The 38 to Clapton Pond

Noel Coward's London Pride scrawled on a dustbin.

The Quality Chop House on Farringdon Road. Progressive Working Class Caterer. A classy joint.

One of an endless supply of daft London signs.

Well, more of a bar, but for once that's excusable. Bradley's Spanish Bar, Hanway Street off Oxford Street W1. Best jukebox in town. Once featured Dennis Waterman giving it large on his hit I Could Be So Good For You . I hope it still does. Blinding.

A Chinese flavour in Little Venice.

So buy yourself one at Cecil Court WC2, London's best, grumpiest, most individual shops.

Griffin Park is Brentford F.C's home ground. It is the only football ground with a pub at each corner. But that's not a griffin (above). So WTF is it? Is it just a plain old football-playing winged-lion? Any suggestions?

Banished from Trafalgar Square, a pigeon plots its revenge from a hole in the Roman London wall.

A piece of newspaper publishing history on a plaque set into a paving stone, underfoot and handy for the gutter. Where else?

But for the burglar alarm and the yellow lines on the road…

The sickly sodium glow casts its pall over the LU roundel at Farringdon (no effects added). We suppose this unique lighting state at Farringdon by night will be replaced when the Crossrail changes kick in. A pity. By dark Farringdon station always looks otherworldly in its perpetual yellow dusk.

…and get walking . An 88 mile walk within a 10 mile radius of Big Ben.

Our sister bus the No.9 comes in second in the 51st annual London Bus Grand Prix. The 38 took gold, naturally.

View from Hampstead at dusk.

Yes, it's called The Churchill. Yes, that's the Irish tricolour flying above The Churchill. And yes, The Churchill with the Irish flag serves Thai food. It's in Kensington Church Street.

Dappled by shadows from the leafy suburban trees, is prissy Highgate the last place one would expect to find a sign advertising a "Juke Joint"? Visit The Boogaloo .

Getting to look a lot like spring in Clerkenwell – at Pear Tree Court, the Peobody Trust estate, the architecture of which was once described by the great (but often infuriatingly snobbish) Nikolaus Pevsner as "detestable". (See The Buildings of England: London Vol. II Except the Cities of London and Westminster , 1952.)

Spring on the fault line between suburban East Finchley and übersuburbia, Hampstead Garden Suburb. Mock tudor, chichi motor cars, the Heath beyond. My favourite thing: very little aesthetic pollution in the shape of "signage". Only one of those horrid neighbourhood watch signs with the cutesy meerkats is visible. Those must really put the wind up the crims.

A splendid time is guaranteed… just make sure to keep your voice down, it's a library.

A thuggish tower block mugging an innocent little old pub.

Tasty Cafe. Not as prissy as The Yummy Cafe. Not as sanctimonious as The Nutritious Cafe. Tasty. Nicely done. (St John St, Clerkenwell EC1.)

A patriotic mini in Little Italy. Where else?

Fulcrum (1987) by minimalist sculptor Richard Serra.

Bunhill Fields, the nonconformist burial ground, at an early spring dusk 2010.

Bank Holiday weekend, Good Friday 2010. The view from my desk.

The pub where George Orwell took a pint (or two) before heading off to the Spanish Civil War. Best pie shop in London since Mrs Lovat's. It's in Rathbone Place W1.