Vidal is still the best company of all, but Al arrives looking visibly troubled

I'm in Los Angeles to shoot, rather perversely, a show named Boston Legal. Having visited many times over the past decade, I remain struck by my foreignness. You cannot fill your car with petrol, walk a block or look out of a window at dusk as the sun turns crimson orange without having a mobile phone ad or TV drama thrust at you from a billboard. Perhaps this is not dissimilar to Britain, yet in America, it is on a much, much grander level.

Antony Gormley's The Angel of the North, if erected in southern California, would find itself plastered with banners endorsed by Nike. Here, the Pacific skyline is taken up with biplanes emitting advertising text in the form of pink smoke plumes into the atmosphere above the beach. I find that the lyrics of Gil Scott-Heron erupt in the mind, as well as the desire to visit Cuba, where the billboards espouse only Che and Fidel rather than long-lash mascara.

It is in this mood that I go with friends to a Hollywood cinema to see Michael Moore's Sicko, a captivating polemic, witty, moving and intimate, a documentary that wriggles beneath the skin. The Americans I question randomly either seem to embrace Moore's campaigning, or declare loudly that they will not watch the film under any circumstances, as if it will, in some way, attack their senses and cerebrally defile them. I resolve to see it for a second time.

What a charade

There are two current crazes here among the acting community: running charades, and Mexican dominoes. I decline an evening of both, as, believe it or not, these two sporty pursuits involve great concentration, gamesmanship, and general crossness from teammates if you're not feeling up to par. I always make a list that includes Julia, Tootsie and The Battle of Algiers; then I run out of ideas. My friends see me coming a mile off, and fill their clues with Seventies American game shows I could never possibly have heard of.

Whenever I am in LA, I find that structure is good for the soul. On Saturday I go to my guitar lesson in a distant old music shop on a low-key bit of Pico Boulevard. We have been playing "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" for six weeks. Garrett, my teacher, shows considerable restraint in waiting for the end of our 90-minute session before suggesting that we might expand our repertoire. He rarely leaves the premises; I urge him to splash out on a mini fridge in which to store the fresh mango juice that he sups between capo adjustments.

Not smiling, but grimacing

Last Wednesday I joined the celebrations for fellow Libran Gore Vidal's 82nd year, at a birthday dinner. He is the best company of all, and has made my summer here a good one.

Two days later, Al Gore, Vidal's distant cousin, is honoured by Oceana, an organisation committed to protecting the world's oceans. The event takes place in a private home with Ted Danson chairing the proceedings.

Someone has erected Chinese lanterns that swing from garden trees. We sit surrounded by space heaters; it is cold, for this place. Anjelica Huston introduces the guest of honour. I came across him at the Hay-on-Wye festival last year, robust and heady.

Now, Al Gore appears visibly troubled. He has arrived fresh from a meeting with 20 expert scientists in Boulder, Colorado, on the subject of the North Pole. The disintegration of the deep-layer ice is such that they believe it is not 70 or 50 years away from a total defreeze, but conservatively 20 years, and realistically, perhaps six.

The lanterns swing in the evening wind. Gore speaks of his limited imagination, of how he is at a loss as to how to urge people to respond. He speaks of his frustration and shame that we are not doing more, and that the news only tells us of Britney and OJ.

And then, at the end, he comes up with an African proverb: "If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. We must go far, quickly." A few days later, he is pictured on the front page of the New York Times, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize. It seems to me that Al Gore appears to be not smiling, but grimacing - as if he knows too much.

"The Bank Job" and "The Guitar" are due for release in early 2008. "Reign Over Me" and "Perfect Creature" are out now on DVD

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