I talk to... MARTA

age: 23
nationality: Catalonia
type of visitor: occasional
eating: carrot cake
drinking: cappuccino

Marta's appearance is bold and striking: blue fluffy cardigan, orange-and-yellow striped shirt, large and colourful jewellery. She chats readily about her training in print-making, and how she's in Scotland to improve her English. She hopes to go back to Catalonia to do post-graduate studies.

The red book she scribbles is her diary. She's been writing diaries since she was nine years old and unlike that impressive journal writer DEREK she goes back to them from time to time 'to discover how I've changed'.

I kept a diary as a twenty-year-old student. The contents were so idiotic that after a month I decided to burn it. For reasons which were perhaps not unconnected to being an idiotic twenty-year-old student, I burnt it indoors, in a metal wastepaper bin...

50 or so pages of A4 paper produce surprisingly high flames and much smoke. I picked the bin up to take it outside. I dropped the bin and yelped -- the bin was hot. Now there were burning papers all over the bedroom floor. I grabbed my dressing gown to beat down the flames and -- my dressing gown transformed into a fireball and quickly ceased to exist. It had been made of some highly flammable artificial fibre. Buckets of water were required, and lots of shouting...

After we finish talking, Marta goes back to her diary. I get the impression I am in it now.