Suggs: Digs Arnold Circus, The Dublin Castle and the French House

Give it to me straight – which place best sums up London?

Definitely Norton Folgate in Spitalfields. It was where immigrants came when they arrived, before they got past the city walls proper, and it goes right back to the Romans, Normans, Saxons… People get worried about new influxes of people but it’s always been so. That’s what makes London so fabulously exciting.

You headed a campaign to stop a skyscraper ­being built on the site. Is that battle over?

Yeah, it’s all right. These heavyweight locals, like Tracey Emin, got involved. It’s just a funny array of dirty alleys, but one of the last left.

Talking of that, which loss of a place do you most regret?

The New Piccadilly cafe in Denman Street, which shut a couple of years back. It had been there since the 50s, but these small places get squeezed because the big coffee chains can pay big rents. It’s indicative of development in general. We don’t treasure these independent places like they do in Paris. There are dark forces at work.

What can we do?

Support local shops and services, and read those signs on lampposts about proposed development and complain about them to the council.

Tell me your favourite secret green space.

Arnold Circus, off Shoreditch High Street. There’s an old-fashioned bandstand in the middle of an array of flats. It’s a charming place to relax. There are lovely little shops around there, too. And Tufnell Park, near where I live, is a nice green space.

What’s your perfect ­London day out?

The other day I walked to Sloane Square from ­Holloway, which was very interesting. It took two and a half hours and I had to stop for a pee in Selfridges.

Fave music venue?

The Dublin Castle in Camden. It’s been run by the same family for years, and it has connections for me. We played our first gigs there in 1976.

Favourite pub?

I can’t say that, because people will go there!

Well, you talk about the French House on Dean Street in the book, why not that?

OK – the French House. They usually only serve beer in half pints, but for one day, on 1 April, they serve pints – of any alcohol. Since it started, I’ve always pulled the first pint, but I’m out before they start on the gin. I couldn’t make it last year, and they made masks of my face for the staff to wear.

Ideal lazy Sunday?

Walk to Canary Wharf up the canal, past Victoria Park and all the back streets, and have dim sum at a restaurant called Royal China. You go from Dickensian London to the modernism of Canary Wharf. Then take the river taxi back.

If you could have any house in London, which would it be?

There’s a house once owned by David Lean, up Wapping way, by the river. It’s huge – he knocked through several warehouses, and there are palm trees in the garden. I once met the guy who brought the trees on a boat up the Thames.

What’s been your most surprising discovery about London?

Got to be the collection of dinosaurs in Crystal Palace. They’re life-sized stone dinosaurs, all made in the 1800s for the Great Exhibition. They didn’t have the knowledge we have now, and they’re all a bit wrong. One of them has a giant toe on its head.

Suggs and the City, Headline, £18.99