I am a horribly nosy sort of person. I'm not bothered by mobile phone conversations in public (I love being able to eavesdrop), I will listen in happily to other people's chats on the train, and Michael Holden's All Ears is one of my favourite parts of Saturday's Guardian. So a new project in which we're actually given licence to listen to other people's conversations is right up my street.
On 1 July, writers across the UK are being asked to eavesdrop and to (discreetly) collect snippets of conversations. Once they've done their collecting, the Bugged initiative wants them to write a new piece of work based on what they've heard – poems of up to 60 lines, stories up to 1,000 words, flash fiction up to 150 words, scripts up to five minutes long – with the best to be posted on the Bugged blog, and the very best to be published in October in a printed anthology alongside the likes of Daljit Nagra and Jenn Ashworth. "I'm really excited about this, and have spent some of my time languishing in waiting rooms, hospital wards, clinics and pharmacies scribbling down my overhearings for this project," blogs Ashworth. "Can't wait to read yours."
Core Bugged writers include Stuart Maconie, Mil Millington, Mary Cutler and Ian Marchant, but we're all invited to take part – the Bugged organisers hope the project will "bring writers out of their sweaty garrets and into the streets and coffee houses" and "raise issues of privacy and creativity". The judges are National Poetry Day director and Glastonbury festival website poet-in-residence, Jo Bell, and novelist and playwright David Calcutt – their favourite recent overhearing is "I think it was the turtles that did it for her eventually," but they're also pleased with "Nobody's inflammable, Mr Michael!" and "Yes, we're rabbit-sitting. They're paying us in cushions and umbrellas."
My own top eavesdrop in recent weeks was outside a pub I was passing in Bethnal Green. "Why don't you put the bloody porn on then?" a man bellowed down his phone. I'm not sure I'm the one to take that further, but I'd have loved to stick around and hear what happened next (he was a bit scary, I didn't quite dare). Example riffings off eavesdroppings are provided here by Bugged, if you need help getting started, but do join in on 1 July – I'm more of a listener than a creator, I think, but I'll be happy to provide eavesdropping services for anyone requiring them.
