Johnny Vaughan has been entertaining the nation since the early 1990s and has since become the wake-up call for 1 million Londoners. His breakfast show on Capital FM recently announced it has reached the 1 million listeners mark – and with a presenter as energetic as he is funny, that news comes as no great surprise.

SW spent the morning sitting in on south west London resident Johnny’s breakfast show the day Denise Van Outen was there as a guest. The platonic chemistry that made Channel 4’s The Big Breakfast so successful when the pair co-presented it from 1997 to 2001 was apparent – despite the fact it was early on a Tuesday morning. Will there be an on-screen reunion? Who knows? But as Johnny does say that "the only thing he misses about the show is the sketches," we’re inclined to think not.

Vaughan is a law unto himself and as the show’s producer, Gareth, repeatedly tries to reign him in with hand gestures, written commands and an exasperated expression it is obvious that if Johnny Vaughan wants to go off on a tangent, he will (as he does a fair few times throughout our interview, providing an interesting insight into Johnny’s world. Just don’t mention parking).

"Did you know in the past when bridges were built they would be built with the body of a virgin in the foundations?" Johnny asks me in his serious voice, and even as I write this I’m not sure if it’s true. But it is fair to say that his knowledge of local history is immense: he also informs me that the reason Fulham and Battersea power stations escaped being bombed throughout the World Wars because they were used as the turning points for the planes to return home. The rest of Battersea was bombed, but the power station was untouched.

Born and bred in Barnet, North London, Vaughan moved to the Lavender Hill area of Battersea in 1991 and has remained in an SW postcode ever since. "I live in a borough that’s part of south west London, which almost hits the profile of our listeners – they’re not just in south London but the area has families and teenagers," says Vaughan. Who goes on to say that "Wandsworth has the worst traffic. You have all this traffic coming in from the M3 and the A3 into a single lane – it’s an inevitable, frustrating bottle neck."

"South west London is great for kids. Young kids," Vaughan clarifies, "Most families in south west London get to a point when they move to the country. Children aged 12 are disappearing from Northcote Road!

"When we used to come to south London, my dad – a north London boy – used to say ‘watch out we’re crossing the river’, Northcote Road is so civilised now and has some of the best restaurants and best bars."

So what local bars and restaurants does Johnny Vaughan recommend? "The Fish Club on St John’s Hill is great," he says, "and Donna Margareta on Lavender Hill sell the best pizzas in Britain. The other night I was driving past and there was a queue to get in outside – that’s great to see."

"I have eaten in every single gastro pub in south west London," Vaughan declares, "and you will not beat the slow roast pork belly in the Freemasons Arms (in Wandsworth)". They do an amazing risotto too – a favourite of Johnny’s wife, Antonia, whom he met aged 19 in a video shop in Fulham (Johnny worked there, Antonia was a customer). The couple married in 1999 and now have two children, Tabitha, 7 and Rafferty, 4. They live in the Wandsworth equivalent to tinsel town but when I ask Vaughan who his well-known neighbours are I’m told "that’s their business". And that’s that.

Like many south west Londoners, Johnny and Antonia are renovating their family home, and as Johnny puts it "regenerating south London and lining the pockets of polish builders". The Vaughans look likely to stay in south west London for a few more years, so what – other than Northcote Road – is keeping them here?

The park life is high on Vaughan’s list of attractions, where he regularly walks his dog, Harvey. "Battersea Park is the great park of London. Hyde Park is nice but it’s a London Park. Battersea Park is a park for Londoners," he says wisely. He also loves the sense of community that ‘you don’t get in West Kensington or Barons Court’. South west London is Johnny’s home: "On my way to work I go over the bridge and on my way back it’s as if south London is singing to me welcome home."

Another plus point could be that Vaughan thinks the local council, Wandsworth, is "very well run" (unlike a neighbouring borough that once gave him a £2,000 parking fine when his permit had slipped off of the windscreen but was still visible in his Merc). "Cars are like little sponges. They (the council) think they can wring money out of them! One suggestion I would make to Wandsworth is that there should be a parking permit that allows you to park anywhere in the borough. I have a permit but there are never any spaces," says Vaughan, who is clearly impassioned by the topic – perhaps because he was once given a parking ticket for parking on his own drive: "The traffic warden said ‘you can’t park there because you’re blocking the drive’ and I said ‘That’s my drive’. He then told me I was blocking in my wife’s car."

Any final thoughts? "SW magazine – I always read it. It makes it to the bathroom and that’s good to me. In the future there’ll be no national magazines or newspapers that survive in print, only the locals will make it."