Saturday 31 December 2011

What If

What If (c)

By 

Michael Casey 



What if Today wasn't the 1st day of a New Year but the last Day of Your Life.

Who would you hug, who would you kiss, who would you miss.

Who would miss you, do you have a clue, and do you know why?

Would your years of striving to be a good writer/teacher/cop or whatever still mean so much to you .

Would you miss making love in a tent high up in the mountains.

Would you miss a real good coffee and donut on 7th and 4th.

Would you miss the sales where you always bought nothing but shoes, shoes for work. But the fun you had with the girls was worth it , because pals are fun.

Would you miss Midnight Mass and Silent Night getting home exhausted and late and crying for your late mother.

Would you be too afraid that you'd not meet her again in the afterlife, or would that be the only hope you'd cling too as you watched the hands on clock sweep around faster and faster.

Would you rail at the world and want to get your gun and shoot those bastards who'd ruined your life in the past , even if all they ever did was steal your parking place, or would you be all sweetness and light, dying peacefully without a fight.

What would be your parting words, would anybody remember you, small kindnesses  remembered and rewarded. 

Remember thou art dust and to dust thy will return is the Ash Wednesday phrase

Is that how you want to be remembered?

Or he made me laugh, he made me cry but I was always was happy when he was around , I'll miss him yes , but I've not lost him because because a laugh lasts forever.

That is my hope, for the start of this New Year and new day, and everyday because we all should live like today is our last because one fact is certain one day it will be , so make 'em laugh , make 'em laugh, make 'em laugh

Happy New Year from this Comedy Writer Michael Casey

Monday 26 December 2011

Christmas 2011

Christmas 2011 ©
by Michael Casey

This Christmas 2011 was  a great Christmas for our small but ever growing daughters, their uncles and aunties  spoiled them, treasure reached new revels. The girls had decided to set the family Christmas tree up in their bedroom, somehow the tree was taller than ever, they found a longer aluminium pole to insert, it now looks as if a giraffe has taken refuge underneath, so the tree was reaching for the sky. Talking of Sky our Sky Plus box had a fault, half the space disappeared, however a quick IM conversation  explained how to get the space back. Then we told the Sky Plus to record 8 things while we headed off to my brother’s for Christmas dinner.

For a change we were on time for the family feast, only my brother had managed to forgot to light the gas or was it electric, so we waited 2 and a half hours for the turkey, the turkey must have been thinking of tunnelling its way out, just like  in cartoons. Starvation descended upon the 10 of us, we had to have emergency Terry’s Chocolate Orange, lest we fall over, or lest our sugar levels went too low. Then finally the food was declared ready, ding ding, like wrestlers we stormed to the dinner table as my brother shared out  the turkey. Back in the old days when my mother was alive we would feed 5 lodgers first and give them 4 pints each before we could have our share.  The same love is there, I’m sure our parents look down and smile, the Casey family feast is shared. The turkey did not stand a chance. By the time the sharing was done I had finished as had my sister, so we gave up our seats so my brother and his wife could sit and eat.

I mixed pink wine with orange juice, it was nice, not very polite as far as the wine was concerned but I like the mix so that’s the way I had it, a poor man’s BuxFizz. Cake and pudding were also served, laughter and photos and love all mixed together. Dr Who followed, the nation’s traditional Christmas fare. Dr Who was all about Mother Love, as it should be on a Christmas Day, it all started with a Mother’s Love after all. Dr Who cried with happiness for a finish, and that’s how it should be this and every Christmas Day. So shed a few tears for those you love, this day and every day.

Wednesday 21 December 2011

What is Poetry?

