Short stories from Birmingham readers in 172 countries so far
HEAR ME READ ALOUD
207 stories written & read by me
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1VFNwQSaGBYgNgZdintU4ZKeAd73ijM4O?usp=sharing
I've updated this 15th Sept 2024 I'm Michael Casey from Birmingham England, the fat silver haired writer in shades. Beware of Others with the EXACT SAME NAME, they are not me, and would not want to be me ... use Google UK to find me, otherwise Posh Americans pop up I've done loads of writing, about 3,000,000 Words worth over 36years now But before I started to write, I LISTENED to BBC Radio 4 for 20 years, from the age of 10 or younger Frank Brown our lodger, went back to County Tyrone and he gifted us his Bush Radio. He'd be nearly 102 now if he is still alive, so say a prayer for him 56 years in love with words, and I still look so dashing. I have a picture in the attic, just like Dorian Gray I've also had an interest in Politics for 56 years with my dad heckling the tv and Politicians. I almost immediately had a hit, a play called Shoplife was accepted but not finally produced by a Theatre. The Kenneth More Theatre, so thank them for sparing you all. This was back in 1989 yes, 35 years ago, the play was written in 1988. So since then I'm more than good enough, as a writer. Anything else..... I also ignore those who just cannot write, pick your own candidate I tend to write Comedy as I'd rather make you laugh than cry I have written over 2000 short pieces of writing, yes 2000 " (c) by Michael Casey" If you include "chats" 5000 samples, all told, the chats do NOT go into my books when I compile them. My first book ,a full length comedy/drama is The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker You can read translations of it here on this site Up to 20 different languages/translations have been read on the same day via this site, here on Wordpress look fo Translations Galore page, and more And in over 167 Countries world wide too so you have no excuse, find your own language and read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker or Quick Stories or any other of the books in Translation on my Wordpress This proves to me that the humour does travel I have readers in over 167 countries now, just to repeat myself From Nepal to American Samoa and all places North South East and West Or its just a hit man on the run, or whatever Unknown Region Means It may also mean that only non English Speakers like my stuff Coverage but lacking penetration as marketing folks might say I did get 21,000 readers in 3 weeks for the Polish version of In Search of an Indian Princess. which is basically the final 3 chapters of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker all by word of mouth. And 50,000 plus in Christmas week 2021 If you add up all the downloads from my Wordpress + 13,000 when somebody stole the file. I have had more copies than Boris Johnson's Churchill book distributed. Maybe 40,000 copies . Not made a penny from it, free downloads in multiple languages. Reverse Logic, if the world knows me, eventually somebody will pay me But in reality I'll be dead first, and then just 2 pennies to pay the ferryman is enough I've cut the Plaudits, you can read/decide for yourself As for my life, I was born in the shadow of a Brewery, I was a computer operator for a market research company into alcohol sales, 21 years altogether, StatsMR Call centre guy, like everybody once in their life I was also a Trainee Betting Shop Manager I was a concierge and 10 other roles at Crowne Plaza NEC Birmingham for 3 years. Spent 3 years at Pinsent Masons Law firm in Birmingham I even hid a copy of my comic novel "BBU" in the Law Library at Pinsent Masons, well just for a day.. I did a few other jobs too, working life in reverse so to speak and I was an Esol English teacher in an Islamic school, for a year, I knew I could teach. I got Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary on the external assessment, yes really And I asked them to pray for me at least once a day beside which I've had a Shanghai connection for 20+ years now, including 2 bilingual daughters and being a hausfrau a long time too, I'm a great dad, as I've had lots of time with my daughters I can always make somebody talk or laugh I believe my short stories could be used to teach English, just package them up correctly or App them Or a Tale a Day from Michael, a