4 legendary London attractions turning 25 in 2025
Picture the scene. It's 1999, and the government has just spent £789 million building a giant dome-shaped building in southeast London. But what promised to be a turn-of-the-millennium world-class exhibition venue, ended up a bit of a dud.
We're of course talking about the infamous Millennium Dome – now the O2 Arena – which turns 25 this year. The Dome was one of four major attractions that opened in London to mark the year 2000. Twenty-five years on, we look back at the iconic landmarks that arrived in the capital to herald in a new millennium.
Millennium Dome
Ah, 2000. It was a simpler time. There were no Lime bikes, or street vox-poppers, and barely any small plates restaurants. Perhaps one of the biggest scandals of the era was the misfortunate Millennium Dome, which opened on New Year's Eve 1999. After its bizarre opening exhibition, which offered an immersive human body experience, circus performers and a cinema, the dome eventually became the O2 as we know it today.
Millennium Bridge
The once wobbly bridge had to close immediately after opening when it was revealed it couldn't hold the weight of all the people crossing it. It's all fixed now, and is currently in the midst of a (delayed) £3.5 million makeover.
Back in 2000 the London Eye was actually called the Millennium Wheel, and was the world's biggest ferris wheel. It was only meant to be temporary, but in May 2024 it officially became a permanent attraction. Phew!
Tate Modern
We're not sure where Londoners went to see modern art in London before the arrival of this behemoth in an old power station. The Tate Modern opened its doors to the public on May, 12, 2000. Second gallery the Switch House came later, arriving in 2016.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Lewis Capaldi announces UK and Ireland tour after his triumphant return to Glastonbury following a two-year hiatus amid his battle with Tourettes
Lewis Capaldi has announced he's heading on a UK and Ireland tour this year following his triumphant return to Glastonbury. The Scottish singer, 28, left music lovers thrilled as he took to the Pyramid stage at Worthy Farm on Friday, two years after his battle with Tourette's left him unable to finish his set. And days after his emotional return to the festival, Lewis thrilled fans once more as he revealed he's set to head on the road in September, humorously noting on Instagram that it's 'about time I got back to work.' The Someone You Loved hitmaker will play 10 dates later this year, playing venues in cities including Sheffield, Aberdeen, Birmingham and Nottingham. Lewis, who last week unveiled his new track Survive, will also play two days at London's 02 Arena. Lewis went on to confirm on Instagram that these would be his 'only shows' in the UK, Ireland and Europe this year. Pre-sale tickets go on sale on July 8, while general sale is on July 10. The Bruises hitmaker was greeted with cheers from the huge Worthy Farm crowd on Friday, following a two-year career hiatus. Delighted to be back in front of an audience he tearfully said: 'Two years ago I wasn't sure if I'd ever do this again, but I'm back baby!'. Lewis sung a number of his famous hits, before once chocking back tears as he performed brand new single Survive, which highlights the difficult period in his career following his last Glastonbury gig. Fans in the crowd could be seen crying and calling out his name before joining him in a rendition of mega-hit Someone You Loved. In his emotional speech, Lewis said: 'Glastonbury it's good to be back. Won't say too much up here today as if I do I might start crying, but I can't thank you enough for coming here and being with here'. 'Second times a charm hey! It's a short set today but just wanted to come and finish what I couldn't last time, also this was like the worst kept f*****g secret ever'. Following his set Lewis took to Instagram with footage of his performance alongside a post which read: 'Glastonbury it's so incredible to be back, thank you so much for having me x' After his emotional return to the festival, Lewis thrilled fans once more as he revealed he's set to head on the road in September, humorously noting on Instagram that it's 'about time I got back to work' Delighted to back in front of an audience he tearfully said: 'Two years ago I wasn't sure if I'd ever do this again, but I'm back baby!'' Lewis' 2025 tour dates September 7 – Sheffield, Utilita Arena September 11 – Aberdeen, P&J Live September 13 – Glasgow, OVO Hydro September 17 – London, O2 Arena September 18 – London, O2 Arena September 20 – Manchester, Co-op Live September 23 – Birmingham, Utilita Arena September 26– Nottingham, Motorpoint Arena September 27 – Cardiff, Utilita Arena September 29 – Dublin, 3Arena Fans and famous friends rushed to the comments to welcome the talented musician back into the public eye. Sam Fender said: 'Return of The King', while Alan Shearer said: 'Love It': Paddy McGuinness gushed: 'Governor' and Jade Thirlwall shared a slew of loving emojis. Following his emotional set at Worthy Farm in June 2023, the singer took time off to focus on his mental health and to 'adjust to the impact' of his