I was thinking what is poetry, then I realised its the sound of the home. My wife on the phone to her friends, two Chinese speakers sound like chickens, qok qok qok quar, thats how Chinese make the sound of clucking. Then there is the sound of the central heating gurrling away and then the clunk as it switches ityself off. Laughter as my girls run up and down the stairs, the rat at tat tat as I type on the keyboard, then the click as I switch on the speakers and start up the music to keep me company as I type. A splash outside as a car drives by in the rain, the sound of barking as the neighbours dog howls at the moon. Next door a child cries she does not want to go to bed, she wants to stop up and wait for Santa just in case he's a few days early. All this is the heartbeat of a home, even when its hard to think as my wife is two feet away from me  screaming down the phone in Chinese. This is my heartbeat, I hope yours is just as strong. Merry Christmas Everybody. Michael Casey www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

Monday 19 December 2011

Earphones

Earphones, what a lot of effort it takes to pick a pair.
Do you over the ear or in the ear, do you want plastic or metal, do you want soft rubber or memory foam. Its such a big deal  for something that'll only last six month, tops.I had a nice pair and with inline volume control, but they died as they all do. I had a hard plastic replacement to hand but I want a comfortable one read for when these die on me. So I looked on Amazon and Argos, read the reviews. Decided on what I wanted, a blue metal pair, then I read the reviews, 50/50 50 4star, 50 2star, so I decided, if in doubt believe the worst, so those were no good. Then I saw a pair with what looked like steel wire as the lines, and covered in plastic. Argos had them 1/3 off, then I checked with Amazon, the same thing for  more than 1/2 the price of the ones on on offer. Which if you've been following the maths means 1/3 of the original before offer in price. Or in simple language, not 15, not 10, not even 5, but 3.90, to those of you who spend a lot on your headphones, I cannot afford the really nice ones, why, because they just don't last and I don't have the money anyway. So I give Amazon my vote and hope that when they arrive they are not a pirated copy. And if you are wondering what I bought, "Kitsound KS1 Noise Isolating Stereo Earphones. If I were brave I'd wear HEADphones in the street and on the bus, but then I'd look a right Charlie, which is a very old figure of speech. The headphones would last, but that's another story.

Saturday 17 December 2011

From Short Wave Radio to Facebook ©

From Short Wave Radio to Facebook ©
By Michael Casey
 me and the wife 1999

30 years ago and more I inherited a Short Wave Radio, now what is so special about a short wave radio? Well you can listen to the world over the airwaves, all over the world, from Radio Nederland to Australia to Hungary, Poland and of course radio Albania. I’ve always loved radio and I still do, my love began when I was about 8 years old which means I’ve been listening to radio for 45years now. I can’t believe I’m that old now, I still think I’m 20, when I talk to my students I say “our age” then I have to correct myself as I am 30years old than them, old enough to be their dad, one actually calls me granddad, and when I do the school run the teachers there think I’m the granddad.

So what’s so good about short wave, it’s the notion that you can hear radio from all over the world, it’s actually bounced off the atmosphere, so its kind of like science project. This is 30years ago and more, when computers weren’t invented, the ones we all use I mean, PCs, I was in fact a computer operator all those years ago and computers were as big as washing machines and wardrobes, and people used magnetic tapes and punch cards. So picture the scene, I’d spend my days off playing with this Tandy/ Radio Shack SW radio with a nice speaker, logging the different stations and nations that I could get. I even got a request on Radio Brazil and I managed to get Australia on a hand held radio. To help with reception I had a round room antennae, 30 foot of copper wire in plastic covering, it was a nice hobby when you had days off in the middle of the week.

Time moves on and I enjoyed my SW radio as well as my 20 years of listening  to Radio 4 on the BBC, and now I tell my students to listen to the BBC.   All of us have computers in our homes or down the street at the local library, so the idea of SW is strange, nobody will listen to SW. So nostalgia  leaves a warm glow in my heart, it would be nice to have a small SW radio again, the kids stood on my last one years ago and it bust, I did see one in Aldi but I have lots of radios and a computer so I’ll leave than nice radio in Aldi.

Email arrives and I am a great fan of email, I used to email my friend on the 4th floor while I was on the 3rd, it was fun. Then I met my wife and she was in Shanghai and I was here in Birmingham, our love was kept alive by the blue Sky email machine, I still have it upstairs, an antique in the future no doubt. Computers get better and better, I continue writing and have a site of my own www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com then I’m married so we have a proper simple computer so we can talk to Shanghai. Grandma visits, twice, she can use the computer to talk to her friends back home. I send emails galore probably thousands, trying to get noticed as a writer, its all in Internet Story, its not how good you are, its getting somebody, and I think it’ll be a lady, because ladies help and blokes don’t, getting somebody to read your stuff and then you’re finally a writer. 

