Feedback from initial situational testing of the project showed that at times, it would be better if the indicatory lights for the speaker were physically separable from the timer. Also advantagous to get them high off the table so they can be seen. Bought a cheap LED desk lamp today. Disasambled it and will keep the parts bottom left for other hacks. Drilled some holes and will mount the small PCB that contains the Red, Yellow and Green 10mm LEDs in the top part of the lamp, where the array of white LEDs were. Now for minimal cost I have a stable, fully adjustable stand for the indicatory LEDs. 

Hate the colour, wish I could have got a black one but the shop only had blue and pink models left - may well give it spraypaint to black when rest is complete.

The lamp itself had an interesting design feature - it directly uses the two telesopic arms as conductors to transfer power from  the base to the array of white leds in the head! I guess only 12V DC it's not shock hazard and they must have implemented short circuit protection in case a user bridges across the two telescopic arms with something conductive. I will stick to the more standard method of running a cable up from the base to the head.