Wednesday 14 March 2012

A terrifying and beautiful story

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZq_jeYsbTs

The only reason for honing onto this track as opposed to any other in a back catalogue whose range defies belief is a personal one. It signifies how the best of times and the worst of times really do sidle up to one another.  I first met your dear proprietor when filming a mini-series called To the Ends of The Earth for dear old Auntie (BBC) in South Africa which and I’d had the most amazing time on the job and a weekend learning to scuba dive with two other cast members — the best of times. Then the front right tyre blew on our car, we pulled in and were surrounded by men who came out of the bush and we were carjacked — the worst of times.  A long (2.5 hours of ordeal) story but the intrinsic part for the song choice is that it was playing just before the tyre blew when I had lit a spiff and was contemplating how ridiculously blissfully happy I was. The next time I heard it was bundled against the windscreen of the car on the front passengers’ knees with my back and head hitting the windscreen as we were driven off road. My bum hit the car stereo and for a few surreal minutes Tom Yorke was sound tracking me to my death. I turned round as we bounced over the sand track, the headlights showing the passing sugar cane and kept thinking of the shallow graves they dug for themselves in the movie Casino as the master of introspection and modern ennui Mr T Yorke sang ‘I’m not here… This isn’t happening’ … We all lived.


-Benedict Cumberbatch

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