Age: 42.
Appearance: Albert Steptoe in a Shoreditch nightclub.
The Radiohead guy? That's him. "Thom" – pronounced Tom – has been trending on Twitter since the band released its new album, The King of Limbs, for download via its website on Friday morning, and in particular since the video to the first single, Lotus Flower, went online.
It's a good video, then? Only if your idea of a good video is five uninterrupted minutes of Thom Yorke dancing, alone, in a bowler hat, in what looks like someone's garage.
It's not. I can do that at home. And do. What are people saying about it? They're mostly asking: "Why is he dancing like that?"
Like what? Like a combination of mime artist Marcel Marceau, Napoleon Dynamite and a toddler with a bee next to its ear. The overall impression is of a very, very drunk friend refusing to leave a nightclub.
And why is he dancing like that? Knowing him –
Which you don't – Which I don't, no, but knowing what I know about him –
Which is almost nothing – Hush now. Knowing what I've just googled about him, the dance is probably some sort of satirical comment on the staid, over-choreographed but ultimately hollow spectacle of the modern pop video. On a different level, it's because choreographer Wayne McGregor told him to, and since McGregor is resident choreographer of the Royal Ballet, Yorke probably felt inclined to do as he was told.
Dodgy dancing aside, is the album any good? That depends on your pretentiousness threshold. The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick calls it "an exhausted cigarette break in the eye of the hurricane", while the Guardian's Tim Jonze says it "teeters on the brink of self-parody".
Do say: "I'm just off for a fag, guys. If anyone needs me, I'll be out in the middle of that hurricane."
Don't say: "More like The King Who Can't Control His Limbs."
