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The London Eye

by

Kamouraskan

Disclaimer: This article is copyright to the author November 2007. All photos used were taken by and are the property of the authors.

Without resorting to exaggeration, (God Forbid!) this past year has been a pretty good one for travelling.

We went to Budapest, Bratislava and Prague. I gave my daughter our tours of Rome, Florence, Pisa and Venice. Lariel and I travelled through the province of Quebec to Inuit reservations and walked along the Lachine Rapids, climbed the Great Wall, and took a trip down the Yangtze. Due to all this bit of bouncing about, we had almost no time to appreciate a city we might have begun to take for granted: London. And while I work on the travelogues of the other trips, I want to tell you of a day this week in London, when we finally made our first, and probably last trip on that icon of the city, the London Eye.

One of the major disagreements throughout Lariel's and my relationship has been about the Eye. (Happily, this is actually quite typical of the serious arguments we have.) Built originally as a project to celebrate the new Millennium, Lariel believes it is a great landmark that has come to symbolise modern London to millions. I think it's an overpriced Ferris wheel stuck in the middle of some of the greatest architecture of the western world and if Doctor Who hadn't shut it down, the Plastic Entity would have killed us all.

So, after six years of continuous mind-bending arguments, I bought a first class 'flight' on it for her birthday this year. With a note attached saying, 'I'd Do Anything For You'.

Now, her birthday is in April and we weren't able to go at that time, but luckily the thing was an open ticket, but with an expiry date. One of the most miserable summers on record meant that we didn't even get to think about it until the weather brightened up considerably, which was from September onwards. So we found a week she had to be in London for conferences and we booked it. We chose November 11th so that I could attend the Remembrance Day Ceremonies in London, and as Lariel once worked for the security group that runs protection for the Houses of Parliament and 10 Downing Street, we thought we could slip right up to the Queen when she laid the wreathe and lay a fart. Well, the last part isn't true, but as our village is one of the few in Britain not to have a cenotaph, I did want to be in London.

Unfortunately, I was under the impression that I'd be healthy and happy by November 11th. I did not consider that I might have just had surgery and be under doctors orders to have lots of drugs and bed rest. So I had the choice of risking my health and conning Lariel that I was fine, or blowing the about 100 dollars US that the thing cost me. Hardly a choice, right?

Yes, two first class reserved 'flights' on this bloody Ferris wheel cost 100 dollars; the thing has a line-up going several blocks in the summer, has over 3 million passengers each year and yet it still apparently loses millions each year. So much so that British Airways, which built the thing, sold it to the Madame Tussauds group last year.

Anyway, I took off my head bandage and we went to London for the first time together in a few months. Lariel had a fancy hotel booked, but as she works for a charity, she refused to take the big expensive room and took a Travelodge at about a fifth the price. Damn her morality.

We arrived early enough to make the one-minute silence, not at the cenotaph, but in the just-to-be-opened St. Pancras station. That's the brand new stop for the Eurotrain (as in the Chunnel to France) which was happily at Waterloo Station for the last decade. When they found out that for only 800 million dollars they could move it to St. Pancras, who were the taxpayers to say no?

The minute of silence was announced on the speakers throughout the tube network. All trains stopped and the crowds stood silent, quite impressively so, until freed to go. We headed to have lunch in The Crypt, which is a cafeteria-style restaurant in a basement and formerly was the burial place for the Church of St. Martins In The Field. The prices have gone up considerably in the past few years as it has become better known, but it's still a cool place with an decent homemade soup with all the butter you want and a roll; still my idea of a good lunch. Especially if you're eating it under an ancient vaulted ceiling and on top of centuries-old graves.

To add to this bizarreness, it's a busy but clean cafeteria, and charged us a reasonable £3.50 for the meal. Upstairs, they have classical concerts. In fact the first classical recording I ever bought was from their Mozart series of concerts. They have brass rubbing, a museum and a fab shop with tourist tat that few other places have. For example, there was a calendar of the paintings of Tom Thompson, who is to Canada what Christopher Marlowe is to Britain. Well, it may seem like a bit of reach, but he was a forerunner to Emily Carr and the Group of Seven and had a mysterious death that he was rumoured to have faked. Well, it may not be up there with a duel and Shakespeare, but in Canada we take what we can get.

Most importantly, it's right off Trafalgar Square, which means we could run into the still free of charge National Gallery and I could prove to Lariel that they had better Canalettos than the Uffizi, another argument I'd started in Florence the year before.

Having actually won the point, we browsed through their Rembrandt room before making our way to the Eye(sore). Any walk along the Thames is sodden in history but the Victoria Embankment along the south side of the Thames is one of the best strolls. You can retrace the steps of Shakespeare, stop at the Anchor Pub where Dr Johnson lived and loved, wander into the Tate Modern for free; well, the list goes on and on. The South Side has always been for entertainment, going right back to the bear baiting halls of the Romans and the original Globe and Rose Theatres. Near the Eye, you can now see some of the best buskers London or any city has to offer. A claim that Covent Garden used to maintain. I still don't get the King Tut statue busker. I mean, we saw the exact same costume outside the Coliseum in Rome, and now here it was across from Big Ben. Thankfully there wasn't one by the Great Wall, but soon, I'm sure. Shouldn't there be a licence requiring context in buskers?

Now we get to the whole stuff and nonsense about the 'flight'. Yes, they are serious, and we were taking a 'First Class' flight on the frigging Ferris wheel. Of course, that meant we had to wait in the First Class Lounge, rather than line up with the hoi polloi, and we had our own personal 'Flight attendant.' We got to be ushered through a special Priority Ramp up to Security. Yes, we were patted down, had the magic wand run over us and our bags were inspected. At this point, I was worried our luggage would be lost.

