SURREY WITH A SIREN ON TOP

Monday morning.

I have just been woken up by a donkey. I’m in bed in a rather plush motor home in the grounds of a lovely house in Bagshot, Surrey.  I’m not in bed with a donkey i hasten to ad. It is outside the door with a load of chickens, a horse , sheep and a dog that has now decided to join in the din! I had a pretty wild gig last night in Esher in a massive marquee with The Acoustic Angels. Instead of driving home I took up the offer of staying so I would be as fresh as a daisy this morning….......ER….WRONG!

Jeeeeeeez! Sorry to interrupt but now a WW2 air raid siren is going off! It’s deafening! I think it must be something to do with HRH Prince Edward, he lives next door.

Thank God, it’s stopped.

I was driving my friends back from the gig last night and I ended up going the wrong way on the M25. Not a good move at that time of the night and that added an hour onto the journey back. When I did get back a bottle of whiskey was opened (FATAL) and when I did eventually go to bed the birds were singing.

Just found out that the siren is the Monday morning test at Broadmoor (Home for axe murderers and the generally criminal insane) and if anyone ever hears this siren other than a Monday morning then they know to lock themselves in their houses because a serial killer has escaped!

I can hardly walk today. My left hip is killing me! I think I must have done it last night when I ejected some fella from our stage with my foot. Karma I suppose!

I was really flattered by the nice things that Paul O’Grady said about me and my album on his show on Sunday.  He gave me a 10 out of 5! Said the album was fab and that I had a great voice. Thank you Paul!

Wednesday

The virus I was just getting in my last blog is still lingering but I managed to get through 5 nights on the trot performing thanks to the help of antibiotics as powerful as elephant tranquilisers, kneeling over a big bowl of water and albus oil with a towel on my head every 5 hours and by purchasing just about every remedy, medical and homeopathic, that you can find on the shelves of Superdrug!

I now have the videos of 3 songs that we shot a couple of weeks ago to represent how I perform the stripped down versions of the songs. They turned out well, especially Deep and Blue. We’ll be sending a free link to everyone on the mailing list and here is one at the end of this blog for you. Please forward the link to your contacts and direct people to www.johnreilly.org

                                                           Still from 'Before You' video

I have a rehearsal tonight because I have a rare Boy on a Dolphin gig on Friday. I enjoy the Dolphin gigs a lot more now, firstly because of the gaps between gigs it really feels like an event and secondly there is not the tension that was there when we where fighting as if our careers depended on every gig.

ENJOY THE VID……and please pass it on

Click on the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuWRteipe2I

Cheers all. Off to Liverpool in the morning to see my nephew Brendan in Romeo and Juliet. Speak to you soon.

PS. Zeb says Hi

AL FRESCO DUVET MAN

It's 7am.........Yes 7am! I've been on the decking in my garden reclining on a sun lounger gargling with soluble aspirin for the last 20 minutes. Gargling and spitting it out into an ungrateful pot plant. My throat is unbelievably sore. Every time i swallow it's like swallowing razor blades. I managed to get through Saturdays gig but it was a huge struggle and at the end i was doing a passable impression of Lee Marvin. Yesterday i thought i had seen the worst of it, in fact it was at that almost pleasant stage where you feel a bit heady and spaced out. Hang on, i'm bloody freezing, i'm going to get a duvet from 'The Dog House'...............................I'm back. Now i look seriously pathetic but warmer at least. Today i woke up to a seriously painful throat and the only upside is that i have until Thursday to shake it off.

Yes, before you say it! I am feeling very sorry for myself but honestly i'm not exaggerating.
Last night i went to a celebration of Paul Beathams big birthday. Paul is the drummer with Sheffield band The Sharp Cuts and everyone, and i mean everyone, congregated at the newly opened DELANEYS Bar, owned by Steve Delaney, the guitarist from The Sharp Cuts. I fear the worst. All Sheffield musicians now have a focal point to hang out, which is good but a recipe for many a late night, abandoning the car in a rather dodgy area and getting a taxi back to the outer reaches of Killamarsh (which i now overlook from under my duvet in the garden) It was good to see so many people, musicians and long time acquaintances (that sounded a bit weird, i didn't mean that musicians aren't people) But i got my usual uneasy feeling when squashed in the main bar which was really crowded so i spent most of the night in the beer garden.
It's a very strange feeling here under my duvet looking down the hill at people rushing to catch a bus to work and getting on with their lives. Each life so different and complicated. We get so wrapped up in our own world that it's easy to live in a bubble and forget everyone else. Sometimes when i'm flying (in a plane of course) i look out of the window down at remote towns and villages and think Wow, people are living , working, worrying, loving, feeling pain and joy and then i feel sad that i will never meet them. I really would like to say hello to everyone if i could.
Right now though, what i would really like to do is to sleep. I look up at the green canopy of the huge trees towering over my garden and the blue sky above them and hear the cooing of the ring necked doves within them and with each painful swallow i realise that i'm just a dot to the people in the plane which flies 30,000 feet above my house but still i wonder if one of the passengers is looking down and wants to say hello. I give them a futile but genuine wave.
Wow there is a beautiful crescent moon in the morning sky. Thank you.

NO ONE HEARS IT BREAK

This is Zeb. Not sure if I should be here but JR said I should. He held my umbrella for me and didn’t look at my face. That’s how I know I can trust him. I’m the one whose wings were clipped and the one who climbed the ladder to the lying trapeze.