story telling App What else, I was brawn and brains, I used to be as strong as an Ox, now I just smell like one We have a cat called Totoro, my daughters wanted a pet I said they could have a dog if I died , or a cat if I had a heart attack. A few weeks after that in Jan 2015 I had an Unplanned Quadruple Heart Bypass , it was supposed to be a triple but it ended up a Quadruple, 33% extra free so to speak. Now with an add on Hernia, the size of your fist, pushing through my bypass scar, it hurts when I laugh, so don't make me laugh I also have arthritis and other hindrances that hobble my body and give me pain galore. But my mind is free, though having read my stories you may wish I didn't bother But I'll ignore you, and carry on regardless. I do get heckled by my own Tinnitus these past 5 years+, so I have music on all night long to drown it out. I sleep with Miley, Taylor, Eric Clapton and Will Young, maybe I should buy a bigger bed, or just get a better mattress. Tinnitus is a curse, just trust me I know, each day I wake up, Tinnitus SCREAMS at me for a full hour till it calms down or not at all, a merry go around of noise That's the end of the tidy version of my life To finish here's the list of my 20 books, so far:- 1.The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker 2.Shoplife 3.Essays and Plays 4.Blogs 2011 5.300 and Not OUT 6.Shorts 2013 7.More Shorts 2014 8.Quick Stories 9.Still Alive 2015 10.Undiscovered Words 2016 11.Still Smiling 2017 12.Altogether Now 13.New Horizons 14.14 Up 15.15 Down 16.Sweet Sixteen 17. 17 Again 18. 18 New Views 19. The Final Cut of the 19th Hole 20. 2020 Words 21. Fresh Fields, i decided was a better title, when the USA election is over I'll launch it 96,000 words so far I write bullet point stuff mainly now as Tinnitus stops me from getting in the zone to write, story stories. (c) by Michael Casey stuff though my bullet points are better than some "writers" discuss, miaow. That's why I dream of a speed typist, so I could dictate from the sofa https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC to buy ebooks Loads of Korean and Arabic translations downloaded from my Wordpress, 1000s of them Quick Stories in Korean is a big hit. Maybe Kim in North Korea should read my books, instead of wasting his countries resources on what? Just keeping one person in power, him? Instead of joining the real world and opening a string on golf courses. That way we could get rid of Trump too. Into the sunset, as they play golf. Tears for a Butcher will be the sequel to BBU, and it too will be 600pages, however I really need a speed typist to put it down, while I sit and dictate like Barbara Cartland, and hopefully my speed typist would be impressed. we'd marry have half Korean kids, and form a Kpop band with our 4 new kids, with me as manager. my 2 daughters are at University now, so if you finally pay me, I can pass it on to them And yes this is more for my bucket list, as Tinnitus keeps me awake too much, 6 months of not sleeping till dawn is really killing me, it is the worse thing in my life ever, and I've had far to many horrible things. That's why I go the other direction and write comedy Michael Casey aka the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England https://2.gravatar.com/avatar/efda2dca0de5b9269191b7c8b0102473?s=400&d=mm View all posts by michaelgcasey
Ukraine‘s president has said Vladimir Putin ‘doesn’t have too much time left’ amid questions over the Kremlin leader’s whereabouts as he has not been seen in over a week.
Speaking to Politico during the Munich Security Conference on Friday, just days before the fourth anniversary of Moscow‘s invasion, Volodymyr Zelensky said: ‘I’m younger than Putin…He doesn’t have much time, you know.’
While his remarks prompted a laugh from the audience, the Ukrainian president added: ‘No, no, believe me, this is important.’
The 48-year-old also described his rival, 73, as a ‘slave to war’ earlier today as he drew parallels between the current conflict and the 1938 Munich Agreement.
The agreement forced Czechoslovakia to surrender its bordering region with Germany, the Sudetenland, to Adolf Hitler, a year before World War II began.
Zelensky’s recent comments come as Putin has mysteriously vanished from the public eye for over a week, with Russian state media broadcasting pre-recorded footage of the Kremlin leader meeting officials in recent days.