Tourette's diagnosis. Also performing on Glastonbury's first day was CMAT, Lola Young, Alanis Morissette, as well Lorde with her own secret set. It came hours after Lewis shocked fans by announcing his comeback on Instagram, sharing a snippet of his new song and the Henry Dockrill directed accompanying music video. Captioning his exciting post, he simply wrote: 'It's been a while…' before directing his followers to the link to his song in his bio. The short video features sweet moments throughout Lewis' life and career, including snippets from his childhood. The new song has been described as a 'brutally honest track that addresses mental health challenges of self-doubt and despair', highlighting the difficult period in his career following his last Glastonbury performance. It features heartbreaking lyrics including: 'Most nights I fear that I'm not enough, I've had my share of Monday mornings when I can't get up.' However, more defiant lines include: 'I swear to God I'll survive, if it kills me to, I'm gonna' get up and try, if it's the last thing I'll do.' Lewis once again teamed up with collaborator Romans for the track, with the songwriter having famously co-wrote Lewis' megahit Someone You Loved. The star's announcement on Instagram sent his fans wild, with many sharing their excitement at his comeback in the comments. WHAT IS TOURETTE'S SYNDROME? Tourette's syndrome is a neurological condition characterised by a combination of involuntary noises and movements called tics. It usually starts during childhood and continues into adulthood. Tics can be either be vocal or physical. In many cases Tourette's syndrome runs in families and it's often associated with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Tourette's syndrome is named after the French doctor, Georges Gilles de la Tourette, who first described the syndrome and its symptoms in the 19th century. There's no cure for Tourette's syndrome, but treatment can help to control the symptoms.
Metro
a day ago
- Metro
We tried Google's new AI video to see if it's as mindblowing as it seems
You've probably seen the highly realistic AI video saturating social media. That Stormtrooper building a snowman? Made by Google Veo 3. The surfing unicorn passing ice floes while penguins rave under the northern lights? Also AI… we assume. If you can dream it, you can create it, which is incredibly exciting – but also incredibly unsettling, in terms of what it means for creative industries as well as misinformation and fact checking. A quick rundown: Google now allows you to create a cinematic video clip, just from typing in what you want to see. It includes realistic voices and sound, which sets it apart from other models. Given I've never had skill as a filmmaker, I was amazed to be able to make a clip of something you'd previously need Hollywood special effects teams to conjure up, just from writing a couple of sentences on my computer. The video below shows the three videos we made at Metro to test out the new tech, which Google launched in the UK on May 30. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video First off, we thought we'd boost morale in the team by looking at what Londoners really think of Metro. We used this prompt: Starts off with a wide shot. A glorious sunny day. Quiet roads. Tracks into an excited crowd gathered on High Street Kensington in London, with majestic buildings all around, including a Whole Foods. The crowd is young, cool and full of anticipation. A red London bus pulls into shot and a door opens. A brown Lakeland Patterdale terrier scampers off the bus, barking excitedly, and leaps into the arms of a nearby man, tall, tanned wth curly hair and short tidy beard, very handsome, wearing a navy three piece suit. A statuesque woman with a chignon emerges from the bus with a stack of Metro newspapers in her arms. She distributes them to an ecstatic crowd who immediately start reading with great enthusiasm. 'Long live Metro', they all cry in unison. On first glance, it's pretty realistic (no?) But you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to notice that buses don't usually open through the front windscreen, the shop sign reads 'Whole Foobs', or that the editor rather inconsiderately drops the dog as soon as he gets outside. Also, the crowds we imagined would represent multicultural, cool London were all quite similar young white men in shirts. It's well known that AI can contain the biases of data it is trained on, so it's possible that this is related. After trying to refine the prompt by making it more detailed, we still didn't get a diverse crowd, but we did get 'Long Live Metro' pronounced with 'live' rhyming with 'dive'. I wanted to test how easy it would be to create something which could be spread as false information, inciting tensions by looking realistic. So I asked for the video to look like it was shot on a phone, like most witness footage of public incidents is. It should look as though it is shot with a phone camera, with slightly shaky footage. The scene is a typical British high street, with shops including Boots, Primark and Tesco. A young man wearing a balaclava runs into view holding a hammer, and begins smashing all