Zadie Smith's My London

Home is...

Not a concept a writer should take too seriously.

Where do you live?

North West London, just off Willesden Lane.

Earliest London memory?

Going to see the flamingos in Golders Hill Park, aged three or four.

Last play you saw?

London Road at the National; it was great. The music was written by a boy I went to school with, Adam Cork. I went to two London state schools, Malorees Junior and Hampstead Comp, which have both produced quite a few artists and writers.

First thing you do when you arrive home?

I came back to London quite recently and so can answer this very precisely: I put on Radio 1Xtra and ate a Bakewell tart.

Which animal would you like to be?

Something that has no role whatsoever in the struggle for survival. A pug, perhaps, or some kind of well-fed elephant living on a wildlife reserve.

Most romantic thing someone’s done for you?

My husband [the poet Nick Laird] proposed to me in the hallway of a flat in Kilburn. It doesn’t sound romantic, but it worked.

Best place for a first date?

The Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. You might as well work out early if they have the stomach for life.

What would you do as Mayor for the day?

Provide free educational advice and guidance to families in need of it. By which I mean: what to ask a teacher; what to look for in a school; which exams best suit their child’s ability; what books to get from a library; how to apply to a university; how to get through the interview, and so on.

Favourite club?

My clubbing days are over, but once upon a time Bar Rumba and The Social were favourites. The Black Lion pub on Kilburn High Road is very beautiful, but I like to make vodka martinis at home.

Who are your heroes?

Some mix of Virginia Woolf, Albert Camus and Muhammad Ali, for talent and will and insight and political bravery.

Favourite discoveries?

There’s a girl called Sindy who has a place, Snippets, at the end of my road. She threads eyebrows for £8, and is amazing.

Building you’d most like to live in?

There’s a white modernist building with porthole windows near Kilburn station, which is divided into flats but would make an amazing house. Otherwise, something Georgian right in the middle of it all, on Dean Street. That would be a good spot for a disreputable old age.