The Kremlin leader was last seen by the public delivering a speech on February 5, and it remains unclear what has caused his latest absence.
It is not the first time Putin has disappeared from public view, with the dictator having cultivated a reputation for vanishing for periods of time with no explanation.
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Ukraine’s president has stated that Vladimir Putin ‘doesn’t have too much time left’
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The Kremlin leader was last seen by the public delivering a speech on February 5
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Pictured: Firefighters at the site of a Russian drone strike in Ukraine on February 13
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Pictured: Damaged cars in Odesa, Ukraine, after they were hit by a Russian strike
However, such absences have led to speculation of Putin undergoing secret medical treatment.
Zelensky’s statement comes as the United States continues to strive for Russia and Ukraine to end the almost four-year war, with Trump recently setting a June deadline for the two sides to negotiate peace.
On Friday, Trump said Zelensky would miss an opportunity if he doesn’t ‘get moving’, and claimed Russia was willing to end the war through a peace deal.
‘Russia wants to make a deal, and Zelensky’s going to have to get moving. Otherwise, he’s going to miss a great opportunity. He has to move,’ he said.
Between February 17 and 18, a new round of peace negotiations involving Ukraine will be conducted by the US and Russia in Geneva.
The Kremlin has confirmed Vladimir Medinsky, a presidential aide to Vladimir Putin, will lead the Russians.
More recently, Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of deliberately freezing Ukraine’s population with its attacks on the energy grid.
‘There is not a single power plant left in Ukraine that has not been damaged by Russian attacks,’ Zelensky said. ‘Not one.’
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Pictured: The State Emergency Service of Ukraine on February 13, 2026
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Pictured: A house destroyed in a Russian airstrike in Ukraine on February 13
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Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at a panel discussion during the 62nd Munich Security Conference (MSC) at the hotel ‘Bayerischer Hof’, in Munich, Germany, 14 February 2026
‘But we still generate electricity,’ he added, praising the thousands of workers repairing the plants.
Taking a brutal swipe at the Kremlin leader, Zelensky added: ‘He may see himself as a tsar, but in reality he is a slave to war.’
The Ukrainian President also appealed once again to his Western allies to deliver air-defence systems to Ukraine more quickly.
Russia and Ukraine are set to hold US-brokered talks next week, as Zelensky maintains Kyiv is doing ‘everything’ to end the almost four-year war.
It comes as questions over Putin’s health were raised in November when he met with Yekaterina Leshchinskaya, 22, the chair of the Russian Healthy Fatherland movement.
As he reached to shake the woman’s hand, the Russian leader’s right hand was seen with visible bulging veins, prominent tendons, and thin, wrinkled skin.
Footage showed the Russian leader appear to nervously move his fingers and clench them into a fist under his blazer sleeve.
Following the circulation of the clip on X and later in Polish media, Ukrainian sources suggested that the Russian dictator may be suffering from pain.
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Putin has mysteriously vanished for more than a week, while Moscow state media has been using pre-recorded footage of the dictator
Prominent interviewer and media personality Dmytro Gordon said: ‘Putin clenches his hands into something resembling fists.
‘They look swollen and sore, with veins bulging prominently on one hand.’
Another source said the Kremlin leader merely exhibits the normal signs of male ageing, which he seeks – through alleged cosmetic surgery – to hide from Russians after more than a quarter of a century in power.
Questions over Putin’s whereabouts come as a group of European leaders said on Saturday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by the Kremlin.
The foreign ministries of the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands said analysis of samples taken from Navalny’s body ‘conclusively confirmed the presence of epibatidine’ – a neurotoxin found in the skin of dart frogs in South America.
A joint statement said: ‘Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison.’
The five countries said they were reporting Russia to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons for a breach of the Chemical Weapons Convention.
The announcement came as Navalny’s widow, Yulia Navalnaya, attended the Munich Security Conference in Germany as the second anniversary of Navalny’s death approaches.