Then Facebook arrives, so you leave a message for their leader and a few of his pals, if they have a message facility  then use it I think. Only they say you’re naughty and don’t do that or you cann’t play. So I connect with loads of writers and poets and a few think my stuff is nice and funny, so that’s great, I still have to hope that one of them likes my stuff  enough to look at Amazon Kindle and borrow or even buy one of my 4 “masterpieces” or go to my site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and read my 250blogs, and see just how fat am I, and how on earth did I manage to get 3 beautiful girls in my life.  For the answer to the last question its all in Padre Pio and Me, the writing still goes on, 25years nearly. Technology has changed so much, Short Wave to Facebook these are tools of communication, reasons to be cheerful as Ian Drury would sing. So as Christmas is coming the best communication is a kiss, kiss those you love, hold them in your arms, tell them you love them, take them to bed and make love, now that is far better than Facebook.

Friday 16 December 2011

Talking to an Audience or I want to be an after dinner speaker

        
Talking to an Audience ©
               By
             Michael Casey

The average speaker starts by saying “unaccustomed as I am to Public Speaking” and then he rattles off his talk.  I was sent on a presenting course back in 1998 this was a great course and after 2 days of training I had mastered the basics.

The trainer placed a few objects on the table, a pencil, a book, a pair of glasses and  several more random things. We had previously been shown how the expert did it now it was our turn. We were given 15mins to prepare then one by one we had to stand up and talk about the object we had chosen.

We all watched and then gave feedback, it was a group thing, we were all on the same team, it was a family we were there to help each other learn how to present. Talking for 5 mins can be scary when you’ve never done it before, but with training anybody can do it.

We repeated this exercise with different objects, we gave advice and encouragement to each other. Some were not as good as others, for some standing up and talking in front of another group of people was like being naked in front of people. Nobody was naked but it felt that way to the shy talkers.

Having Irish blood in me made it easier for me. Then we were all given the big challenge, the next day we had to stand up and talk for 15mins, on a subject of our own choosing. I decided to talk about my trip to Paris in the February just gone. So on the train from Oxford to Birmingham I started making out some Qcards, notes to help me with me talk the next day. I should explain I was working in Birmingham for ACNielsen but the head office was in Oxford and that’s where the training was. Caroline had been very generous and allowed me to go on the course just months before redundancy beckoned. If I’m honest I hoped the course would help me with my comedy writing.

The next day I was on a train my Qcards all ready, I rehearsed and rehearsed, then I got to Oxford and ACNielsen HQ.  I think I was last to talk, or should I say perform. I told them that I had chosen hotel on the advice of JC, only JC had forgotten to tell me it was in a red light area by Gare du Nord Paris.
Being a lad I had a Chinese an lots of wine, before staggered all over Paris and down the Metro, at the Eiffel Tower my camera was bust, I was using my schoolboy French trying to get the girl in the box office under the Eiffel Tower to fix my camera. I decided a kebab was a good idea after my night time look at Paris. That was a mistake, the Chinese and wine and a kebab all mixed, and made me violently ill. My bathroom was like a wardrobe that you climbed into for both the toilet and a shower. I was as sick as a pig. In the morning I found a pharmacy. “Avez vous des asprin de bas prix” I asked. In exchange I was given a box which said “asprin tamponee” I opened the box and inside was a tube with extra strong mint sized asprins, asprins that fizzed. So I had to find a drink and wash the asprins down, I must have looked like a rabid dog.

I continued with my tale, my audience in fits of laughter. I was nearing the end of my tale when I was stopped. “How many minutes have you done?” asked the trainer. “15” I replied. In fact I had done 30mins. So I think I passed the test, I can present.

