Inspired by Dave Eggers’ projects in the USA such as the Pirate Store in San Francisco and Superhero store in Brooklyn, The Monster Supplies Store in Hoxton is home to the Ministry of Stories: A volunteer run organization, founded by Nick Hornby, to help young people with creative writing of all kinds through workshops and free mentoring sessions. The store is the “Purveyor of quality goods for monsters of every kind” with fascinating bottles and tins containing everything from eyeballs to Zadie Smith’s short story Mortal Terror.

In my opinion this is the best bookshop in London, it stocks all my favourite magazines and has a wide selection of photography books, I spend a lot of my time there just browsing through all the books they have. David Bailey once described the place as “maybe the best photography bookshop in the world”

London is so vast I end up spending hours travelling on trains. They are by far the best way to travel around on and are always full of weird and wonderful characters.

This painted of the shopping centre by my brother, Leo Verhoeven, shows a rather idyllic vision of the shopping centre we both share. Its pretty rough, full of budget shops and funny cafes and framed by a shanty town style open air market. I have a real soft spot for it as the classic under dog, thats so often slated and condemned but lives on.

London’s wildest and best park to get lost in. Just follow your instinct, chase trees, go up to the viewing points and you’ll always find breathing and mindspace in Hampstead Heath. If you can, visit often, as it goes through wonderful changes over the seasons.