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If you are a Little Me tourist you go around all innocent wonder and bonhomie; Ohh that looks nice, can I have a bit, mmm…I wonder what it was? probably prefer not to know actually, ha-ha, oh, my God it was a whaaat?!!! hey what on earth's that chap doing over there with a hatchet and a struggling cockerel…etc.

All very amusing . And very irritating; I once saw the ineffable Palin in pseudo-solitary mode on top of a lorry; he and some hapless African local were bouncing along a dusty track. Palin conceived the idea that it would be cute, (and make cute footage), to swap hats as they swayed along, side by side. But Mr Local was having none. Palin of course (droit de seigneur) insisted and so local man briefly, and with some distaste, donned Palin's hat, no doubt wondering, quite rightly, why he had to put on this white man's hat in front of a video camera, why the white man wanted to wear his.

I know about these three modes, naturally enough, because unconsciously (and alarmingly) I find myself adopting them in turn. Doubtless there are others: where, for example, does Chatwin fit in? traveller as dandy? a bit of each? And what about the grumpy Theroux? Teddy Bearish Bryson? My travel writer categories need expanding.

My intense, selfish appetite for cities means I make an ungracious guest when I visit new ones. "Right" says my generous sister in law in Toronto, on my first morning in the city "Would you like me to show you round town?" I wonder what to do. I want to explore the (modest) excitement of downtown Toronto myself. Rudely I make my excuses and go off on my own. (In actual truth this was my second day in Toronto. I had spent the first driving around the Italian quarter negotiating (in Italian) a place in a kennel at which my brother could lodge a Pyrenean Mountain Hound).

In Sao Paulo I knew I could trust my taciturn host. He sensed what I wanted. For the whole of one afternoon he drove me madly round one of the greatest urban agglomerations in the world, from lunchtime to dusk; the rain drummed on the roof of the car, dusk fell and we swooped into underpasses, between the lowering cliffs of Avenida Paulista, rocketing through tunnels, out onto expressways. He understood.

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