The Queen's English

I stood stock still in the street yesterday as a woman walked past pushing her baby along in a pram. I was rooted to the ground (and disconcerting the woman as I stared) because I realised I couldn't think of the American word for pram. It took a few hours before it came to me: stroller or buggy.

An ex-girlfriend, who is German, used to say when she went back to Germany after an extended stint in the Anglophone world she couldn't speak German properly for about a week - forgetting even rather elementary words and phrases. It is sort of like that for me; British English has become my mother tongue. And because I write for a UK magazine, I spell British, throwing in those unnecessary 'u's and replacing 'z's with 's's. I even think in British; when I was writing that sentence I was thinking 'zeds' not 'zees'.

It was a slow process - which I started dropping words and phrases into my speech ironically, almost with quotation marks: 'Fancy' another round, pal? Gradually, I dropped the quotation marks and now it has become second nature. There were practical aspects as well with pronunciation; such as saying 'chew-na' for tuna when I lived in Scotland because no one at any sandwich place seemed to be able to understand my American accent.

When I go back to America friends take the piss - or give me shit, rather - for both my accent and words I use (incidentally - the British take piss, the Americans give shit - indicative of the national characters? There's a phd thesis in there somewhere). And I find myself feeling uncomfortable using American slang. 'Bucks', for example, just sounds wrong and when I say it, I do so with quotation marks.

Perhaps I was affected so much when I saw the woman with the pram, because I realised I am no longer really American. But I'm not British, either. I do have an Irish passport as well, but have never lived there so saying I'm Irish would be something of an affectation. So what am I then? Stranger in a strange land, man without a country, rootless, homeless.

Summer in the city, back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

It is one of those humid days, hot, oppressive in the way that only London seems to get - something about concrete and steel that seems to both reflect and refract the heat back at you. And there is little respite, most places aren't air conditioned, are built to keep the heat in not out. On the way home from work at a traffic light, I was the victim of a drive-by. A guy in a white van peeled by and blasted a bunch of us with a super soaker. 'I wish the water was cooler,' a girl next to me giggled, dabbing at her top. 'Let's hope it's just water,' I said.

I miss the sea. It has been a big part of my life in Boston, Edinburgh, Brighton. Even the other river cities I have lived in - Glasgow, Hamburg, Budapest - were all on working rivers. You never felt trapped because there was constant activity, goods being docked, things being ferried away. When I lived in Hamburg whenever I felt down I would go to the Elbe and watch the container ships - these hulking, boxy beasts waddle downriver. I always found something beautiful in their ugliness, maybe because psychologically, there was always this feeling of movement and freedom, always the possibility of escape.

A stroll on the Southbank today and the Thames seems sluggish and hemmed in, the only river traffic garbage scows and party boats, a clogged, constricted vein.

This Thing of Darkness

I stumbled upon this a couple of weeks ago in Fopp. Since joining The Organ, I rarely buy books as publishers bombard us with them. Yet I have a penchant for anything about the Age of Sail and Harry Thompson's fictionalised account of Darwin's voyage to the Galapagos looked interesting. And it was £2.

The main character is actually Robert FitzRoy, the captain of HMS Beagle. He is by far more compelling than Thompson's Darwin: intelligent, manic depressive, a holy roller whose beliefs are put to test by Darwin's emerging theories. FitzRoy's downfall - he butts heads with his superiors because he does the morally right thing no matter what the consequences to his career or bank balance - is poignant.

The problem is the bulk of the book (and what bulk - 744 pages) is largely discussions between Darwin and FitzRoy as they wrangle over transmutation of the species. This is an argument that was cutting edge in the 1820s. Now, excepting the born-again troglodytes who live in America's Deep South, it is old hat. Darwin and FitzRoy's arguments become tiresome quickly; I felt like I was trapped, forced to listen to two super-keen 18-year-old university students who just read Nietzsche for the first time. Judicious editing of about 400 pages could have saved this book.

Thompson was a TV writer and producer, known for his work on Have I Got News for You and his part in creating the Ali G character. He died in 2005 after, according to his bio on the book, "a brave fight" against cancer. No one seems to ever have a cowardly fight against cancer, do they?

