If you see one of the distinctive pods from the London Eye bobbing along down the Thames, don't assume some kind of tragic engineering failure. It's all part of the £12.5 million refurbishment program to get the wheel sparkling in time for the Olympics. Beginning tomorrow, the pods will be shipped, one at a time, to Tilbury Dock from whence they'll travel by road to a workshop in Worcester. Here, they'll be upgraded with new multimedia screens and free wifi (because you'll definitely want to watch the telebox and surf the net while 40 storeys above London). To prevent the wheel looking gap-toothed, a 'non-operational' carriage will swap in for each excised capsule. Like everything else in town, the upgrade is working to an Olympic deadline. The refurb will leave the pods in good shape for at least the next 10-15 years. Update: pod flotation delayed.
