November 6

After all the screaming and shouting on election night I've succumbed to a dreadful disease. If this is the price I have to maintain my local celebrity (I'd guess that I'm approaching state-wide levels of recognition now) then so be it.

A guy called Johnny Trask, who I originally started talking to about reggae, decided that he would drive my friend and I around the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans today. That was the part of the city which was wiped out entirely by Katrina four years ago. He took us to the neighborhood where he grew up and the house in which his family had lived for generations. There is absolutely nothing there now. It's just long grass for block after block after block. I took a whole bunch of notes while he was explaining the entire catastrophe so in the interests of brevity I'll save writing it up for another time.

By the way, do you know what I'm most envious of when it comes to America? Free speech? No. We have that at Hyde Park Corner and I'm happy to quarantine all those people right there. Is it the right to bear arms? Well, there are a lot of people in London I'd like to shoot, but the right to bear arms only extends so far when it comes to building you personal arsenal. That's no good if I want some kind of assault rifle or, at a stretch, the "Old Faithful" gattling-gun from Predator. No what I really covet in America is their cafes.

What? The cafes? In America? Yes. Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans are blessed with some of the coolest cafes I've ever had the pleasure to waste time in. They're huge places, filled with kids on laptops and friends playing chequers after work. Seriously, America has no business cultivating such bohemian hubs of art and creativity. I demand the Federal Reserve pour money into a scheme to get the American youth back into the burger bars, diners and pizzerias. Stop embarassing Europe with your tastefully appointed, spacious and (crucially) liquor-licensed culture-havens.

Everything that makes a city pleasant is present and correct in New Orleans. Trams - beautiful wooden trams - run all over the place. Ceiling fans. Ceiling fans everywhere! Even outside, attached to wooden shop fronts which overhang the pavement. And lastly there are big, hand painted signs written onto brick walls everywhere. All cities should have these things.

New Orleans even has Hell's Angels. Well, one. This particular Hell's Angel, a short, muscular dude with a buzz-cut and a long, point beard in his sixties, was also the owner of New Orleans' most elaborate Halloween display. Taking up every inch of his porch, Brad had put together an "Undead Wedding" diorama featuring two hooded skeleton guards, a skeleton riding a real motorbike, a zombie bride and groom which actually moved up and down the aisle, and of course a zombie priest. Brad talked about his diorama in a serious way, like a stern father discussing his son's progress through college.

"Yeah, it turned out pretty good this year," he said. "I was real happy with the bride. Her neck sprays blood everywhere."

I was impressed by the benefits attached to being a Hell's Angel. It seems that any time you are in trouble you can call upon your "bros" who will ride into town and beat up whoever you want . There was a rogue painter-decorator in New Orleans who was ripping off old people - tricking them into handing over their savings before leaving whatever job they'd been paid to do unfinished. Brad was going to call up his bros on this guy. They were going to put him in "a world of pain".

I'm sure Brad and his friends did plan to batter the handyman with several feet of lead piping but I had a feeling that when it came down to it Brad wouldn't actually hurt anyone these days. He was a nice old guy. Sure, he's probably given his fair share of chain-fisted beatings over the years but him talking sounded liek an old boxer boasting to his family about getting into the ring one more time. An old Hell's Angel is basically just a vaguely-tough motorbike enthusiast.