There’s a particularly fine flea market that rocks up not far from me each month. By fine I mean eclectic – packed with eccentric folks selling unexpected wares from storefront dummies to diving bells, to extraordinary arrays of colourful hats. It always fills me with the urge to try to capture the scene, give so much ephemera a sense of permanency.

So we decide to wordbomb it – and had a ball.

How to wordbomb

It’s a perfect simple premise. Just take a few scraps of blank paper and some pens along with you. Browse at your leisure, and when you feel moved to, scribble down a few thoughts inspired by what you see. I’d advise stepping away to do this – the idea is to act as fast as possible so that there’s less chance of you being spotted in the act – hence the ‘bombing’ or ‘storming’ part.

Now the tricky part – surreptitiously place your scrawled words with the items that inspired them. If you have the chance, snap a quick photo of it in place, but this is less important than managing to leave your words.

Of course, you ought to ask permission, but then it wouldn’t be wordbombing, it would be, um, word leaving. As in yarnbombing, the illicit element is an intrinsic part of it.

And the aim is to scatter your words so that they can surprise, bemuse and possibly even inspire others.

Note: You will receive varying response to your words and actions – but the man selling the crocodile suitcase smiled as he read my spur-of-the-moment poem, which made it all worthwhile.