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.

Sometimes when I wake up it feels like I am at sea watching a big ocean liner pass by. It is the view from my home in one of the two stepped concrete apartment blocks that make up the Brunswick Centre in Bloomsbury. When you visit skip the chain stores of the shopping centre below (except for the excellent Renoir Cinema) and instead get an invitation to one of the small but gorgeous flats with their winter gardens or just wander through the spectacular concrete A frames and across the vast sun drenched terraces on podium level.

Leila McAlister's grocery shop and café off Arnold Circus, Shoreditch. You can find the best of everything, from jars of horseradish to eggs and croissants.

Book store on Broadway Market

Favorite pub in East London. The food is good, as well. Nice to go in the evening after a stroll through London fields or the Broadway market shops