Sunday, February 09, 2025
Over the years I've blogged about numerous contrived campaigns to encourage usage of the Dangleway, including the Valentine's Experience, The Snowman and the Snowdog, Sky High Dining, the Lady Penelope Afternoon Tea, the Teddy Workshop and the Spooky Scavenger Hunt. Now it's Chatty Cabins.
TfL encourages people to spark up new conversations on the IFS Cloud Cable Car as part of TfL’s 25th anniversary celebrations
Several of the cabins on the IFS Cloud Cable Car have been wrapped as 'Chatty Cabins' to encourage Londoners and visitors to spark new conversations about what they love about London
Chatty Cabins is a mental health initiative to help combat loneliness, thus arguably an excellent concept. You turn up at a pre-booked time and get paired with other attendees, then head aloft on a free 20 minute round-trip and engage in conversation. A series of discussion topics will be provided in case you're too shy to decide what to discuss, or you could just look out the window and point at things as you get to know your random companion(s). A hot drink will be provided.
There are downsides:
• The Chatty Cabins experience is only available on Tuesday and Thursday mornings between 10am and noon.
• The offer ends on Thursday 13 March, also the February half-term is excluded, so in fact there are only 8 days you can do this.
• Because it's a round-trip you end up back where you started so it's not a free means of crossing the river.
Also you don't know who you might get paired up with, only that you'll be trapped with them in a glass cabin for 20 minutes, so if you're lucky it'll be brilliant but if you're unlucky it could be purgatorial. To be fair this is exactly the same as turning up at the Dangleway on a Sunday afternoon and being ushered into a cabin with total strangers, except in that case there's no imperative for anyone to strike up a conversation.
"TfL is committed to fostering inclusion and creating a sense of belonging for all Londoners and these 'Chatty Cabins' on the Cable Car offer a chance to celebrate what makes London special and bring people together as we mark our 25th anniversary year."
Trish Ashton, TfL's Director of Rail and Sponsored Services
TfL aren't really doing this to celebrate their 25th anniversary, it's just that throughout 2025 they can bolt "as we mark our 25th anniversary year" into any press release and it pads out the content a bit. Also there really is a Director of Rail and Sponsored Services, i.e. non-purple trains and all the travel modes part-paid for by banks, software companies and pseudo-taxis, I haven't made that up.
Intriguingly 'each Chatty Cabin ticket can be used by up to three people', so if you're feeling socially reticent you can bring comforting backup, although I'd argue that if you have friends willing to accompany you you're not truly lonely.
This initiative builds on the Mayor's Strategy for Social Inclusion and the Reconceptualising Loneliness in London report published in 2022, which estimates 700,000 Londoners feel lonely 'always' or 'most of the time'. Loneliness disproportionately affects young, low-income, LGBTQ+, single parents, deaf or disabled, or ethnic minority Londoners.
Eight mornings on the Dangleway isn't going to touch the sides of London's loneliness problem, it's a token drop in the ocean. But if you feel excluded from conversation these days perhaps booking a free trip might briefly ease your isolation. Just don't expect to find me sitting opposite because as an introvert I'd much rather ride the cablecar alone enjoying the view without distraction, just like anyone normally can on a Tuesday or Thursday morning.
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