Arvind here checking out New Yorkers down a long tunnel from London!

Londoners and New Yorkers can see each other across the pond without the benefit of cable TV or video conferencing, courtesy of an unusual live optical hookup created by a conceptual artist with a fanciful tale of a long-lost tunnel.

An optical device called a “telectroscope” has been placed in Brooklyn and another one on the Thames River in London.

Spectators can step up to the machine on both sides of the Atlantic, wave and write greetings to each other in real time on wipe-off message boards.

The story goes that deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean, forgotten for the best part of a century, lies a tunnel linking London and New York.

It was built on the whim of a Victorian inventor with the aim of linking two great cities and developing the kind of friendship that exists today. And now his great grand son has “opened” up the tunnel and brought this vision to reality.

If you could see through a tunnel to another place, which city or town would you choose and why? What would you say to someone on the other side?

And what other tunnel “tall tales” have you heard lately?!