March 24th -April 3rd
I go back to my parents and promptly get ill. A fortnight of late nights, hangovers and standing around in the chilly night air have given me a bad cold. I sleep a lot, watch videos and write up as much as I can remember about the tour. My brother, who has recently bought a drum kit, identifies the circular bit of discarded gear that I’ve brought back from Norwich as a snare skin. I leave it with him in case he can use it.
The music papers have, as expected, all chosen to review the London Forum show. They all seem to have developed an established Radiohead phrase book. Even the Guardian’s reviewer toes the line.
I send a Thank You card to Tim via the management office. There is a TV ad for The Bends with a clip of the High And Dry promo and I keep a tape in the machine in order to catch and record it – but it’s so short it barely registers. It looks very odd among all the other ads for cars and lifestyle that play during the late night Channel 4 Yoof programmes.
Radiohead are going to support R.E.M. at Milton Keynes Bowl on July 30th. Maybe all that talk in the reviews about ‘stadium rock’ isn’t so far off the mark.
I’m still writing up my diary on the train back to Glasgow. I arrive back to lots of post from my pen pals. Kate in Croyden has sent me a tape of the Forum show; it was broadcast on XFM (the London-only indie station). It sounds like Thom was having a weird show. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Against the odds he seems to be enjoying himself.
Jonny is on the Mark Radcliffe show reading extracts from his favourite poetry – e.e.cummings, Thomas Hardy and Friday Night At The Royal Station Hotel by Philip Larkin. I also find Volume 13 – a CD/ book of rarities that has the demo version of Nice Dream on it. The lyrics are different from the ones on the album, more like the Craig Cash session version that I’d heard at Val’s. I write a letter to Thom that I won’t ever send.
April 11th -15th
Val sends me a parcel of ‘zines but asks me not to phone her because she’s “cross with me.” I’m not really sure what I’ve supposed to have done. I don’t think she liked the fact that I carried on the tour without her. This sinks my mood. I’m running out of money so I go to Edinburgh to get a lift down south with my Uncle. I get back to my parents and find a big square parcel that contains a signed copy of The Bends on vinyl and a 12-inch remix of Planet Telex. Rather confusingly it doesn’t say who it’s from. The next day, another parcel makes things a little clearer. A promo copy of the Astoria video, a CD of the My Iron Lung EP and a Melody Maker compliments slip. I’ve won a competition! I can’t help thinking there’s something fishy going on here…
I get back to my University work with a sense of impending doom. Literature rots the brain.