Trifter

The Singapore Flyer is Asia’s answer to the London Eye, (if anyone was even asking that question). In February 2008 Singapore outdid the English effort by 30 metres in height, standing tall at 165 metres. While the London Eye looks out over the murky Thames and Westminster, the Singapore Flyer gives travellers a view of Marina Bay and a whole lot more, but the idea is the same: you pay to travel a certain distance just to feel dreadfully insecure and arrive at the same place you just left thirty minutes previously.

That’s how long it takes to leave Singapore and get back to it again, 30 minutes, unless of course you were one of the 173 voyagers who jumped on board to kill a spare half hour they found they had last week but didn’t get out again for another 6 hours.

The Big Wheel was just not going to keep on turning that day.

A short circuit was blamed for one of the drive motors not behaving as designed, and the entire structure ground to a jerky halt.

Six hours! Can you imagine? There you are swinging 165 metres above the ground in a gondola or whatever the Singaporeans call them, with ten strangers all panicking, and none of you having thought to go to the toilet before getting on what should have been a very short journey? Moreover this was hot and humid Singapore, not cold and foggy London and the lack of power also meant a lack of air conditioning. Sweat, pee, anxiety … what more could you want on a day out?

On another note, Belfast too has joined the exclusive club of cities to boast an observation wheel. Yes that’s the correct term, an observation wheel, not a Ferris wheel as I was told disdainfully by an offended official. Belfast’s of course is on the modest side as far as dimensions are concerned, but nevertheless it has attracted its own problems. Erected beside City Hall in the centre of town, and intended as a temporary venture over a year ago, the owners have applied for permission to extend its life. An environmentalist agency however has tried to block the application because it finds the juxtaposition of old and new structures aesthetically displeasing. Bless them.

The only wheel I’ve been on was one that sat beside Niagara. I had already seen the water plunge over the side from a helicopter, from a boat, from the tunnels behind the falls, from a cable car that swings out over them and I really had no further need for a view from a different angle.