the shop windows, shouting 'you're going to pay for this'. A woman with shopping bags tries to stop him but he pushes her aside. Thinking of the recent riots which affected towns across the UK, I wanted to produce something with the potential to go viral on social media and incite some angry reactions about law and order. On this occasion, I don't think anyone would be fooled. The video came back without sound (an issue that has affected quite a few videos, which I'll come to later), and the assailant's balaclava vanished from his face mid hammer swipe, quite a giveaway that AI had a hand in it. Shot with a glossy, high definition feel, it definitely didn't look like grainy user generated content either. After writing about the fiery 'Gate of Hell' crater in Turkmenistan finally starting to burn itself out, this came to mind as a potentially cinematic backdrop. Night is falling near the 'Gate of Hell' Darvaza Crater in Turkmenistan. The light from the fire within makes the dark sky glow. A woman, in her forties, wearing a protective suit but with her hair down, looks into the depths, seeing flames flickering inside. She says: 'They say this pit will burn itself out soon. Before that happens, I will take the fire home.' Then she clambers over the edge. This one was my favourite and the most successful prompt, even though I didn't go into too much detail. I didn't see any immediately obvious AI flaws (maybe because with just one person, it was less complicated to create) and I think the special effects could even belong in a blockbuster film. I suppose I shouldn't be too pleased with myself, as I literally did nothing requiring talent to create it. But opens up new pathways to explore whatever you can imagine, so I'm not surprised the feature has gone viral. We asked Google where they see this tech heading in the future, given that AI is already accelerating at unnerving speed (mocking it for not being able to count fingers already feels hopelessly out of date). Matthieu Lorrain, Creative Lead at Google DeepMind, told Metro: 'We're already seeing Veo 3 used for everything from making a quick clip for socials, to turning an inside joke into a moving meme, or visualising a cool concept quickly. These are some of the main use cases that we've seen since the feature launched on Gemini.' Some of the clips they produced to showcase the feature are below: To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video For now, one of the annoying parts of making a video is that you can't edit it; I can't ask it to refine the clip and ask for the animal-loving editor not to drop his dog, for example. It would just come up with a new clip entirely. Mr Lorrain said: 'Adding the ability to more easily refine and finesse a prompt or generated video is definitely something we're working on. For now, it's a case of experimenting with the wording to try and get the video to generate as you'd like, which is trial and error, but it's also part of the fun!' Google is currently testing the ability to generate video from an image, which is one of the most in-demand as well as potentially concerning possibilities of AI video. If you could upload an image of a real person, you could make a convincing deepfake with the potential to spread misinformation. But there are also legitimate reasons you might want to do this. Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian recently shared a tweet of a video generated from a photo of his mother hugging him, using another AI software Midjourney. Explaining he lost his mother 20 years ago and that the family could not afford a camcorder, he had no moving images to remember her by so created the short animation to better imagine what happened either side of the shot. Damn, I wasn't ready for how this would feel. We didn't have a camcorder, so there's no video of me with my mom. I dropped one of my favorite photos of us in midjourney as 'starting frame for an AI video' and wow… This is how she hugged me. I've rewatched it 50 times. — Alexis Ohanian 🗽 (@alexisohanian) June 22, 2025 People might also understandably want to imagine themselves in James Bond-like situations, or more boringly, for more polished content on their socials. For now, you also cannot specify a famous person in the written prompt and make a video of them using publicly available images, even though this would technically be possible (there are both legal and ethical reasons for this). I asked Gemini for a video of Keir Starmer giving a speech outside Downing Street to warn of an invasion of glowing, radioactive hamsters just to see, but sadly was blocked from bringing this into technicolour. It is currently only available to those with a subscription, which costs £18.99 a month. Once you have access, you can simply type your prompt into Gemini, the company's rival to ChatGPT, or use Flow, which is designed for more serious AI filmmaking, and allows the use of consistent elements such as a particular character across clips. Users can make three clips a day, to prevent servers being overloaded. To make the film, you simply write a paragraph about what you want it to show, detailing the style and camera work as well as the subject and script. Google gave a list of tips for a successful prompt here. Google warns users on Flow that audio is still an experimental feature and so videos 'might not always have sound' (so if this happens to you, it's not a problem with your speakers). They said speech does better with slightly longer transcripts, is muted for minors, and can trigger subtitles. 