3 days later I was in the Czech Republic, my penfriend was giving me a look at Pilsner her home town, the home of lager itself. She had a class and would I, could I talk to them, she was an English teacher you see. So there I was in front of 25 students, so I stood up and presented off the cuff for 90minutes.
I think that proves I had a good teacher in Oxford. My trip to Pilsner gave me an idea for a piece of writing, Czech Story, which proved to be one of the best and funniest pieces of writing I have ever done. Its good because its true. I suppose all art is best when it  draws from life. Shall we leave it there for tonight……………..

Sunday 11 December 2011

Writing in my Head

Writing in My Head © 
By
Michael Casey

I started writing Tears for A Butcher and I’ve done one chapter and a few pages of the 2nd chapter. I have all sorts of ideas for this follow up to 
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker but I’ve got lots of material for the finale and one or 2 other chapters, but I’ve not started on chapter 3 or chapter 4, I’m thinking it’ll be 12 chapters like the 1st book. Then I have a puzzle, should I write the book out of sequence and then stitch it together or should I wait for sequential chapters to form and then write it. There is the other problem though  problem is the wrong word to use, I don’t want to spend a year of my life producing more stuff until I leave the launch pad with my other stuff. I have 4 books on Amazon Kindle, very cheap and you can now borrow them via Amazon too.

It’s a bit  of a puzzle, I have enough material to write fully formed chapters, but should I do it this way or that? There are no rules, and if I got a few quid for my 4 “masterpieces” then I’d be encouraged   to strike the anvil, my dad was a blacksmith after all. What do other writers do, I’ll put this on FaceBook and see if I get any replies. I love my cast in my book, its exciting when I think of things they can do, I’ve decided to marry a few off in 
Tears For A Butcher, it will be funny and full of pathos, but when will I have the time and push to do it, I never get writers block, quite the reverse. I have compromised and used blogs as a method of keeping the writing juices flowing, but I have reoccurring dreams of my cast, not real dreams but the stories want to escape me and dance on paper. If I could draw cartoons I’d be drawing them, there goes Mrs Murphy, here Big Sid, there’s the undertaker, I do envy cartoonists. That’s all I have to say, apart from this, coffee made with hot milk is so so nice. Goodnight everybody

Michael Casey    www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com  

Saturday 10 December 2011

Face Book Datamines

As we all know FB datamines, so that they can give you focussed adverts, then they'll make their 100,000,000,000 is that right, 100billion. I think 20billion will be tops as so far 3billion is what they have achieved on ad revenue, but God Bless them if in the future they copy Bill Gates and throw the money at Good Causes.
Me I'm trying to hit 100 "friends", mainly poets/writers and magazines in the vain hope that I get discovered and make a few bucks for my 401K, thats what you guys call Pension Pot, I hope I'm right. Over here people cannot afford to save for their old age, over here is Birmingham England. Style and Substance is very differerent between here and where you guys are in USA. If Facebook is data mining me, its a pubblisher I'm after, its folks to go to Amazon Kindle to buy or BORROW my comedy books, we say comic meaning comedy but comic to you folks means Superman comics, and not comic as in comedy/amusing stuff. 
So I'm wondering how fast folks can reach 100, 1000, or 5000 "friends", somebody can start a race and see how many friends they can get in 24hours, Guiness Book of Records can be the timekeeper. More free publicity for FB.
The obvious question is how good a "friend" is, or how real a "friend" is, how long do these "friendships" last. I have one real friend I've know since grammar school, so that is 42years.
FB is fun and I have had some very nice comments from a few people, but are the rest  of my FB friends just like folks in a crowed lift/elevator, or like people rushing by in Times Square. www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com 

Please hug a Friend for Christmas, a real big hug and say you are the best, start with your mum and dad and your sisters and brothers and then reach out, let in be the United Hugs States of America

Friday 9 December 2011

Secret Prayer

Secret Prayer© by Michael Casey

Sometimes a prayer is a secret that we cannot reveal to the intend recipient, they would not approve of being prayed for, they would not want to receive a pray, they would lose face, they don't want to receive a grace, yet prayer is a grace, from me to you, or rather I ask and you receive, so why do the deceiving? We are just doing the healing, yes we'll carry on praying and begging for healing, our eyes facing the ceiling. Sure we'll pray for anybody, and we'll whisper their name, "Hail Mary full of Grace, Our Father who art in Heaven" yes we'll pray this, we'll dust off those rosary beeds and beg and pray for all we're worth, please please keep this lady on this earth, don't let her die or her other child will be left all alone, no Lord please I'm begging you now, yes MY prayers are worthless, but there must be somebody who reads this whose prayers are golden, whose love is worthy. So please please Lord pretend I'm somebody else praying and a begging you to save this life, save this somebody else's wife, save this somebody else's mummy. Please Lord this is all I can pray, let this lady live many many many a day AMEN

