Remember the bit in the Odyssey when Odysseus and his men gouge out the eye of the Cyclops with a sharpened pole leaving the creature blind to their escape among the sheep. Well this story is a bit like this. Honest. Turns out that certain people (let’s call them 'backwards') couldn't recognise the South Bank without the Eye:
The 442ft (135-metre) wheel was the UK's most recognisable landmark, known by 98% of the 1,010 adults surveyed by training group ConstructionSkills. But only 41% could name the South Bank when shown images without the wheel.
The story goes on to point out that there's a similar recognition problem with places like Blackpool and Liverpool and Cardiffpool. See, that we understand. Most of the rest of the UK is a wasteland much like the one depicted in the Mad Max trilogy. If you took away the oil refinery surrounded by the Humungus and his men from the second film all you'd be left with is a stretch of unremarkable desert - just like the North without say the godawful Blackpool Tower or Liver Building (like Bow Bells you're only a real Scouser if you've been burgled within sight of the Liver Bird).
But there's no excuse for not recognising the South Bank without the Eye - it's only been there for a couple of years and the place is positively littered with iconic buildings.
The last time we tried to ignore the National Theatre it transformed into a giant robot named Brutus Londoninius and cleaved our Routemaster in half with a 50ft Roman sword.
Photo of the NT taken by kind of blue and used under a CC License.
