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I am a very specific sort of American as I was born and lived there for the first 22 years of my life but, for the next 30 or so years, I have lived mostly in Britain. If you ask me what I am, I couldn’t really pick one over the other. In my core, I am American but, in my life, I am British. If that doesn’t make sense to you, then just imagine what it’s like for me. For me, then, this is what it means to be an American living in Britain:

- A need for space. I lived, for a time here, in a house built in 1968, perfectly normal for this country. But whenever I opened the front door, everything felt as if it were the wrong scale. It was like living in a submarine. In the end, I moved. If I could I’d live in a ranch-house in Kent.

- Having to put up with people telling me what it’s like to be American. This happens almost constantly but during the election it has become almost impossible. I mention to someone that a member of my family is voting Republican and the response is: “Ah, racism.” No, I say, Republicanism, actually. It happens.

- Missing baseball. It is the World Series now. For me, baseball conjures up a thousand memories: the smell of grass, the ping of the ball against the backstop, trying to manoeuvre my own mitt. Wonderful. Everyone here tells me that baseball is boring but if you don’t understand baseball, you’ll never get America.

- Always wanting something written down. Americans have a great belief in the written word, starting from the Constitution on down. “Can I have that in writing?” is a fairly normal question there. This has made America a country of lawsuits but it also makes it a country where you have the right to know where you stand. In Britain, there is a great fear of writing anything down. The lack of a written Constitution fascinates me as it breeds uncertainty but, bizarrely, everyone seems to love that.

- Getting over thinking you are the best. Growing up in America, I always felt sorry for other people in other countries. We were the safest, the best, the one that God liked the most. I never saw myself as superior, just luckier. We were the country that everyone was trying to get into. I think that is the reason that 9/11 was such a terrible shock and the aftermath of trying to understand the thinking behind that attack so traumatic.

- Understanding an argument. America was born through revolution and it is a country that loves an argument. With the separation of powers in Washington comes discord. C’est normal. People in Britain don’t get that: they think it’s a disaster if Congress disagrees with the President (as it did initially on the bail-out). But, actually, that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

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