 general election, Liberal Democrats won 23% of the vote and 57 of the 650 seats, making them the third-largest party in the House of Commons, behind the Conservatives with 307 and Labour with 258. No party having an overall majority; the Liberal Democrats became the junior partners in a coalition government with the Conservatives, with Clegg becoming Deputy Prime Minister and other Liberal Democrats taking up ministerial positions.




The opening line to the preamble of the Liberal Democrats constitution is "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity. Most commentators describe the party as centrist. In 2011 party leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said "But we are not on the left and we are not on the right. We have our own label: Liberal.
There are two main strands of distinct ideology within the party, social liberals and the economic liberals, more commonly known as Orange Bookers. The social liberals are seen as being the more traditionally centre-left end of the party with Orange Bookers being more towards the centre. The principal difference between the two is that the Orange Bookers tend to support greater choice and competition and as such aiming to increase social mobility through increasing economic freedom and opportunity for those with more disadvantaged backgrounds. Whereas the social liberals are more commonly associated with directly aiming to increase equality of outcome through state means. Correspondingly, Orange Bookers tend to favour cutting taxes for the poorest in order to increase opportunity contrasting with social liberals who would rather see higher spending on the disadvantaged to reduce income inequality.


After the first of three general election debates on 15 April 2010, a ComRes poll put the Liberal Democrats on 24%.On 20 April, a YouGov poll put the Liberal Democrats on 34%, the Conservatives on 33% and Labour on 28%.
In the general election held on 6 May 2010, the Liberal Democrats won 23% of the vote and 57 seats in the House of Commons. The election returned a hung parliament with no party having an absolute majority. Negotiations between the Lib Dems and the two main parties occurred in the following days. David Cameron became Prime Minister on 11 May after Gordon Brown's resignation and the Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with the Conservative Party, with Nick Clegg as Deputy Prime Minister and other Liberal Democrats in the cabinet.Three quarters of the Liberal Democrat's manifesto pledges went into the Programme for Government.
An academic study has suggested that the party has been able to secure a greater degree of control over government policy than their relative proportion of seats, with the party taking 75% of their manifesto pledges into the programme for government. Though some say this has had an adverse effect on the party's distinctiveness in the eyes of the voters. 
Since joining the coalition poll ratings for the party have fallen,particularly following the government's support for raising the cap on tuition fees with Liberal Democrat MPs voting 27 for, 21 against and 8 abstaining.
On 8 December 2010, the eve of a House of Commons vote on the raising of the UK's undergraduate tuition fee cap to £9,000, an opinion poll conducted by YouGov recorded voting intention figures of Conservatives 41%, Labour 41%, Other Parties 11% and Liberal Democrats 8%.[86] the lowest level of support recorded for the Liberal Democrats in any opinion poll since September 1990. In the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election, 2011 held on 13 January 2011, the Liberal Democrats gained 31.9% of the vote, a 0.3% increase despite losing to Labour. In a by-election in the South Yorkshire constituency of Barnsley in March 2011, the Liberal Democrats fell from a 2nd place at the general election to 6th,.
In council elections held on 5 May 2011, the Liberal Democrats suffered heavy defeats in the Midlands, North and Scotland. They also lost heavily in the Welsh assembly and Scottish Parliament, where several LibDem candidates lost their deposits.
According to the Guardian
"They lost control of Sheffield council – the city of Clegg's constituency – were ousted from Liverpool, Hull and Stockport, and lost every Manchester seat they stood in. Overall, they got their lowest share of the vote in three decades".
Clegg admitted that the party had taken "big knocks" due to a perception that the coalition government had returned to the Thatcherism of the 1980s.
As part of the deal that formed the coalition, it was agreed to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote, in which the Conservatives would campaign for First Past the Post and the Liberal Democrats for Alternative Vote. The referendum, held on 5 May 2011, resulted in First Past the Post being chosen over Alternative Vote by two-thirds of voters.
In May 2011, Nick Clegg revealed plans to make the House of Lords a mainly elected chamber, limiting the number of peers to 300, 80% of whom would be elected with a third of that 80% being elected every 5 years by Single transferable vote.The Lib Dem secretary of state for energy and climate change Chris Huhne also announced plans for halving UK carbon emissions by 2025 as part of the "Green Deal" in the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto.
In council elections held on 3 May 2012, the Lib Dems lost more than three hundred councillors, leaving them with fewer than three thousand for the first time in the party's history.

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Lib Dems suffer plunge in party membership

One in five members of the Liberal Democrats quit the party last year, with the worst losses in constituencies represented by government ministers, as disaffected activists walked out in protest at the coalition.


An investigation by The Independent on Sunday reveals the Lib Dems' collapse in support in the polls has been matched by a desertion of thousands of members. The exodus – far worse than the usual post-election drop-off – threatens to undermine the party's support base. Officials in one minister's constituency reported "members and supporters not being willing to campaign for the party".


The loss of thousands of members will leave a hole in the party's finances. To join the Lib Dems costs a minimum of £12 a year, or £6 for students, under-25s and those on benefits. The financial accounts of all local parties with an income of more than £25,000 paint a grim picture for the Lib Dems.


Membership of the Scottish Liberal Democrats has shrunk by 26 per cent. Craig Harrow, convenor of the party, said campaign teams were "devastated" by last year's results in the Holyrood elections, with MSPs "swept from office on a tsunami for the SNP".


The trebling of university tuition fees to £9,000 appears to have hit the party particularly hard, with Liberal Youth, the party's student wing, seeing more than half its 6,000 members quit in 2011.