Then there were the Safety Instructions and strangely enough none of us were given a whistle or floatation devices. Strange because for once, they might have been useful.

The London Eye, like Proud Mary, keeps on turning, so you have to jump on to your 'Pod' as it goes by. Once in, it is a pretty great view, though you can't see the Tower Bridge (a true icon of London) because of the angle and the curvature of the river. You go up almost 500 feet in the air and it moves at the stately speed of a third of a mile an hour. The thing is so steady that you it seems as though the wheel is rising above you while you seem to be remaining in place.

I learned several facts that I had not known before, for which I will be grateful. That the Shell clock was built exactly one inch larger than the Clock Tower that houses Big Ben. That the alternating red and white bricks on Old Scotland Yard are the same as the barbershop pole; blood and bandages.

I also learned that the 32 pods are labelled 1-33 because there is no #13. Tough luck for all other cultures that have other numerical superstitions, but my idiocies were being catered to.

Final question; it the Eye worth it?

With the line-ups, it's hard to book on impulse or when the weather is good, something that you do want in a lookout. The cost of a reserved seat really is too much, but it does save you from waiting in a drizzle or for several hours during the peak tourist season. The ride is only 30 minutes, which passes very quickly, and so I have no regrets about getting on the thing. But even at London's expensive prices for nearly everything, it's a lot to pay. So if you're looking for a unique view of the city, and you have lots of money, sure, go ahead. But considering how many free things are available in this city for the first timer, I'd advise passing.

With the sun setting it was time to take our bags and check in at our hotel. Unfortunately, the cheap as you can get Travelodge was booked for proximity to Lariel's work and was near the Battersea Power station. This put us once again into the maw of London' transit system, something that makes walking seem an efficient mode of travel.

As we wrote above, we have travelled on transport around the world in several languages, and STILL, London and British transport systems are the hardest to figure out. We have gone through several London A-Z guidebooks and have developed an acceptance of the screwiness and unreliability of transport, but that disappears whenever you travel in another country.

When we finally got to the hotel, we lay down for a snuggle for an hour until Lariel woke me up. Getting dressed was a bit of a problem, reminding me that I wasn't long out of the hospital and that there would be a price to pay for this weekend. But so far, the smiles on Lariel's face had made it well worthwhile.

Now the last time that Lariel had stayed in this place, she'd called to tell me of the restaurants her co-workers and she had stumbled across and how much my ex or my daughter would love it. (Yes, somehow I have relationships strong enough that my wife can suggest places for my ex to go to that do not involve three headed dogs.)
The first place she suggested on the busy York Road was closed on a Sunday. It looks like a standard Pizza joint, but having spent several months in Italy and having eaten in hundreds of restaurants all over that country, I figure I can listen to her recs on Italian food.

So reserving it for another trip, we wandered a block and arrived at The Little Bay. From the outside it looks like a pub, but once we were inside that impression was lost. They've decked it out in some strange fantasy opera theme, with most of the tables on the two floors arranged in alcoves like opera boxes. There are several odd sculptures attached to the walls and the ceiling is sheeting material bunched and glued with glitter and branches. The menu is not massive, but for London, extremely well priced. All courses are reduced if ordered before 7pm and we were definitely in time.

Now, you have to understand that in London, there are very few decent restaurants where the main course is under £10 (over $20S) and a three course dinner with wine for two is not available in the mid to upscale places for under £100. But the House wine was just over £10 and was fine as long as it was kept chilled, which the ice bucket did. The appetisers were under £2 and after 7pm under £3. For the appetiser, I ordered a crab profiterole and Lariel had pork belly with black pudding and we sampled and enjoyed both. Mains were a chicken with minted lamb stuffing for me, and lamb in balsamic vinegar for the lady. Excellent presentation, good service and both were under £6. The deserts were also first-rate although we'd passed beyond 7pm by this stage and had to pay the full £2.95. It was worth it though as this meant that we were in time for the live performance, all with no extra charge.

At 7:30pm, a mad Simon Callow figure emerged on one of the winding staircases (not the guy from Pop Idol, but the one from Amadeus, Four Weddings and a Funeral, tons of other classics and the villain from the second Ace Ventura film.) and declaimed in classical ACT-TOR accents that he was here to entertain and amuse us. And he did. Beginning with the best known arias from Verdi and Mozart, he romped about the nearly empty restaurant for 30 minutes, filling the entire building with Italian and German accents of surprising quality, though his ability to sustain the understated notes was a minor weak point. Once he realised that as a true Brit, Lariel could actually die of embarrassment, he haunted our table for much of the second set, holding and kissing her hand and by the third set, crawling across our table in the most dramatic manner possible. We'd ordered another bottle of wine by this point and when his set included Santa Lucia and O Solo Mio, we were far beyond any sense of the cliché, but well into our remembered Venice honeymoon. The third set was classics along the lines of Old Man River, with few operatic classics such as Figaro thrown in. Occasionally he would creep up the stairway during the subdued moments or jump out to grab me or another customer with another burst of song. It was a wonderfully silly but still powerful piece of entertainment and we strolled home delighted and happy. All included, the evening cost us under £50 including the two bottles of wine and the tip.

The next morning began, with me sprawled across the bed, sated. Lariel dressed into her power suit, left a few pounds on the nightstand and said, 'the room's paid for until noon,' and was gone.

It was only then I'd realised what a cheap date I'd been.