I’m the one who falls too hard, too fast. I’m the man on the bench. I was overlooking JR on Summer Hill when he was with the Mystery Girl. I watched him reach up to the scarlet moon. I picked up the broken pieces from his battleground and left them at the broken fence for him.

There is a lagoon somewhere, I know, where the mosquitoes breed and the water lilies grow. That’s where I want to go and where I belong but until then I will be the elevator operator listening to Mr Como and slipping pieces of paper to JR. Here under my umbrella I watch the rain come down, washing the tears away down a winding river into the bay. The 2 people in the rowing boat tell me that maybe I’m not alone although I feel I am. The birds above are migrating to the lagoon and I envy them. I sit on this bench most days. The same kind of bench JR sat on with the lady in the Tea Cozy hat. He knows how it feels and still sits on benches too, sometimes overlooking what remains of the steelworks or he travels back in time and watches The Mersey drift by Eldon Street to the sound of ghost ships in the distance on the concrete oceans.

I am ZEBULON. I know you but I fear you will never know me. JR says it’s ok to visit you but I will always be under my umbrella. He says “Zeb, don’t say always!”

So………Maybe Someday.

LATE NIGHT FINAL

Hi
Coming down with the lurgy, sore throat and it's getting late. The second half of the second leg of Barcelona v Real Madrid has just kicked off. I can't believe the gulf in class between both these teams and the best we have in England. Even Chelsea and Man City with their bottomless pockets can't even get near. Beautiful fast passing, brilliant 1st touches and a real desire to win........and it's not pissing down with rain. Barca are the best team i have ever seen other than the Brazil international team way back when (further than i care to mention).

It's been a strange week or so since the embarrassing riots and i can't believe that because of a few quiet nights on the streets the memory is fading already for the naive happy clappers who are already complaining about harsh sentences. Try moving next door to the poor 'disaffected' thick nutters for a few weeks and try to reason with them. Maybe Prince Charles who was putting his expert opinion on the situation forward today on TV should invite some of them to stay with him and Camilla for a couple of weeks. Yes, give that hoody a good old royal hugging and then take them to meet your Mum. Jeez i better shut up. I sound like a right grumpy twat. (....well let's face it....)
Started shooting a promo video on Thursday to represent the sort of live performance i do with just me and Lewis. Although i've not seen  any footage yet i think it went pretty well except for getting rained off at the end (Well it is August!) We shot it at Andy Cain's lovely place and he, Penny and his family were so hospitable.

Saturday was THE BAKEWELL ACOUSTIC FESTIVAL. .........ER why did it have a dance floor? A crash barrier and the audience a million miles away?

Not much of a blog hey but at least i checked in. Oh and by the way
I've booked Sheffield City Hall for 15th December. I'll be doing songs from Zebulon and Tea Cozy Hat with a full band plus all your favourite Boy on a Dolphin songs with the Dolphin lads. Julian Jones will be guesting with his band for 3 songs and Cary Baylis and Lindsay Draycass are the support.
I'm knackered. Going to read chapter of The Moon's a balloon, David Niven's autobiography. Such a beautiful glimpse into a time when stars had class and wit! Oh yes er Barcelona won 3-2. Stunning football.
Bless you. Goodnight.

THIS GREEN AND PLEASANT LAND

I can't sleep. Angry for many reasons. Visions of burning buildings on my TV screen. Peoples homes and livelihoods being destroyed openly and brazenly under the gaze of an embarrassingly impotent Police Force. Annoying, so called, community leaders bleating on the screen about disaffected youth and having the gall to quote
'A hungry man is an angry man'
I haven't seen anyone breaking into a bakery to get food. Just a sickening frenzy to loot for TV's, Jewellery and clothes and the gut wrenching site of peoples homes being burned to the ground.

Where else in the world would you see such a passive response. This is not about the right to voice an opinion or to demonstrate. It is in fact terrorism. They are inflicting terror upon our people and our cities in the HD view of the rest of the world.
So who do we look to for leadership in this hour of need. Theresa May! What a joke. She looked like a rabbit in the headlights on TV this morning with her talk of robust policing, whatever that means, and the naive plea for anyone who knows of anyone who was taking part to report them to the police who will follow it up. As if. Picture the scene. Knock Knock. 'Who's there?' 'It's the police, we have been told that you were involved with the disturbances last night!' 'No i wasn't, i was at home watching the telly wasn't i Mum' 'Yes he was, and stop harassing us! 'Er ok...'
You can almost hear Camerons earnest speech as he arrives from his curtailed Italian break. All hot air, littered with the words, 'Not acceptable" "The full weight of the law" "our way of life" "a small minority" "rest assured"
Rest assured that the Police force that he is cutting back drastically so that they are under trained and under powered will receive serious casualties. As far as i am concerned, if you are going to risk burning down peoples houses and businesses and openly stealing and attacking innocent people then you should also take the risk of having the crap beaten out of you or worse!
Just in case there is any chance of misreading my comments. let me tell you i'm all for taking to the streets to fight oppression, cruelty and tyranny but get real!!!! This is England, where no one needs to go hungry, where everyone is entitled to health care. We may be in a fucking mess but it's still England. What's left of it anyway. Abused and bruised as it is.

And where did the England i know go? The one one that still lives in my mind, now clouded and distant but very much alive in this poem that i remember from childhood.

Adlestrop

Yes, I remember Adlesrop –

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow herb, and grass

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky

And for a minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucester.

Edward Thomas

See you soon and as my lovely cousin Gillian would say, Peace, love and light to you all.

JR