A Radiohead in Toy Town
“Cheap sex and sad films. Help me get where I belong”
“Red wine and sleeping pills
Help me get back to your arms
Cheap sex and sad films
Help me get where I belong
I think you’re crazy, maybe
I think you’re crazy, maybe”
excerpt from “Motion Picture Soundtrack” by Radiohead
It was just after Noon when I took up a leisurely residence on “Stephen’s Bench” on Wednesday and ahead of the hottest day of the year so far. The weather map for the UK essentially shows our island on fire as colour coded alerts are relayed via Orwell’s telescreens to the masses. We’re gripped here in the UK by an “Amber Alert” apparently, but this is as equally truthful as saying that a large proportion of my fellow country men and women would believe it if the “News” reported that large chunks of the island are burning, sending huge swathes of rock face tumbling into the sea, changing the entire shape of the island, feet by burning feet. Wouldn’t it be a refreshing change if the talking head on the “News” announced the following with a smile:
“Listen! It’s going to be warm! But seriously, really warm. So stock up on plenty of fluids, treat the sunshine as your friend or stay in the shade from your well meaning enemy. Look! Enjoy yourself! It’s going to be sticky and very warm until Sunday (or until the crazies release another weather alert) so enjoy yourself! Treat it as a mini holiday. Phone in sick for work. Tell them you’ve seen the weather map and as the country is on fire you’re going to throw yourself into the nearest river, just to be safe. Suggest your boss does the same. No seriously, drink plenty of fluids, find some shade, and watch the world go by. Take the grandkids to the park. Buy a loved one an ice-cream. Sit by a river and read a book. Go to the beach! Yes! It’ll be chaos akin to a Bank Holiday, but who doesn’t like a little chaos in their life every now and again? The sun will be blazing. It’s the middle of the week. Why don’t you take that Stephen King book you’ve been meaning to finish with you down to the river and sit in the sunshine with the oldest iron bridge in the world? You might meet an Aussie foursome from down under, or an even larger family from Yorkshire and their two young boys so eager to feed a lone and lucky pigeon. Schoolchildren excitably descending on the iron bridge (and your bench) in their droves? Consider it done! A lone Spanish lady who will share your bench, as silently as a ghost, before departing with a compliment for the Pulp Fiction tattoo on your lower leg? You’ll believe it to be a dream! A lone black and white dog chasing a gaggle of ducks up and down the river, time and (very pleasingly) time again?
All of this can be yours. So ignore the weather maps, drink plenty of fluids, and lap up some gorgeous sunshine in a toy town. Don’t wear your Radiohead t-shirt. It only causes attention. Anyway, just enjoy yourself! Anything might happen and if it doesn’t, then suggest a game of naked Scrabble to your loved one before making love in the garden under moonlight. Tell them the world is ending. Show them the weather maps. Say we’re in an “Amber Alert” and things are perilous.
Then set up the Scrabble board for another game”
Weather alerts eh? Brought to you (guilt by fascist association) by the same people who want to suck carbon from the English Channel and are actively planning to block out the sun. What’s that Shakespeare quote about hell being empty because all the devils are here?
Although the naked game of Scrabble was as absent from my life as making love beneath a full moon on Wednesday, everything else my own personal TV weather person predicted came true. Schoolchildren (from my son’s old school) shrieked and hollered their delight at the foot of the bridge before screaming in unison on their departure for another spot on the river. My ghost from Spain simply said “Pulp Fiction — Nice Tattoo” and was ascending the stairs away from the bridge before I could put my Stephen King book down and show her the even better, Spanish centric tattoo on my other leg. A single pigeon enjoyed the attention (and pieces of sausage roll) from two bouncing and bubbling young boys. The Aussies came and went before I could persuade myself to start talking cricket with them, and as I passed St Luke’s Church with her clock face still stuck permanently in a smile at 10 minutes to 1 and before feeding some hungry ducks and saying hello to some ginormous teddy bears in a local museum, my Radiohead t-shirt grabbed the attention of a desperate young man, and I couldn’t help him.
He stopped me in my tracks with three simple words: “Motion Picture Soundtrack” and rather than reeling off a greatest hits collection from the Oxford band he chose a lengthy list of album songs only real fans would truly appreciate before concluding, appropriately enough, with the Kid A album closer “Motion Picture Soundtrack”. He was in his late 20’s, the age when I first clapped my eyes on the oldest iron bridge in the world and instantly fell in love in the summer of 1999. He reminded me of me, this desperate man in the sunshine of 2025, with the man who first stumbled upon this tiny piece of heaven on earth and had life by the tail. Now I had only empty pockets to offer him and a couple of lines from a highly depressing song about the futility of life, death, longing for human companionship and sheer human desperation.
The Kid (A) I couldn’t help had surely picked an appropriate song for the occasion.
Good luck kid.
“Stop sending letters
Letters always get burned
It’s not like the movies
They fed us on little white lies
I think you’re crazy, maybe
I think you’re crazy, maybe
I will see you, in the next life”
excerpt from “Motion Picture Soundtrack” by Radiohead
Thanks for reading, much appreciated.
My book from last summer in Ironbridge:
"My Ironbridge Summer" - link to Amazon