It's a members-only library but you might be granted access with a research request. The writer's room is great but there's a few special, hidden corners among the bookshelves to tuck yourself away in.

My favourite local beer garden.

I walk a lot; the best way to experience a city. So it's sometimes to do with the way places join up. This cast concrete letterform is a part of the Lycée's gateway. Each of the form's facets arrives at a different character, so six possible letters come from each cast object. I've never been inside the Lycée but always walked through this way up to the V&A, in order to examine again and again how each form works. The surfaces set the tone for the V&A and its incredible Ceramics floor, a perennial inspiration.

Go check out this very untypical gallery in the underground. You don't need a ticket and it does only take you a second to soak in the art displayed.

Where 1984 of George Orwell got its inspiration from, the craziness of a real ministry of propaganda.