My London: Vince Cable

What was the last play you saw in London?
A political satire called Whipping It Up by Steve Thompson at The Mary Wallace Theatre in Twickenham, performed by a local amateur group.

What advice would you give a tourist?
Don't do too much. Enjoy small bites of sightseeing rather than big meals of museums and galleries.

Which London shops do you rely on?
Cornish pasty and fresh baguette stalls in stations: my staple diet. My local Waitrose in Twickenham. Sandys Fishmongers in Twickenham – one of the best, anywhere. My local newsagent JD News & Booze. Mercury Motors in Strawberry Hill, which performs miracles on my car.

What's the best meal you've ever had in London?
I love high-quality, highly spiced, Indian vegetarian food. The masala dosas at Woodlands near Leicester Square are as good as any.

What's your earliest London memory?
My earliest memories are of a hot, stuffy, cheap hotel room near King's Cross and the wonderful steak and kidney pies and chips at Lyons' Corner Houses. I was about 11.

What are your guilty pleasures?
Late-night films on TV, fast cars and unhealthy food – fish and chips, jelly and ice cream.

What are you most afraid of?
Heights. Overcoming that fear to the extent of being able to abseil is a personal highlight.

What would be on your tombstone?
Something to connect me permanently with my wife Rachel, my late wife Olympia, and my three children and my grandchildren.

What would you do as Mayor for the day?
I would try the Dutch experiment of switching off the traffic lights.

What's your life philosophy?
Don't let them grind you down.

What animal would you most like to be?
An elephant. Happily chewing trees and not killing other animals but able to charge when necessary.

What was the last album you bought?
Mozart's Requiem sung by the Academy of Ancient Music, conducted by Christopher Hogwood.

What would you save from a fire?
Family photo albums.

What are you up to at the moment?
I'm on the train to London from Swansea where I have been talking about our fairer tax message.

Who's your hero?
As an economist, Keynes or Adam Smith. As a man of action and achievement, Deng Xiaoping, the former leader of the Communist party of China, who led China towards a market economy.

What do you most like wearing?
My battered but characterful hat.

What's the most romantic place in London?
The river walk from Twickenham to Richmond.

What are your favourite London discoveries?
Bushy Park, near Hampton Court Palace, and the River Crane, a tributary of the Thames.

Tell me something I don't know about London.
Greenwich Mean Time isn't set in Greenwich but in Teddington, in my constituency, on the atomic clocks of the National Physical Laboratory.

Where were the last three places you went on holiday?
Caithness and Sutherland on a walking holiday with Rachel. India to see one of my Indian nieces married, and Sri Lanka to open Hampton Village, a tsunami reconstruction project financed by a local constituency charity. And fell walking in the Lake District with friends.

What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you?
While learning to fly in East Africa, I failed my pilot's test on several occasions with some hair-raising manoeuvres, before eventually passing.

Have you ever stolen anything?
Like many students, I did treat Cambridge bicycles as a collective resource (we were a bike-sharing programme that was ahead of its time).