Over the same period, Labour Students rose eight per cent to 6,782. Among nine Labour constituency parties to report, there was a net drop of just one per cent. Labour said it will not comment on national membership figures until they are published later this year. A survey of 100 Conservative associations reveals an average drop of seven per cent of members in the last 12 months. David Cameron's Witney constituency reported a two per cent rise.


The fact that the talks are becoming public will place further strain on the coalition government and will be seized on by Tory MPs unhappy with what they see as Mr Cameron abandoning traditional Tory policies while waving through Lib Dem-friendly moves such as legalising same-sex marriage.
The news infuriate Mr Clegg as well as other "Tory-friendly" Lib Dems in the coalition, who include Jeremy Browne, the Foreign Office ministers tipped for promotion into the cabinet.
A key Labour go-between with the Lib Dems is Lord Adonis, the former transport secretary and Downing Street adviser under Tony Blair, who recently re-entered frontline politics as an adviser to the Labour leader on industrial strategy.
The peer has kept up links with the Lib Dems dating back from his past as a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which formed an alliance with the Liberals in the 1980s.
A Labour source said: "Lib Dems are waking up to the fact that Nick Clegg has led them to the edge of the abyss interms of the next election. They could be looking a dramatic reduction in the number of their MPs.
"These talks are designed to find common ground so that, if the next election result is inconclusive once again, we could enter a progressive coalition with them."
"We do not want to attack the Lib Dems as such. We want their votes. We need to concentrate our fire on Nick Clegg and a few others."
Last week Mr Cable annoyed Mr Clegg's inner circle by publicly casting doubt on the coalition lasting a full term. Many Lib Dems want the party to pull its ministers out of the government some months before polling day, expected to be in May 2015, leaving the Tories to run a minority administration.
Such a move, it is argued, would allow both coalition partners some "breathing space" to establish a different set of policies for their respective manifestos.
Mr Cable said last week: "Everybody involved knows that before the next general election, the two parties will have to establish their own separate platforms and identity.
"But how that disengagement takes place, over what time period, is very much an issue for the future.

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Victoria Beckham flies the flag for the UK as she talks about being proud to be British

She was born and bred in Hertfordshire, the leafy Home County just north of London and has established herself as a world-famous pop star and fashion designer.
But although she now currently resides in Los Angeles, Victoria Beckham is proud of her British roots - and doesn't mind saying so.
In a promotional video for the This Is GREAT Britain campaign, the couture queen talks about what makes the UK a great place to live, work and play.

She starts the video talking about becoming a fashion designer and said: 'I always wanted to work in fashion and when I was given the opportunity I took that opportunity with both hands

'I want to empower women, I want to make women feel good about themselves and for me to be able to achieve the quality that I want to give my customer, I have to do that in London.
'My brand is British, my team are all British, you can feel the energy as you're driving through London.'

She added that one of her favourite places in London to visit when she was younger was the thriving and bustling Camden Market.
Victoria said: 'I remember when I was younger I used to love going to Camden Market on a Sunday, the energy, the atmosphere, it's really multi-cultural. That is more inspiring than anything.'
And she went on to gush about how great the British are and how many creative minds and voices have come from the UK.

Kylie, Gurrumul star in concert for Queen By Andrew Drummond in London

“IT’S very important to us that this is about the monarchy,” declared Edinburgh resident Carol Sutherland, sipping a Pimm’s beneath a string of Union flag bunting. “It’s not just an excuse for a party.”

Welcome to Dalhousie Terrace, location of one of Edinburgh’s biggest Diamond Jubilee street parties. As the country embarked on a four-day extravaganza to celebrate the biggest royal event in a decade, around 200 residents of Morningside honoured the Queen’s 60-year reign with quintessentially British fare including cucumber sandwiches, cupcakes decorated with Union flags and strawberries and cream.

Among them was 64-year-old George Calder, resplendent in a Union flag bow tie (the dress code here is red, white and blue) who grew up on the street and remembers celebrating the Coronation in this corner of Edinburgh almost six decades ago.

“It was an exciting occasion,” he said. “There was a real sense of optimism. About 20 of us crowded into the one house on the street that had a TV, a tiny little black and white thing, to watch it all happen.”

Dalhousie Terrace has a reputation for this sort of do. Last year it held a street party for the Royal Wedding, and it has been holding similar celebrations as far back as the Silver Jubilee in 1977.

Australian Aboriginal artist Gurrumul will also be on stage and is featured in a track, Sing, written by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Gary Barlow especially for the Jubilee, which will be performed live on the night.

"The song starts with a little girl from Kenya, where the Queen's reign started," Barlow said. "The last person to sing is Gurrumul, who has been blind since birth."

Some 200 people from across the Commonwealth collaborated on the song, with joker Prince Harry playing the tambourine, Barlow said.

"The single ends with a blast of bagpipes ... they are one of Her Majesty's favourite things so we had to include them," he said.

"I recorded our bagpipers in Australia, of all places. They are the Canberra Bagpipe Orchestra, but they had been taught by Scots pipers so the DNA is there."

Ten thousand tickets have been issued for Monday's concert spectacular, which will be performed on a circular stage surrounding the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of the palace.

The Queen and Prince Philip, along with other senior royals, will be in the audience to see a star-studded line-up that also includes Elton John, Paul McCartney, Shirley Bassey, Cliff Richard, Robbie Williams, Jessie J, Annie Lennox, and Ed Sheeran.

* The Nine Network and its regional affiliates will show the Diamond Jubilee Concert at 8pm (AEST) on Tuesday.