To Moro, to Moro, always a day away

To Moro, the Spanish - North African restaurant in Exmouth Market with good pals P and M, the folks who let me crash on their sofa bed when I first moved up to London and was between flats.

It was a proper summer night, one of those rare London evenings where it doesn't actually cool down. We sat at an outside table, looking out at the beautiful people strolling down the pedestrianised walkway, lit by the rows of fairy lights that are strung across the market. Some worries and ructions in my personal life were washed away (momentarily at least) by laughs and copious amounts of rosé wine. I usually consider rosé an abomination, but I can swing with it in the summer.

The food was excellent. Moorish cuisine? I say it's more-ish! I don't often go for goat as I'm a vegetarian (but not at restaurants - which is a bit of a fudge, really). But the slow roasted kid was tender with this tingly spicy-sweet sauce. The saltiness of the mojama (which sounds to me like a Spanish curse word) was set off by the eye-poppingly fresh salsa.

We went to Cafe Kick afterwards, this retro 70s pub with old fashioned table football (or foosball as we say in America). I was beaten on the foosball pitch in succession by P, who said he spent most of his university days playing so that's not too bad; M, who is a girl and said, 'I've never beaten anyone before!'; and a one armed man. Let me repeat that. A one armed man, some other pub patron who rocked up and asked for a game. For those readers who are unaware, I have the use of all four limbs.

Cultivate one's own garden

Some photos from our luscious garden in lovely Camberwell. We have tons of herbs, vegetables, some flowery things I take no interest in. There's cannabis and coca leaves to sell to the neighbourhood kids. When I say 'our' garden I mean my flatemate's as she does all the work. I usually sit out there of a sunny day reading, saying, 'You ought to do more weeding near the tomato plant, Anna. Now pick me a couple of courgettes, would ya? And get me another beer next time you're in the kitchen, that's a good girl.'

Aging rock star leaves wife for young woman shocker

An old rocker getting back on the booze and a fling with a 20 year old girl is, if anything, just a bit cliche and tiresome. Yet I do have some measure of sympathy for Ronnie Wood, or "the drink ravaged guitarist" as The Sun would have it.

I met Ronnie last summer in Budapest to write a piece for the Organ. He was genuinely nice and gracious seemingly grounded without rock star airs and graces. This is strange to say since I met him in his dressing room amidst the sprawling Stones encampment. I think it was because there was a feeling of domesticity and normalcy, probably due to his wife Jo, who was just lovely and kind. I have, obviously, more sympathy for her.

Yet you could just tell that he was an addict. He was sober then, but fidgety, jumpy. He seemed like he was clinging on for dear life - and it was his wife he was clinging to.

Still, every cloud and all... Ronnie's autobiography has gotten a nice bump in sales because of his fling with "Russian doll" Eka. No such thing as bad publicity.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

PN is no more. A little old skool Naughty by Nature TuPac tribute sums up my feelings. LT - ain't no shame, you were beaten by the best. Mourn you till I join you. Word is bond.

Magical mystery tour

A friend, a Londoner, told me that to survive in The Big Smoke, you should exploit it rather than letting it exploit you. It can get to be a grind if you let it, but there is so much to offer, so many quirky things to do.

On Saturday I went on a Beatles walking tour with GD and RG, two rather cynical Scots (if you take my cynicism and multiply it by a factor of ten, then you might be near GD's). It was hilarious, actually. The obsessive anorak who ran the thing was brilliant and just happened to own a Beatles memorabilia shop that we ended the tour at. He obviously lives and breathes all things Beatles. Which isn't that bad, I suppose; he could be an Oasis obsessive. He had this weird automaton delivery, with pauses in the wrong places - that I am sure he has done three times a day for the last 15 years or so. He met Paul in 1982, which he showed us a photograph of.

Still it's odd going to these places that once featured in the lives of the great and the good and pretend they still have resonance. We started at Marleybone station where the opening scenes of A Hard Day's Night were filmed; the main bit is now a Marks & Spencer. A place where John Lennon was busted for drugs 40 years ago is an estate agent's. I kind of found myself shrugging my shoulders a lot, trying to figure out why I should care.

