This travelogue isn't going to take me to the heights of the Hindu Kush, nor to the depths of the Marianas Trench. I won't be sharing the sputum of wild boars with cannibalistic pygmies from the Ribble Valley, nor navigating the Sahel with only a skateboard and a piece of string. No account of this trip will give the reader much that they couldn't find in a travel agent's window, and I won't deviate much from my usual solipsistic style. But it's about time I started to keep a journal, and you're most welcome to indulge my peripatetic ramblings.

My first fatuous foray into fiction has taught me that the medium burns through small details like an American car burns through fossil fuel. Besides, memory is a fickle friend, and a mind as crude as mine will soon push aside any notion that doesn't lead to food, sex or sleep (read on, and I promise at least one of those will come your way). So, I feel the need to record the gems we uncovered in case all I actually remember is coal, or, in the case of Las Vegas and South Yorkshire, slag.

So, I'll be serialising our US trip, not to immortalise my searing insights into that enigmatic and shy nation, but to give myself a break from grown-up writing which I'm starting to find ruddy difficult. Expect verbiage, parenthesis and unfocussed asides. And sentences poorly structured.

Saturday 22nd March 08

Our trip to San Francisco begins with the No. 2 bus from Branston to Lincoln (via Washingborough). I put on my blue suede shoes and I boarded the 1981 Leyland Wayfarer twin-deck, so to speak. As with most of the vintage buses on this route, I have to touch my chin to my sternum and crouch to walk around, and the upholstery smells like three generations of old, wet retrievers have died on it.

We eventually find a train that will take us to London Village and boldly display our multiple advance APEX deluxe power ranger first class tickets. These allow us to make our way to the hallowed halls of the first class compartment; there, we can sit in slightly bigger seats and enjoy a single tepid beverage of our choice in the knowledge that we could plan a conference with our wi-fi equipment should we so desire. As I nibble my complimentary shortbread petticoat, I know I've struck another mighty blow in the class war.

TBC