GCHQ Tee Shirt

One more pretty beer garden, one more eavesdropped conversation. This time, two young hipsters with ridiculously overgrown whiskers. They were in deep, earnest conclave.

 ‘Why didn’t you just tell me you were gay when I asked you?’

‘Dunno.’

‘So you go and lock yourself in the toilet for hours? I was really worried.’

‘I know, I know.’

‘Look, we’ve always been mates ain’t we?’

‘Sure.’

‘So what did you think I was gonna do? Tell you to fuck off?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Well, thanks a lot. What kind of arsehole do you take me for?’

‘Sorry, Zach.’

Judging by this and other posts about earwigging, you could be forgiven for thinking we spend all our supping days eavesdropping on the conversations of others. Honestly, we do talk to each other from time to time. Besides, I do like to take a little interest in my fellow man (and woman, of course). If it’s good enough for Her Maj’s secret services…

Now for some pretty pictures of the pretty beer garden at the pretty pub: The Plough, St Benedict’s Street.

Imagine the absurdity of two openly gay, married, middle aged, middle class men escaping the liberal sanctuary of anonymous London to relocate to a Muslim country. I chronicled our exploits with the mad, the bad, the sad and the glad in a blog for the whole world to ignore. Then came the book which became a critically acclaimed best seller. Its success opened out a whole new career for me, firstly as an author, and now as an indie publisher. Who'd have thought it? Certainly not me. In June 2012, we ended our Anatolian affair and paddled back to Britain on the evening tide, washing up in Norwich, a surprising city in eastern England, then to the wilds of Norfolk as the only gays in the village. I’m sometimes nostalgic for our encounters with the hopeless, the hapless and, yes, the happy go lucky. They gave me an unexpected tale to tell and for this I thank them.

15 thoughts on “The Eavesdroppers”

  2. Sigh. This is some kind of l.o.v.e.l.y. 🙂
    Eavesdropping is fun. It’s amazing what people will talk about without a care who might be listening. They’re even worse on their cells. 😀 😀

    Like

    Reply

  3. I did some unbidden eavesdropping (what an odd word) a few nights ago in an albergue where the couple of pilgrims in the double room adjoining mine (who had obviously met on the camino) didn’t think about the fact that the partititions between the cubicles didn’t go up to the ceiling and we could hear every word they said. Quite intimate but not very interesting. Although I was intrigued to see what they looked like the next day – nothing like I expected!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. Ear wigging – our favourite pastime. 🙂 Your little experience seemed to have a great outcome. We’ve spent a good chunk of today listening to ‘knowledgeable’ tourists in Istanbul sharing their ‘knowledge’ with other tourists who really didn’t look over interested. 😀 All good fun.
    Julia

    Like

    Reply

Share your thoughts

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.