the old golden Kismet restaurant sign

Liverpool Life You may have noticed that a Big Wheel has been installed at Liverpool One. Dad and I visited yesterday. I've been on a few ferris wheels before and always marvelled at the ingenuity of bringing the Meccano brilliance of bridge building to something which spins about in circles. The design hasn't changed much since the original created by George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, essentially a giant bicycle wheel made from girders. They're simply safer, more durable. Standing next to them, looking up at the physics defying baskets, I was reminded of the shapes my spirograph would make.

For your six pounds (five for OAPS), you're given four revolutions. On the overcast day we were gifted it was difficult to see too far onto the horizon, but like visits to the Anglican Cathedral and Restaurant towers it's a chance to see the city from unusual angles, the difference being that those angles are forever moving. Spend too long looking in one direction and you've missed something interesting on the other side. You need the multiple trips so that you can focus on a different window and the roof related revelations it yields. I've flickr'd the photos I took:





Afterwards we visited the nearby Wagamamas for dinner. By the time we'd finished with the noodles night had fallen and I was blessed with seeing the wheel in its full majesty, the geometrics all the clearer. Firstly, reflected in the restaurants opposite:





Like the London Eye, it's dominating the skyline. Stand at the top of Hardman Street at night and the lights can be seen above the building were the old golden Kismet restaurant sign used to be at the bottom. We can see it from our flat, in the distance peaking above the cathedral. If like the London Eye or the wheel in Manchester it's to become a permanent fixture, it'll be a welcome contrast to all of the other verticals and curves that make up the redevelopment of the city's waterfront.