Dear Oxford Dictionary, Kafka wants to argue back: ‘There is no need for you to leave the house. Stay at your table and listen. Don’t even listen, just wait. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you.’

I read this article in the paper: ‘The British police apologised today after one of their officers shot a blind man with a taser, having mistaken the cane he was carrying for a samurai sword.’

Last night I saw an infomercial I thought was funny, and I told Jonás about it. I realise the word ‘infomercial’ doesn’t appear in the dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, but it does appear in the Oxford Dictionary. I don’t share the Spanish linguistic authorities’ contempt for the word ‘infomercial’. The Spanish economy has the same problem as its dictionary: it’s as inflexible as a broom handle. Latin America is the future for Spain, just as it was in the past. Among other things, because we have the word ‘infomercial’.

Do they wear ecclesiastical robes when choosing which words to include in the dictionary?

I’ve finished work. I’m on a bus back to the apartment. A woman on the radio says that a bishop has carried out more than seventy thousand exorcisms in his long career, and that there’s a branch of the Vatican which looks after paranormal matters. A bishop in Mexico receives between fifteen and twenty calls a day requesting exorcisms, the woman continues. A big controversy in the Vatican: is it possible for the Pope to carry out an exorcism? The lines are open. Now a trovador is singing on the radio. What a terrible song. God bless the nurse who sang Shakira.

I read the top corner of a cargo lorry: ‘Don’t like how I’m handling this vehicle? Complaints to 5286 8738’. A truck drives past: ‘This vehicle is protected by satellite’. On a green post, a sign: ‘Wicker furniture repairs’. Travelling home, I read some of the signs and write them down here. Don’t like how I’m handling this notebook?

Now I’m writing as I walk. Incredible, isn’t it? The ideal notebook could have its own infomercial.