Where are you from and what are you on?
I’m from Oxford and still on British Summer Time.

Were you surprised to win Best Act In The World Today?
Absolutely astounded, considering...

Considering what?
Considering we thought you were going to make us apologise for not recording another OK Computer. We thought we’d been summoned to promise we’d do it next time.

Do you think you’ve made enough experimental music for the time being?
So, you DO want us to make another OK Computer. Ha! Actually, we might make the next album even more experimental: just record us playing trombones or something. Soon people will start talking about the good old days of Kid A.

Were Kid A and Amnesiac the hardest albums you’ve made?
No, I’d say they’ve all been quite difficult.

Do you secretly hope that next time you make an album it will be a piece of piss?
Yeah, so Thom would come in and go, “Here are the songs. One, two, three, four... 12.”

Exactly. Like normal people.
I think we’d get very bored very quickly.

Where is Thom?
He’s at home, 300 miles away, chilling out.

So who IS the best act in the world today?
Lali Puma. They’re from Munich. Sublime songwriting. Buy their new album today!

How does this compare to the Grammy Awards?
Smaller room. Drier acoustics. No playboy bunnies. The other thing I remember about the Grammys is that we were sitting right behind Steely Dan. And the Grammys goes on for about five hours. So, after a while, the temptation to start kneeing Donald Fagen in the back became almost too much to bear. Not that I have anything against Steely Dan. They just happened to be sitting in front of us.

You played a gig in Germany on the day of the World Trade Centre attack. What was that like?
Emotionally, that was a very extraordinary concert. We were horribly aware of the resonance of some of the songs on that day. The interesting thing was that everybody who’d already bought a ticket came, but there were only about four walk-ups. Basically, nobody spontaneously decided that this was going to be the night to party with Radiohead.

Do you think the Kid A and Amnesiac songs have taken on a new lease of life since you’ve been playing them live?
Yes. It’s like they been evacuated and billeted out to new families. They’re sort of growing up in the countryside.

Have you seen R.E.M. recently?
We played in Atlanta about three months ago and Michael Stipe came to see the show. He’d given Thom all these clothes before the concert and we all walked onstage wearing his T-shirts and stuff. It freaked him out, I think. He had the last 10 years of his wardrobe passing before his eyes.

What are you reading at the moment?
A Strange Enemy People, by Patricia Meehan, about Germany after the Second World War.

What was the best thing about 2001?
The bit where the monkeys came out and look at the obelisk.

What’s next?
Getting together and writing and rehearsing for the next album. It sounds boring, but it’s good to be that dull compared with when we finished OK Computer and we just didn’t want to do it anymore.