'We're working on it,' they said. It's a safe bet that AI will be shaking up filmmaking, just as it is every other industry. More Trending You can already generate a realistic-sounding 'podcast' on any topic just from uploading information about it, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could generate your own feature films soonish on any topic you like too, without having to log into Disney Plus or Netflix at all. Admittedly, the quality would probably be mixed, and there could be copyright issues if you just uploaded a manuscript of the latest bestseller. Mr Lorrain said: 'With regards to the future, as with any groundbreaking technology, we're still understanding the full potential of AI in filmmaking. We see the emergence of these tools as an enabler, helping a new wave of filmmakers more easily tell their stories. By offering filmmakers early access to Flow, we were able to better understand how our technology could best support and integrate into their creative workflows — and we've woven their insights into Flow. 'Veo 3 represents a huge step forward in quality, with greater realism, 4K output, and incredibly lifelike physics and audio. Like any powerful creative tool, it rewards practice—the more descriptive your prompts, the better your video. When it comes to getting the most out of Veo 3, think of prompting as learning to speak Veo's language—the more fluently and descriptively you articulate your vision, the better the video will be.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Games Inbox: Is AI going to ruin video games? MORE: Front Mission 3: Remake updated its graphics with AI slop and fans are not happy MORE: UK watchdog could force Google to make changes – what are they?
Daily Mirror
2 days ago
- Daily Mirror
Strictly star injured in horror London street phone robbery
Strictly Come Dancing star Michelle Tsiakkas has taken to social media to reveal she was the victim of a startling mobile phone robbery while out in London in broad daylight Strictly Come Dancing professional Michelle Tsiakkas has recounted being mugged for her phone in the streets of London. The 29-year-old dance expert has appeared on the hit BBC show since 2022. She was paired with EastEnders star Jamie Borthwick in the 2024 contest where they landed in seventh place. Taking to social media at the end of the week, the TV star shared a haunting account of being mugged in broad daylight. She told fans in a video message shared on her main grid: "This was a couple of days ago and I've just about mentally recovered from that. It was quite traumatising on the day. "It wasted my whole day and made me feel awful, scared, helpless and I don't want the same to happen to you. My phone got stolen. My phone got stolen. "I mean I see it happening all the time but it's just one of those things that you just never think it's gonna happen to you. And then it does." She went on to explain that she was simply going about her day when a criminal whizzed past her on an electric bike and snatched her phone from her hand. She recalled: "So it was early morning. I was on my way to the dentist in London. "It was around Covent Garden so the streets were really quiet. I think I was just the only person around so maybe I was an easy target and I whipped out my phone to have a look at the directions to see where my dentist was. "I was on the actual street of the dentist and what happens? A man comes on a bike behind me, sweeps past me and grabs my phone." Revealing she was injured in the incident, Michelle continued: "So he's grabbed my phone. He's on an electric bike and my heart just sank. I tried to I think like reach for it and that made me fall on my knees on the floor and graze my knee. "I think my reflex was just to swear and then scream give me back my phone and clearly you know that didn't work. He just left. He was wearing a mask so there was no way that I could have seen what he looked like and he was going really fast on that electric bike so there was no way on earth I could have caught up with him." She added: "Thankfully there were two really lovely and helpful women there and they'd seen that I was a bit distressed." Unsettled Londoners have been left in disbelief as mobile phone theft has increased at a horrifying rate. New statistics release this weekend have revealed that 231,000 phone thefts and robberies were recorded over the past four years in the city. Analysis by The Times revealed hotspots in London include St James's Park, where Piccadilly and Haymarket meet Pall Mall and Clarence House as well as parts of the West End. Figures released by Scotland Yard figures show a 20 per cent year-on-year increase in robberies - with 81,256 mobile phone crimes were recorded in 2023. The stats also showed that roughly 37 people have their phone snatched on the streets of the capital every day.
