THERE can't be very many old age pensioners who make the decision to uproot themselves and start an entirely new life in what is commonly understood to be their twilight years. But then, few people could claim to have endured (and survived) such persistent persecution in their own country as Quentin Crisp. Mr Crisp's story is well known to anyone who read his autobiography, The Naked Civil Servant, subsequently adapted for television with John Hurt playing the part of the author. The appearance of book and film conferred fame on Quentin Crisp, who until then had only known infamy; as his latest offering makes plain, he clearly prefers the former to the latter.

That preference, indeed, seems to be the principal reason for his removal at the age of 74 from England to the United States. Since 1982, Mr Crisp has been living in a single room on Manhattan's lower east side, not the most salubrious area of the city but one in which he appears to feel comfortable. As Resident Alien demonstrates, there are reasons for this sense of ease, not least the fact that he is rarely at home. He reports an Englishman's remark in London, when his name came up in conversation; "We're a bit tired of him over here, but in America . . ." This dismissal explains why Quentin Crisp would choose a new world, because as successive diary entries indicate, Americans never tire of him and he can, therefore, continue to enjoy his belated fame.

Presumably there are days when his telephone does not ring and no invitations to social occasions are forthcoming, but Resident Alien wisely does not speak of such moments. Instead, the octogenarian author focuses on the benefits of his fame, not least the opportunity to eat enormous numbers of canapes at someone else's expense. Feasting on cocktail snacks is practically an occupation for Mr Crisp, as is answering the same series of questions from interviewers across the United States. As he explains, "nearly all interviews consist largely of an attempt to present my early life as a perfumed fist being shaken in the face of British narrow mindedness". In response, he attempts to explain "that in fact I was a helpless victim of my nature pleading with the world to forgive my difference from it".

This anxiety to be accepted has left Mr Crisp with an inability to refuse almost any request, no matter how bizarre. He is, according to this diary, regularly interviewed and filmed in surroundings free of an association with his daily existence. And because his telephone number can be found in the New York directory, he receives calls at odd hours of the night from unknown strangers whom he insists on greeting warmly. His only complaint on incipient deafness is that it "deprives me of the pleasure of long telephone conversations - especially with strangers".

Those who do manage to talk to the writer frequently invite him to dinner; when not scooping up finger food at a reception, he regularly crosses the city to share a meal with someone he has never met before. Mr Crisp is a man who wants to please and is somewhat baffled when he fails to achieve this aim. Intermittently he attempts to understand why his intentions have not been realised.

So, when he is accused of speaking in opaque aphorisms, he suggests that his responses appear to possess this characteristic because "they have been made so often that they have become crystallised - if not fossilised."

As a result of his yearning to win favour, the Crisp style of prose has a certain whimsical charm which every now and then becomes a little too ingratiating. And his habit of referring to everyone by their formal title ("Mr Shakespeare" is a particularly unfortunate instance of this) soon looks like a tiresome and dated affectation.

But the writer's enthusiasm for fresh adventure and his sense of amusement at the world in which he finds himself help to make this diary a real delight. Towards its close, he writes that a woman approached him in a restaurant with the remark that he reminded her of Quentin Crisp. "I simpered, lowered my eyelids and sighed, We all try to dress like him. He was such a wonderful role model.'"