Day 5 – A View To A Kill and All Tubes Day

It had to happen sooner or later, I knew it. After my first night in London, the thought had occurred to me, and was constantly dogging me during my sleep and waking hours. It was always there, every bit of travel-planning being a constant reminder...

Sooner or later, I was going to have to use every Tube line.

As it turns out, this is neither a stress, or a radical thing to do. Unlke Melbourne where the train-lines all splay out from the city, like spokes of a giant, metropolitan transit wheel, in London it's far more like a spider's web. In fact, I have the sneaking suspicion that 12 seperate people were given a mandate to create a train-line to take them to all their favourite places. By concidence these routes have overlapped in multiple locations, and created the spaghetti-mess that is the Underground system. But more on that later.

I had a number of small tasks to achieve whilst travelling. Some of these were purely selfish (awooo), and others were more philanthropic. Today's fell into the latter category, as I decided it was time to finally hunt down and experience the city's most often re-named attraction: the London Eye.

Considering this optically-titled wheel has only existed for a few years, it's suffered a tremendous amount of temporary re-branding. Opened officially in 1999, it refused to carry passengers until 2000. This type of insolence is not commonly found in major attractions, but then London is a funny place. The wheel is designed to offer a 'flight' of 30mins duration, with boarding and disembarking taking place while the wheel remains in motion. Not as dangerous as it sounds, as it moves pretty darn slow. The use of aviation terminology stems from the sponsorship initially provided by British Airways. They no long sponsor the beast that at one time was known as “The McCartney Eye”, but that doesn't stop them using it all the same.

So I took a 'flight', and found myself in a capsule with a princess (well, she acted as if she believed she were one), a small child who had no fear, and three men who could have been close blood relatives of Super Mario. Many happy snaps were taken from up here, but I found the 30mins began to drag after a while. Of note, was that the struts connecting each glass pod to the wheel itself, had an arrangement of pegs jutting out, that I can only assume were for climbing by someone in the line of work such as Jackie Chan – no sane mortal would leave a pod at any point of the journey that would make those pegs of any use. As I am not up to date on the world of amusement ride building, i will have to take this supposition as a logical possibility, and like a gypsy caravan, move along (and get people to cross my palm with silver, i guess)

Marching down the remainder of South Bank (which, I might add, maybe older but not more exciting than OUR Southbank – note the lack of spacing), I visited an exhibition going by the dubious title of “The Movieum”. Turns out this exhibition is a work of legitimate movie history, detailing the british contribution to cinema (ie; Michael Caine), and the achievements of their production companies and studios. Of particular interest to me was the number of authentic costumes, props and sets they had on display – Darth Vader, Batman and Superman costumes, The TARDIS, The blue Mini from the original Italian Job, Pinhead and the puzzlebox (sounds like a 70's pop band), it was truly impressive. One of the gallery assistants, dressed as a period director, gave me a personal tour among a number of the exhibits, pointing out the cinematic treasures and giving me the stories behind their inclusion. It was through this man, that I was introduced to the gong used in the Rank Foundation opening sequence (to most of you, this means nothing. to a slim few, you will share my grin). He also showed me a set with a real R2-D2 and C-3P0. Whilst the set was a reproduction, it was an actual set used by Lucas when filming some of the new footage added into the original trilogy – which vindicated it, as it was built to very exacting standards.

Finishing up with this extraordinary collection, I trundled off again and found that dark was now falling. It wasn't quite lunch-time (ho ho, you are all so very funny), but it didn't leave me time to see the Dali exhibition. I wanted to, but eventually the bleeting of the Town Cryer out the front decided my inner quandary. Feeling strong in my knowledge of the Tube, I found the closest station, and navigated my way home. SUCCESS!

I have now travelled all lines, to many locations, (sometimes in circles), but I can claim an experience that puts me on par with many Londonites. I feel like I am one step closer to being one of them...one of them... Evening was a good one. Fish found tickets to a comedy night, which we went along to and were thoroughly amused by it. I was frisked by a large black lady upon entry, which left me a little perplexed, and met the most hyperactive spanish woman on the planet – she was awesome, never stopped moving! Fish, J and I tubed home and played Zombies!!! and watched Metalocalypse. I haven't mentioned it before? Greatest metal cartoon ever. Go wiki it.

New Thing Learnt Today - “Robot World” does not contain any “Robots”