Navalny, who crusaded against official corruption and staged massive anti-Kremlin protests as President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest foe, died in an Arctic penal colony on February 16, 2024, while serving a 19-year sentence that he believed to be politically motivated.
‘Russia saw Navalny as a threat,’ British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said. ‘By using this form of poison, the Russian state demonstrated the despicable tools it has at its disposal and the overwhelming fear it has of political opposition.’
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It comes after five European countries today claimed that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned by Russia. Pictured: Navalny attends a hearing at a court in Moscow in 2017
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Navalny pictured with his wife Yulia in 2020
‘Putin killed Alexei with a chemical weapon,’ she wrote on X before calling Putin ‘a murderer’ who ‘must be held accountable’.
Russian authorities said that the politician became ill after a walk and died from natural causes.
Epibatidine is found naturally in dart frogs in the wild, and can also be manufactured in a lab.
European scientists suspect this was the case with the substance used on Navalny.
The substance works on the body in a similar way to nerve agents, causing shortness of breath, convulsions, seizures, a slowed heart rate and ultimately death.
Navalny was the target of an earlier poisoning in 2020, with a nerve agent in an attack he blamed on the Kremlin, which always denied involvement.
His family and allies fought to have him flown to Germany for treatment and recovery.
Five months later, he returned to Russia, where he was immediately arrested and imprisoned for the last three years of his life.
The U.K. has accused Russia of repeatedly flouting international bans on chemical and biological weapons.
It also alleged the Kremlin carried out an attack in the English city of Salisbury in 2018, where former Russian intelligence officer, Sergei Skripal was targeted with Novichok – a nerve agent.
Skripal and his daughter became seriously ill, and a British woman, Dawn Sturgess, died after she came across a discarded bottle with traces of the nerve agent.
The poisoning of Navalny shows ‘that Vladimir Putin is prepared to use biological weapons against his own people to remain in power,’ French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot wrote on X.
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Yvette Cooper pictured with Navalny’s widow Yulia today during the Munich Security Conference
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Yulia Navalnaya, human rights activist and wife of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, gives a press statement on the death and circumstances of her husband’s death on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, Saturday Feb. 14, 2026
Navalny’s widow said last year that two independent labs had found that her husband was poisoned shortly before he died.
She has repeatedly blamed Putin for her husband’s death. Russian officials have vehemently denied the accusation.
Yulia Navalnaya said Saturday that she had been ‘certain from the first day’ that her husband had been poisoned, ‘but now there is proof’.
A British inquiry concluded that the attack ‘must have been authorised at the highest level, by President Putin’. The Kremlin has denied involvement.
Russia also denied poisoning Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian agent turned Kremlin critic who died in London in 2006 after ingesting the radioactive isotope polonium-210.
A British inquiry concluded that two Russian agents killed Litvinenko, and Putin had ‘probably approved’ the operation.
At the Munich Security Conference this weekend, Zelensky also poked fun at Hungarian leader Victor Orban’s belly, while arguing Ukraine’s fight against Russia has allowed Europe to live freely.
Zelensky was describing how Europe has gained from having Ukrainian forces battling Russian troops.
Ukraine’s relations with neighbouring Hungary have been strained by Orban’s support for Russia and have deteriorated further in recent weeks as the veteran leader has ramped up attacks on Ukraine ahead of a closely fought parliamentary election in April.
‘There can be a sovereign Moldova and a Romania without dictatorship and even one Victor can think about how to grow his belly, not how to grow his army to stop Russian tanks from returning to the streets of Budapest,’ Zelensky said.
‘But look at the price. Look at the price, look at the pain Ukraine has gone through, look at the suffering Ukraine has faced. It’s Ukrainians who are holding the European front,’ he said.
Although Ukraine applied to join the European Union days after Russia invaded, it has been unable to advance accession talks because of Orban’s vetoes.
Unlike other European countries, Hungary has not diversified its imports from Russia since Moscow’s assault on Ukraine.
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