Musings on London

1) Being the word aficionado that I am, I couldn't help but smile when I saw the sign at the rail station reading, "Do not alight here." Isn't alight just a brilliant sounding word? I'm going to advocate using it conversationally much more often. They also say "brilliant" here quite often, which I personally find to be brilliant.
2) They have lots of old things here. The older something is, the prouder the Brit describing it to you is. I saw/visited many old places last night on the "Hidden Pubs of London" walking tour. This is the second walking tour of London I've been on (granted, the first was 19 years ago), but I don't think you can't beat these tours for entertainment or pure value for the price - only seven pounds. It was obviously quite a popular tour, as our group numbered in the upper 40's. Unless you don't really count the Aggie college girls that were along on the tour, because they are Aggies after all. The final stop on the hidden pub tour was very old - dating back to the 1600's in fact, and it was delightfully named "Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese."
3) As I sit here sipping a cup of quintessentially British,Twining's patented, Earl Grey tea, I am also reminded of another interesting tidbit from the tour last night. We in fact passed the original Twinig's tea shop, which is the oldest shop in London that's been owned by the same people and been in the same location. Apparently the tea trade back in ye olde days was not unlike the drug trade of today. Plenty of black market tea exchanged hands back then, and the purveyors of said tea wanted to make as much money from it as they could, so they cut the tea with other, non-tea ingredients, making it all go further. So if you were to drink British tea sometime in the 1800's, you would most likely be imbibing a mixture of black tea leaves, twigs, and powdered sheep dung. Yummy, huh? I think I'll stick with my Earl Grey.