[title]
You might have noticed: spring has sprung. A time when even the most confirmed filth wizard will feel moved to tidy the place up a bit. Normal people will content themselves with a lacklustre wipe round. Others will go further, seeking inspo from cleaning influencers like terrifyingly organised telly star Stacey Solomon, who has been siphoning sauces into glass jars and hanging her crisps from a specially designed rail inside her cupboard. But those overachievers at London Eye have taken things to the next level, by putting on a sparkling display of deep-cleaning parkour. The South Bank attraction marked spring by releasing pictures of window cleaners scrubbing the glass of its pods high above the Thames, a petrifying 135 metres up in the air.
Still, Time Out readers pointed out one very obvious flaw in this high-octane spring clean. ‘Turn the wheel and clean nearer the ground, surely?’ said commenter Agnes on Facebook, in a fearsome Sherlock Holmes-worthy display of logic – no doubt she wouldn't be seen dead transferring ketchup into a specially labelled jar when it already comes in perfectly functional packaging.
‘One of these years gaffer we need to find a way to lower those top pods,’ wrote Dean, poking fun at London Eye’s apparently clueless maintenance guys.
And Neil went full galaxy-brain on the issue. ‘I’m guessing this is just an advertising stunt, it’s got people talking & reminds all that it’s still there,’ he said.
So is Neil right? Well, this cleaning job is undeniably impressive but not totally unprecedented. After all, The Shard is London’s tallest building, coming in at 309.6 metres high, and it benefits from regular sky-high cleaning sessions. And it’s also possible that it’s too complex and inefficient to stop and start the London Eye’s rotations often enough for each pod to be cleaned at ground level. Either way, thank goodness for London’s cleaning spidermen for kicking our collective critical thinking skills into gear, and for making our much-loved landmark sparkle once more.
Fantasy pad alert: this Chiswick riverside home has its very own boathouse.
Here are London’s 50 best attractions: how many have you visited?