I didn’t move to Los Angeles to be a professional ex-pat but here I am, tuning into BBC radio via Real Player every day, listening to the evening drive time show on Radio Two just as I’m waking up (traffic reports from the M25 don’t seem quite so bad when you live near the Hollywood hills), tracking down speciality English shops (always attached to Ye English Pub) to stock up on PG Tips, Shippams paste and Heinz Salad Cream, and buying proper back bacon at Fresh & Easy, which is owned by Tesco. But best of all I’m a member of the Facebook group Brits in LA.

It took a while though. I think I’d been in LA almost 18 months before I decided to attend one of their karaoke night mixers. Looking back, it seems highly improbable that I ever planned to go (I’m not a girl you’d associate with the words ‘mixer’ and ‘karaoke’) but I’m glad I did. For a start I got to hang out with some old friends from London including a couple of publicists and pop stars that I knew from my teen mag days. Girl Power!

One of those erstwhile pop stars is actor/producer Craig Young, once a member of the brilliant pop foursome Deuce, who is now an LA resident and currently has a recurring role on the revamped Melrose Place.

His partner in Brits in LA is Eileen Lee – the woman I call ‘the connector’. Go read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell if you don’t understand what I’m talking about. Eileen knows everybody in this town and by that I mean, if she doesn’t know, she’ll find out. I don’t think I’ve met a more well connected woman. Seriously, if you are moving here, make friends with Eileen, she’s the lady with all the answers, and on top of that she’s lovely.

So successful are Brits in LA that this week GMTV roving reporter Anna Singleton turned up at their weekly breakfast mixer at Cecconi’s in Beverly Hills, with a film crew in tow. She interviewed various hand-selected diners as they scoffed their scrambled eggs – and I have to say it was noticeable that everyone looked a lot smarter than usual. Hell, even I’d bothered to put some make up on.

I’m always intrigued as to who I’m going to end up dining with. In the past I’ve met a handful of ex-British soap stars, photographers, producers and make-up artists plus acting legend Ian Abercrombie, who played Mr Pitt in Seinfeld, and this week I met the hulking (but very nice) actor Stephen Marcus, who played Nick the Greek in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

As if that wasn’t enough Britishness to last me a lifetime, on Monday night I went to a taping of The Tonight Show with Conan O Brien, with a friend who I shall call ‘Julius’.

The Tonight Show is an institution in America. I don’t think I can come up with a UK equivalent. Jonathan Ross is the closest or maybe Parkinson if he’d had a live house band, sat behind a desk in front of a 3D skyscape and was replaced at 20 year intervals by young upstart comedians.

The star guest was Ricky Gervais, who was at his impish best, pouring water over Conan’s head and then uploading the resulting geeky picture to his blog. The best bit was watching him apologise profusely to Conan during the commercial break for the impromptu bath, before he dashed offstage to have his hair reconstructed for the cameras (Conan not Ricky).

Julius, like almost every American male of a certain age I meet, is a huge fan of Ricky’s work. Not The American Office (one must make that distinction or risk losing one’s life and dignity) but The English Office. Or as Ricky said on the show, ‘In England, we just call it The Office’.

However, Julius’s excitement at seeing the great man in the flesh was slightly tempered by the fact that he’d already heard most of Ricky’s material on his podcast.

I think that makes him more British than me.