Training to become a London cab driver can take two years. Not, oddly, because they have to learn to drive on the left side of the road.
It takes that long to get the hang of what’s called The Knowledge because the city is such an incredible jumble of streets that turn, bend, loop and, even when they keep going in a straight line, can have one name on one side of the intersection and a totally different name on the other side.
Scientists studying London cabbies have noted that the hippocampus — the part of the brain responsible for remembering where you left your keys and where Trafalgar Square is — actually grows in those drivers at ages when most people’s brains have gone hard.