It’s a month since we came back. I’ve been thinking a little more about the differences I see around me between the two places.

• Traffic. Modern America is a nation built around the car, but the rules that govern drivers are also surprisingly friendly to pedestrians — where there are pedestrians, of course. Although drivers in other parts of America aren’t as polite as those in San Francisco, the law means that drivers should stop for pedestrians as a matter of course. Being a pedestrian in Britain often involves mad dashes across the street and the threat of White Van Man always looms in the background.

• America doesn’t know how to do pubs. It’s great at dive bars and sports bars and cocktail bars and clubs and so on, but rarely does anywhere capture the sort of broader atmosphere you find in a good British boozer. On the other hand, the age-old claim that America only produces shit beer is clearly wrong these days. Things change!

• The fashion divides are much smaller here. In SF — and, I think, across lots of American cities — various social tribes were clearly delineated by their outfits. Hipsters would be wearing skinny jeans, plaid and so on. Most hip-hoppers would be decked out in baggy trousers, white tees and baseball caps. There wasn’t much crossover, if any. Tribes here in the UK are more permeable (similar to how cultures seem more integrated) and this is perhaps something to do with the size of the country. But I also think it also says something about the way fashions change and the fact that clothes are treated a little less like cultural uniforms in Britain… though they clearly still exist.