Saturday 26 November 2011

Facing Facebook

Facing Facebook © 
By 
Michael Casey

I wrote Internet Story a while back, years ago in fact, it tells the tale of a writer trying to get noticed, to get published. Now years later, the winds of Time have moved on, we are all older and fatter, well I am anyway. Technology has moved on too, Facebook has arrived on the scene, I didn’t think much of it, then I thought sideways, I could use it to connect with writers and publishers. So that’s what I’ve been doing.

You have to be careful with Facebook though, the weird and wonderful people of the world are out there ready to contradict and spit at you, the electronic version of spitting that is. People who only have one interest and will be very very very angry if you don’t agree with them; its like having the Mafia and the Clu Clux Clan on tap, ready to bump you off. So check somebody’s profile before you talk with them, people in America seem to be much more angry compared to folks over here in England, thank God for the Atlantic I say. Having said that you can connect with a multitude of people, women’s writers are a big big thing in America, they are nice ladies, sadly I cannot write in that style otherwise I would and perhaps have my writing breakthrough. I can only write in my modern post Ealing Comedy style. You’ll all need to go to www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com to see and judge my stuff, and as I said previous in Internet Story it’ll cut your heart out when folks are so negative, and in some cases it is out of sheer spite, I believe in saying “good luck and God bless” to people but sadly that sentiment is dying out over here and in the USA.

Erotic fiction is big too, but I always see the funny side, if you read  my comic novel 
The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, you’ll see that beds break and I use Metaphors because its funnier, I’m not writing the Karma Sutra after all. I would have failed the practical exam anyway. So if you want laugher with your sex then read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, 1% comedy sex, 99% straight comedy at 500 pages and only 3quid on Amazon Kindle a bargain.  The hero finally gets his girl, the girl from the dog pound, only he stinks like a tart and she thinks he’s gay, but they do break a bed afterwards and have to glue it back together with superglue. 

So  I’ll post this new piece on Facebook and see it encourages people to buy my book, I need to explain to the American readers that comic means comic not comic. Or in plainer English, comic means funny, its not a comic like Superman, it’s a comic book  ie. Comedy book. So I’ll post  this and see If my sales on Amazon Kindle go through the roof, I have of course broke a few beds myself, but that’s because  I weigh 112kilos , 17.5 stones or in American parlance 245 pounds. I have also been inside 242 bedrooms, and that’s only because I used to work in a hotel, CPNEC, you’re minds are so dirty! Enjoy my books.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Disguises

Disguises, we all hide this and hide that from each other and from ourselves. We smile when we really want to say, oh no its that boring so in so. We go around to nans when really we wish she was dead and we wouldn't have to waste our time with all this visiting. If we knew she was rich and was planning to leave it all to use we wouldn't complain so much. If nan heard our bitching she'd leave all her shares and equities to the local cats home. We lie to people to save face, we put a 10 year old photo of ourselves on Facebook. Before we were fat, before we needed a face lift. We are just so vain, vain enough to enter Politics, but which side would we be on, does it matter? When we go to bed are we still acting? Or are all barriers down? Are we sleeping with the enemy? Or is it love? With love there should be no barriers, no marrying for love or for status. For Richer For Poorer, and no disguises included 


p.s. photo is me and the wife when we first met, I sent her back to Shanghai to tell her parents all my bad points, no lies allowed

Saturday 19 November 2011

WHY ARE WRITERS SO PRECIOUS?

