The other day we celebrated our daughter's 18th birthday. We wanted to organise a surprise for her, and decided on the London Eye, the huge ferris-wheel-with-pods that now dominates London's river.
The surprise worked - she couldn't work out where we were going until we arrived - and for me it was something of a milestone. Having had vertigo all my life, I'd always vowed nobody would ever get me up in the Eye. But faced with being a wet blanket on my daughter's big day, I steeled myself to do it. I'm happy to tell all you EN readers out there who share my dislike of heights that it's a wonderful experience. The pods are roomy so you don't have to lean against the window; the wheel rotates with a stately slowness that makes the experience a lot more manageable; and the views are just wonderful. Highly recommended.
Farther downriver is the Millennium Bridge, now an unfortunate exercise in damage limitation - as I write the contractors trying to solve its tendency to sway alarmingly when used have marshalled 2,000 optimistic volunteers, sending them across in test batches at various speeds. The original design was unusual; now it has enormous stabilisers fitted, which make it look even more futuristic. Both versions are beautiful.