We did go to Abbey Road and walk across the zebra crossing, annoying tons of motorists. A lot of doggerel was scribbled along the wall at Abbey Studios, including the bit above by Amanda from Canada. 'Which poet, Amanda?' I wondered.

They said I had to go to Rego, I said yes, yes, yes

A week of dissipation. Two leaving 'dos at The Organ - the lovely Nat from ads, who will be much missed. And Mr Schmooze, Snake Hips, Big Hands, The Face of the Organ, Joel. The magazine has been running for 150 years but Joel has left a huge thumbprint on it; he knows just everything about publishing and the book trade and was the go to rent-a-quote for the national newspapers and broadcast outlets not only because he is glib and articulate but because he knew his stuff.

Also a couple of publisher lunches, a day of judging for The Organ's award show at alarmingly trendy Shoreditch House; the upstairs bar rammed full of Nathan Barley types. Best of the week, though, was a launch for a Phaidon book on Paula Rego and how she works. I'm a big fan of her stuff - beautiful, disturbing, all about power games and gender and how childhood can be both charming and sinister. She was at the launch, but I was too star struck to approach her. An added bonus was I got to go to the launch with K, the smartest and coolest person I have ever met - and she is cool in a completely unaffected, so money and she doesn't even know it, way.

Foxy lady

For the second time in about three weeks, I have rescued my cat Soze (above) from the clutches of a fox. Both were late at night - the first I was coming home from the pub and as I rounded the corner to my flat block, Soze scampered out with the fox in hot pursuit. On Friday I came home from the pub (hm, a pattern is developing) and Soze was perched on our garden shed, with the fox below, trying to scramble up.

I'm not sure if the foxes were really trying to eat Soze - vulpes Londinium is famously well fed and there are more than enough chips and kebabs strewn on the ground in my neighbourhood to keep them fat and happy. But the Sozemeister is an easy mark, not much of a fighter.

I cannot convey how much I worry now, though. She is in the garden as I write this and I keep peering out just to make sure she is OK. She has been with me for near to six years now. She is reliable; unlike humans she does not dissemble, there is a constancy with her. True, she often treats me like staff, her meows could probably all be translated to 'Feed me, you bastard' or 'Open this door, you bastard.' She has pretty much destroyed my flatmate's couch.

But then I like to pick her up by her front paws so she is standing on her back legs and pretend she is dancing (I particularly like making her do that Travolta in Pulp Fiction thing) which she bears with much grace. And when she is sleeping I put things on her like sunglasses and my Red Sox cap. So we both win. It's a give and take thing.

Bug house

I live across the street from a mental hospital. It's not a full-on bars on the window, McMurphy and the Chief playing basketball kind of place. There is a Victorian frontage, but most of it is smooth hermetically sealed modern office block look - which I find more unsettling than some ancient Bedlam.

As I write this I can see about ten people taking a smoking break outside. They seem part of the same therapy group. An even mix of men and women in their forties and fifties, they crowd close to one another, rarely speaking, sucking greedily on their cigarettes. They all look rough, not necessarily poor, but used and beat, dazed. And I wonder, what do they talk about? Why can't they meet each others' gazes outside?

The proximity of the hospital means I often come across people raving to themselves and at me. When I first moved here I thought an inordinately amount of people were using the hands-free mobiles. But no.

Leaving this morning I came up to this woman in the street. She was a large black lady, wearing a pretty summer blue polka dot dress. She was standing in the middle of the sidewalk and I as I tried to get by she placed a hand, lightly, on my chest. 'Why are you here?' she asked, wide-eyed and staring. Before I could answer, she said again, lower, 'Why are you here?' Then she laughed, a long deep laugh and she was off, crossing the road to the hospital.

I watched her go into the building, the glass door swinging behind her, thinking, why indeed, why indeed. After a moment or two, I finally moved, trudging slowly towards the bus and work. And I looked back once, thinking, did that really happen?