Why are writers and poets so precious?(c) By Michael Casey

Why are writers and poets so precious?
Are words more important than people.
Do we love our words more than our selves
Our words are our children
But we hate children 
We hate people 
We just love words
Words are our mistress
Words are our lovers
Words are our whores
We prefer the page
We prefer the pen in our hand
We prefer the soft touch of the keyboard
A woman in our bed is not good enough
A man in our arms does not satisfy us.
No we want words
We want to make love to a dictionary


p.s. I've just burnt my dictionary I'm going to bed with a woman!

Wednesday 16 November 2011

DT had a piece about Padre Pio , here's my own experience

Web site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com 



                  Padre Pio and Me ©

                        By


                   Michael Casey



    It’s a contradiction in terms immediately , how can I copyright  a Saint . A brand new saint at that . I first heard of him through some Religious reading I did . I feel embarrassed to admit it , but I am a practising Catholic , its not fashionable to have any Faith but its mine so I admit it . Immediately the prejudice begins , but if I WERE A Jew or a Muslim , it would be the same . I do feel that my catholic tastes have given me a broader outlook on life , as has my  eclectic tastes and rubbing shoulders with a wide variety of people . 

But I want to talk about Padre Pio . I had a crisis and was reading about him at the time , so I said my prayers to him and the way forward was revealed . Though Padre Pio always says go Higher , he is just a stepping stone on the way to a better place . What is so hard to understand about Padre Pio  is how he suffered . He had the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune . Condemned by his own superiors , made to be quiet for a decade and so forth . Science Fiction teaches or rather amuses us about Time Travel , but with Padre Pio it really happened , he wanted to share in Christ’s agony so he thought , what if he too could have and suffer the wounds on that day of Crucifiction . So it came to pass that he suffered for 50years . He had the indignity of medical examinations and of being thought just to be a mental patient , but his work and life proved his holiness .

So it’s nearly 1990 and I hear about him and read a few books , its hard to understand the value of suffering in this age of quick fix pain killers and the lets have a fix , whatever the fix might be , sex, drugs and rock and roll or whatever . Its like suddenly studying again after years of lying fallow , the learning curve is enormous . So too is it with Padre Pio , the idea behind his life is enormous , but so too is the capacity for love and help . 
My favourite story is how Padre Pio explains that The Wedding Feast at Cena happened because Jesus could not refuse his mother . Very Italian , or Irish or Spanish and so on , but could any of us refuse our mothers? 

So I thought more about what Padre Pio said , and his motto of Pray Hope Don’t Worry became my own . Carpe Diem is another good motto but perhaps this can be used by any Hedonist , or other kind of selfish person .Padre Pio reminds us to pray and that pray is not wasted , its perfume that is never wasted is a phrase I like . My mother always used to say that if you couldn’t sleep you should say the Rosary , and she was right . Though in todays world an hour on the Internet or with MTV might do the trick . 

So why the devotion to Padre Pio , I’ll cut to the chase.
My mother died suddenly but peacefully in her sleep , my brother tried CPR , but she was gone . Imagine the anguish amongst her 6 children and her husband of nearly 50 years . All except me , my mother had said no tears when she go ,so I never cried , I was the odd one out .I know how prayerful she was , so I had no need of tears .
Eight bare weeks later my brother , the same brother heard our dad fall out of bed , so he ran to his bedroom . My brother was facing the exact same situation , he tried CPR , the ambulance was called , an injection was given straight to the heart . On weekends there is a doctor in the ambulance , so Luck , if that’s the word was with us . The next day 4 of my brothers and sisters came around to tell me the news . When my sister had come around 8 weeks previously I knew somebody was dead but I assumed it was my dad , he’s die first we all thought . So now 8 weeks later it was his turn to die .

