11:30 am, Outside about 20 people in the queue..

Inside about 10 roadies constructing a stage at the back of the shop, creating a central raised platform. Lights being hoisted up. Webcast also being set up.

Shop assistant Margot says "we have in-store gigs here all the time but this one is super-exciting. I'm going to stay here behind the till cos i've got the best seat in the house"

First in the queue are actually two Rough Trade staff going incognito! Muttering something about "keep it quiet".

So the first genuine fan in the queue is Jasmine Pearson, 19, from Shepherds Bush, who goes to an A-Level College in Kings Cross, studies history, has brought a pack of playing cards, cigs, newspapers crosswords, and loyalty cards for cups of tea in Rough Trade café, all to fill her 10 hour wait.

She's never seen Radiohead before, "I once missed getting the last ticket for their concert by a hair's breath, I was gutted, there were all these touts trying to flog me one for a hundred quid and I stood there with only a tenner in the world. The second I got the email from Radiohead 's website this morning I thought dammit, i'm not making that mistake again. And this gig is free!"

At the front of the queue are a bunch of students bunking off Uni for the day.

Paul Hallows, 19, from Oxford University, happened to be in London for something last night, "then i heard about the gig this morning and I decided that lectures were probably less important ." A third student has brought his laptop and is writing an essay on "Peasants in Medieval England". And looking at these students sitting outside on the cold paving stones, waiting for blessings from their musical lords, a parallel with peasants in the Middle Ages could indeed be drawn.

By 1pm the queue has doubled to 40 in an hour.

It is 6:30 pm and students Jasmine and Paul have been at the head of the queue since 9am. Yet they claim to have passed the time quite happily, "playing at holding-our-breath, and increasingly violent games of Snap." With only half an hour to go before being allowed inside (to wait for yet longer) they say they are very excited, though disappointed by rumours that Radiohead will only play songs from their new album, In Rainbows. There is also disappointment for the hundreds of fans blocking the road outside who did not arrive early enough to get into the right queue and obtain a wristband - big screens and speakers that Rough Trade had fixed outside the shopfront, to broadcast the performance to fans outside, were taken down at about 6pm, possibly due to crowd control worries from police.

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