random facts about london

1. Mugs are for hot beverages only
Caspian’s colleagues may remember him telling them about one of his (many) quirks, that being an inexplicable aversion towards drinking cold beverages out of a mug. It’s not that he can’t do it (since we only have mugs in our flat at the moment, he has no choice), it’s just that it feels weird and unnatural to him. He can’t explain why this is so, he only knows that it is. Well, now we have the beginnings of an answer, since apparently this sentiment of using mugs for hot beverages only is quite widespread in England. Our friend from Canada told us a story of how his colleagues snickered when he brought cold drinking water to a meeting in a mug, something clearly frowned upon.

2. Brake levers on bikes are reversed
The other random fact, for all the bicycle-lovers out there, is that it’s not just the side of the road thing that the English do backwards. You see, we recently got a bike second-hand. It’s a decent bike, a vintage Peugeot racer. Nothing to write home about (although I suppose we are writing home in a sense), but solid enough to get us from A to B. In North America, the left-hand brake lever typically controls the brake on the front wheel, while the brake lever on the right side of the bike controls the rear brake. Upon riding the bike we got, Caspian noticed that the cables were reversed – the left brake lever was linked to the rear brake and vice versa. He thought this was a mistake the mechanic had made when setting up the bike. But recently, he looked closer at our flatmates’ bikes and they’re set up the same way. This will likely take some getting used to, but luckily there haven’t been any endos* yet!

*endo, n. 1. a bicycling accident in which the rider is thrown forward over the handlebars (usually as a result of braking too hard on the front wheel)