At the hospital dad was given 1 week to live , I cried like a baby , worse than a baby , but I loved him , so I told he he should go to our mother and not hang on if he didn’t want to . The next day I was in my sister’s house crying , we picked hymns for his funeral .Yet my father survived , 19 patients on a heart ward , 18 died my dad survived . Padre Pio was beseiged by my prayers , I put Padre Pio’s photo under his pillow . Dad lost his mind , he was in Dudley Rd for 3months , 12 weeks , more than half of them all tubed up . His life hanging in the balance . At the same time somewhere in Florida another man was at deaths door , he was a totally stranger to me , I didn’t even know his name , I’d never met him , he was give 24hours to live , a Chinese man from Shanghai  was at deaths door . The Chinaman survived .My dad’s memory was totally wiped , he did not know who I was, I’m your son was greeted with , am I married . I was the favourite son , he did not even know me . But still we prayed , it’s a feeling in your guts , just like when you are nearly killed as you cross the road , its in your guts and in your heart , Jesus save my dad , Jesus save my dad , Padre Pio help !!! This goes around your head like a merry go around or a kaleidascope . Finally dad awoke . He said that he can remember hearing the doctor say to wheel him down to the end of the ward , because he’d be dead soon . At that moment my dad awoke, and the doctor dropped  his cup of tea in shock . No not an instanteous miracle , but as Dr Singh had said if he were 30years younger he’d have a heart transplant because dad’s heart was rubbish .

Now , when I told my brother that dad was reading a newspaper he was shocked . His memory had come back . He knew who we all were .Every day for three months I walked the corridor at Dudley Rd , the longest hospital corridor in Europe , 1 kilometre long . Finally he left the hospital , my sister had found a good home for him to live in , he was far too weak to live in the family house .

For 3 years dad survived , like a Godfather with all his children making constant visits . Finally I met my future wife . It was her uncle who had miraclously survived at the same time as my father . It was her uncle who encouraged us in our love . From Shanghai to Birmingham .These great men , her uncle and my father never met , but I know Padre Pio must have  helped both of them . Further prayer was needed to bring me and my wife permanenetly together . A Chinese miracle happened . Now we are wed , we have a 2year old and please God a healthy second baby in the Autumn . The improbability of our meeting , plus the fact that both men HAD to live for us to be married and have a family , this may be a coincidence to some but I know a miracle when I see one. A miracle is something that makes you feel humble , it makes you know that God has whispered your name . When I look at my wife , I feel humble . Seeing our daughter laugh and play also makes me humble as will our new baby.
Then you can look back and know that prayer is like perfume that can never be wasted  , your life has led you to where you are now , yes at times sad and terrible , but be humble in the sight of God means something , not just for me , but for all Believers .

I once stood by the fridge and said to Padre Pio , I give up , you take over , all I want is to be married , and perhaps have a family , and do something useful with my life . That was just before my eyes were opened to my wife . I used to say that I got 2 out of my 3 wishes . Perhaps my current occupation is my 3rd wish , or a more outstanding miracle is waiting in the wings , but as Padre Pio  said ,always ask for the big Grace .Perhaps
 we have to be humble enough to deserve it , because I believe it to be a fact that , truly great people are humble because they know just how little they really know.

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Degree Madness

Degree madness

By michaelgcasey
There was a nice piece in today’s DT about degrees and their value or lack of.  £27,000 for a degree is madness, and the piece did speak of “rubbish” degrees, I was told by a friend that 40% was the pass grade for an engineering degree here in Birmingham. This is madness pure and simple, I’m sure any real employer would roll their  eyes and reach for the coffee. I have also met young people with a piece of paper and no common sense. As for everybody demonstrating because it was their right to have a degree, I’d say having a red jumper is more useful that some degrees, save £27,000 and open a business instead.
My daughter took her 11plus 2 days ago, that I hope will help her, but even if she were to fail, we still have 2 ex-grammar schools where she could go. As for University, I am already telling her just to enjoy her life and get 3 years hands on experience, or 4 years if you include the gap year either before or after Uni. She can do what she likes, but always do her best, just as my dad instructed us. Then she has something to offer an employer, I’ve had a varied employment life these past 12years, but it has taught me that being useful and flexible is better than a Micky Mouse degree she might apply for. I tell her Paul McCartney’s daughter went to a comp but look at Stella now. It’s the Person not the Paper that matters

Saturday 12 November 2011

Return of the Blog

Return of the Blog ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve been away from my blog for a couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get folks to go to www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and sample my wares, I’ve been using Facebook and Linkedin to try and whip up interest in my work. Amazon Kindle now has 4 books of mine waiting to be discovered. I’m Michael Casey, not the Michael Casey the monk who writes religious books, nor Michael Casey the DIY expert, just look for my fat face on the covers then it’s the right Michael Casey.

