Photograph Source: Nickspix – CC BY-SA 4.0

So Thom Yorke has just insisted Radiohead will “absolutely not” perform in Israel under Netanyahu. This marks a clear departure from their previous stance. As it happens, I’ve been getting into the melodic angst of their second album, The Bends, again. Even on Remembrance Sunday, as I entered a coffee shop in Canary Wharf, it was in my head:

Where do we go from here?
The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear
And where are you?

Behind the counter were two young Muslim women and one young Muslim man. Everything was oddly still and silent. I greeted them and ordered two coffees. At which point, the first woman placed a finger to her lips.

I thought she meant I was speaking too loudly, so I repeated the order more quietly. Without saying a word, she pointed to the handwritten large note. Placed by the till, it was asking customers to observe the two-minute silence “in remembrance of those who died in conflict.” It must have been seconds after 11 am.

I felt a strange, small sense of shame. It was a careless oversight. “We thought it the right thing to do,” volunteered the first woman, as I later returned the cups. Interestingly, the decision was theirs, not their employers. “I’m totally with you,” I said.

Meanwhile, just around the corner, I’d also forgotten that protestors had gathered outside an asylum hotel, and it was this awkward........

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