Eyes Are a Window to the Soul.
Due to an imminent departure from England looming and a friend from abroad visiting the country, I decided that it was high-time I took a look at the landmark that is the London Eye. Since its construction in 2000 I’ve always wanted to ride on the Eye and see out across the scapes of London and I was a little surprised, yet lacking in shock, to now see that Coca-Cola had plastered their branding across it. Checking out the website, it was nice to see that even in the logo, the name of the landmark was physically smaller than the company making money from it. Yes, money makes the world go round, but this wheel was literally a cog in the works of some hefty profit-making.
Fortunately for me, ticket booking wasn’t nearly as wallet-raiding as I had expected it to be; after looking up the prices for online booking: 1 adult ticket for a midday slot and entry to a 4DX Experience was £20.70 – or the equivalent of a meal and drinks after a day at the British Museum, or Tate Britain Gallery. With a journey time of 30 minutes, this definitely wasn’t the best cost-to-time ratio of a good thrill, but didn’t quite have the shame of more loin-based services. The purchasing experience was pretty painless and I chose to have my receipt e-mailed to me so I could grab a ticket on arrival, the same day. To collect my ticket, I was told that I would require my card used for payment; the e-mail receipt of purchase and a photo ID. I also wondered if they would want my National Insurance Number, fingerprints, blood sample and favourite colour. Yes, this was of course probably for security reasons, but by being just a little bit of evidence short of a background check, it was a little annoying; gee, thanks, terrorism.
Arriving at Waterloo Station on a Friday before a bank holiday weekend and whilst in the midst of the school summer holidays, I used the tourist information maps en-route to find my way towards the waterfront of the Thames. Wading through the crowds of families, tourists and young people I eventually found my way to the ticket building that lay opposite the Eye itself and, accessing the array of queues for ticket booking/collection/payment, chose the lane that corralled me to the collection counter. I was offered a map of the skyscape for £1 and thought: ‘Yeah, that sounds useful.’ Essentially, I paid for a physically disabled frisbee. At least one small light in the darkness helped to add some cheer – the toilets in the building were free and I felt obliged to go and receive my money’s worth.
The time slot for my friend and I was 12pm, which we managed to make, even with the inflated queue size and to be honest, regardless of the time on the ticket, it seemed that the slots were more of a crowd staggering device than a hard-and-fast binding.
The website stated that being on-site at least 30 minutes before your allotted time would be required and it actually was pretty spot-on. Waiting in the shadow of the Eye gave us time to admire the flags that appeared underneath the belly of each capsule – adding plenty of colour to the otherwise monotone structure.
Before we could taste the air inside a capsule, there was a bag check and my friend had the pleasure of getting her backpack x-rayed before having to collect it back herself so that we could move on with the queue. A small shack provided last-minute snacks for the journey and then it was onto the loading platform to ride the great wheel of marketing.
Loading into the capsule was the easiest part of the preliminary process and sure as hell gave the London Underground platforms something to aspire to. The capsule had about 20 people inside when the doors shut and we began the circuitous journey back to the starting position.
The gradual incline of the pod is slight for the most part and unless you catch a breeze, your feet aren’t too troubled by the movement of the floor beneath you. Inside the capsule, you have a 360 degree view to the outside; an oval bench in the middle of the floor; a metal rail around the sides; computer terminal displays and air conditioning which actually make the whole experience quite comfortable as long as you aren’t afraid of heights, or claustrophobic,
The London Eye gives you great views across the city and especially of Westminster and Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) but for the most part I found the view a little lacklustre compared to some of the cityscapes I’ve experienced from abroad. It may just be the envy of having the Shard looking down at me even at the peak of the capsule’s rotation, but I was underwhelmed from the variety of buildings and found trying to shuffle between tourists a little tiresome after the first few attempts to photograph through the glass of our enclosure. The curved glass makes for a great look but when trying to photograph through it, the level of reflection is infuriating, unless of course you can get a camera lens to smooch the window.
Once down from the wheel, the fill of tourists and crowded places had been had and the 4DX experience was skipped for the less-travelled path towards the Tate Britain, to see free exhibits and to have something to explore and marvel at.
Overall…?
If I had been new to England and unaware of the delights that lay in far-flung cities, I’d have loved to be riding on a giant carousel wheel in the middle of London, however, I wasn’t an attraction-craving, temporary tourist to the city and I’ve seen a handful of capitals in various corners of the globe. Despite the costs of the tickets, the crowds that swarmed its base and the lack of intrigue when reaching its apex, the wheel was worth seeing. Not for the ride, or air-conditioned chambers, but for the sheer fact that the London Eye itself is a beautiful structure that makes for some great photographs and at least has green areas where you could sit – enjoying a picnic to the sight of its rotation during a sunny day is a rather calming prospect. So what can the Eye tell you about the soul of London? It is overpriced, tourist-filled and has a questionable effectiveness to its functionality; however, deeply ingrained in its core is a sense of astounding beauty, that cannot be denied or diminished.
Accidentally Wayfaring 