You can take a five-minute flight across the Thames on something called the Emirates Air Line. It’s a cable-car ride between North Greenwich and the Royal Docks that’s sponsored by the Gulf carrier. Much else on the ride simulates a plane trip — the tickets are called boarding passes, and when you ‘take off’ from either side of the river there’s a large digital screen showing cheery people waving you off, as at an airport. As I embark from the southern bank, a bunch of ‘Butchers from South London’ bid me goodbye.
The cable cars, however, are called gondolas rather than, say, ‘cockpits’ or ‘cabins’ — and once up in the air the whole of London unfolds. To the west there’s the City, with the Gherkin and the Shard, and the Eye peeping out from behind the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf.
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