Mary Beard's My London

Home is…

Cambridge, about 50 minutes from King’s Cross, if the trains are running on time.

Where do you stay in London?

If I’m saving money, I take the train back home. If I stay in town, I don’t do it too cheap: Dean Street Townhouse or Hazlitt’s.

Building you’d like to buy?

I’d make an offer for the Wellington Arch at Hyde Park Corner. I wrote a book about the Roman Triumph once. I have a soft spot for arches.

Last show you saw?

Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini at the Coliseum. Terry Gilliam’s production was spectacular, full of extravagant bits of carnival that would entice even the most opera-averse. Before that, Handbagged, at the Vaudeville, a hilarious parody of Thatcher’s relations with the Queen.

What would you do as Mayor?

I’d open up some of the empty palazzi with absentee owners to the homeless.

Most romantic thing someone’s done for you?

When you’re a 59-year-old academic, ‘romance’ means something a bit different. The thing that I’ve found most touching recently was being elected Professor of Ancient Literature at the Royal Academy. The first holder was Samuel Johnson.

Best place to let your hair down?

I’m not much of a ‘hair letter downer’ now, although I would like to be.

Favourite shops?

I am a fan of Jimmy Choo on Conduit Street, and Natoora — I get its fresh veg online but it also has a shop in Turnham Green. For books, Watermark Books at King’s Cross, the London Review Bookshop and Foyles.

Who do you call when you want to have fun?

For a good classical and literary chat, it would be Peter Stothard, editor of The Times Literary Supplement and a maverick classicist.

Best meal?

At Moro in Exmouth Market. I am particularly partial to the wood-roasted pork.

Biggest extravagance?

My pink Globe-Trotter suitcase from the Burlington Arcade shop. It was a Christmas/birthday present from my husband, and embarrassingly more expensive than most flights I have been on with it.

Building you’d most like to be locked in overnight?

I am too old for museum sleepovers, but the idea of waking up amidst the Elgin Marbles, how cool is that?

Best place for a first date?

The Sir John Soane’s Museum in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, an extraordinary collection of a brilliant architect and obsessive collector. And there are lots of quiet corners.

Earliest London memory?

My mum took me to The British Museum when I was five. In the Egyptian galleries she was trying to lift me up to see some carbonised bread, when a curator came by, unlocked the case and got it out to show me.