City of dreaming spires

And one very cool house in Portobello Road. Pretty much anything looks good if you use Scrabble tiles...

Busy Busy World

We are currently revisiting our childhoods, with the gift of a Richard Scarry compendium ... colourful, detailed double page spreads crammed anthropomorphic animals going about their everyday business in a hectic, harum scarum manner. Guaranteed to keep you enthralled for hours. Our favourite character is Bug Dozer, a little green bug trying to shift mountains with his tiny red bulldozer.

Another mainstay from that era: Maurice Sendak's 'Where the Wild Things Are', amazing artwork that draws you into the wonderful nightworld of naughty boy Max. I even (pretentious, moi?) once wrote a paper on this book, drawing on Freudian theory to provide insight and interpretation... but that's Oxford for you.