Matt Drudge’s panama hat is the kind that cigar-sucking American newspaper men wore in the 1940s. Seeing him without it is like seeing the Statue of Liberty without her torch or Tom Wolfe without his white suit.

The internet has spawned a million sites but has created few real legends — one of whom is Drudge. That hat is part of the legend, a bit of style in the void of cyberspace.

Drudge runs one of the most influential and discussed websites in the world: the Drudge Report. It is a tabloid newspaper that you can read on the net offering up-to-the-minute news, gossip, sport and celebrity stories. It was Drudge who in 1998 published the story of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky and became famous overnight.

I expected a fast talking, in-your-face, liberal-baiting American. But after two minutes in his company you realise that Drudge is a loner. He says he has come to London “to find a good Indian restaurant”. At first I thought he was being flippant but he was not: “I don’t have any friends in London. I’m here for dinner. I like to travel. I spend 30% of my time travelling.”

Whether Drudge goes to London or Budapest he spends his time doing exactly what he does back in America: sitting alone in his room before computer screens: “My home, my hotel room, my car — they’re all like a mobile news room.”

As the city sleeps Drudge works late, tracking down stories, searching dozens of news agencies, web-sites, newspapers, radio broadcasts, television channels and tip-offs in the hope that he will be the first to bag tomorrow’s headlines. “I was first to break the news about the death of Lady Diana,” he boasts. “The CNN team couldn’t get into make-up fast enough.”

It is a gruelling schedule. “Yesterday I spent 13 hours in my hotel room looking for news. I’ve done seven hours already and will do another seven tonight.” For Drudge, news is not a job — it’s love.

“When a volcano erupts or an impeachment is formed — there’s a drama there. I look for action, motion, friction. There’s nothing more exciting than to watch a story break and grow — and to be the first one to present it to the world.”

What would be the perfect Drudge story? “An earthquake hitting a hospital with Bill Clinton having surgery and President Bush in the waiting room and an asteroid coming its way.” He laughs.

What does Drudge do when he is not plugged into cyberspace? “That’s a very good question and I’m not going to discuss it,” he replies.

“Hold on, Matt,” I say, “you’re always exposing the private lives of public figures. You can’t go all coy now.”

“I’m not very social. I live on an island in Miami, Florida, and I do my own shopping and pay my taxes,” he says. “And I’m not mean.”

That is not the way that Drudge’s critics see it. David Brock, a former right-wing journalist, claimed in his book Blinded by the Right that Drudge was gay, yet supported a party that these critics see as “homophobic”.