Poetry is a big big thing, Facebook poetry section has almost 22,000 members, I have written 2 great poems in 20 years, other than that the standard on Facebook Poetry is very  very high, better than my other attempts at poetry. However as somebody once said my general writing was in itself poetic, so I’m trying to impress the Poetry People with my other stuff.

Today is End Of The 11+ plus day in our house, my 10year old daughter did this exam this morning, if she passes she’ll go to King Edwards Grammar School. I can remember my own 11+ and the deputy head teacher whispering to me, “if you’re stuck go on, don’t waste time.” So did I cheat? I did pass and I did go to one of the best grammar schools at the time, 1970s and all that. Nowadays there are fewer and fewer grammar schools, if my daughter fails there are still two good              ex-grammar schools just up the road from where we live. I suppose its discipline that matters the most, if you are in a school where the other pupils are badly behaved then you and the rest of the class suffer. So really I don’t care where my daughter goes, and pass and fail does not matter, so long as she is happy. 

We are celebrating tonight with duck and pancakes, my Shanghai wife is a good cook, she just had to “steal” some leeks from our local take-away friends so that we could celebrate. End of the 11+ study regime, 2 or 3 hours of extra study every night for months, folders from a Chinese friend at Birmingham University. The folders are now in the boot of our car and will be returned, however in 3 years time they will no doubt return for my younger daughter. In Glee the other week the Chinese character got an A- , which was a F as far as his family was concerned.
That line made me laugh out loud, but if you have Chinese family or friends it is so so true, there must be 20 PhDs at least who attend the Birmingham Chinese Church, so their kids are all off the scale as far as studying goes. I used to think look at all those PhDs, then there was one emptying the dustbins, he wasn’t a PhD, no he was a Professor. I must also add they are amongst the kindest people I have ever met in my life.
So I’ll finish by saying my half Chinese daughters, are A++++++++++ in my heart.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Grammar or Style my reply to a Linkedin piece

I was probably the last person in England to be taught grammar, early 1970s. It is rare for it to be taught now, but Google away and contradict me.
Grammar is scaffolding for language, just as gossip is the glue that binds communities together.
People who are fixated about grammar etc, are stupid as New Yorkers might say. Its the message
that matters, sure if the words are so badly written that nobody can understand that does matter.
Its very American to go on courses to learn how to write or go to Journalism School for 4 years.
I'd say don't waste your time. 
Me I listened to BBC Radio4 for 20 years before I picked up a pen, its speech radio with drama,news and so on. So from 10 to 30 I must have heard thousands of plays and so on. Then when I picked up a pen nearly 25 years ago I had a good start, but it still took me a year of trying before I said to myself, I can write.
Style you either have or don't have, you can steal somebody elses or over analyse every book you have ever read. My own experience of Eng Lit is that it kills what you should be reading.
enjoy the book first and then think why you loved it afterwards. If the passion is there, then  make love, don't ring your priest first, just make love. English should be such  a passion, I'm told I have a good style, I hope because its funny, but you cannot analyse a joke, its either funny or its isn't. Humour does depend on the delivery, its the way I tell them was what one  great Northern Irish comedian said.  A favourite uncle only has to purse his lips and we all start to smile, then when he says something we are in stitches. I know from my hotel experience  at CPNEC I could raise a laugh, why, because I was practicing all day every day 12 hours a day, with such practice I had to be good. Just as a singer practices and reaches her peak, so does a writer. Bad style or bad writer, say like Dan Brown, can kill enjoyment so you cannot read more than a page, yet we are all different, some people think Dan Brown is great, I do not. I'll leave you with that thought. My stuff is on www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker my lead book is on Amazon Kindle with 3 other books of mine, just look for my face of the covers.

Saturday 22 October 2011

Just Say No to Warren Buffett

OCTOBER 22ND, 2011 21:41

Just Say No to Warren Buffett

Too many wars broke America. Too many arguements amongst politicians broke America, too lax tax laws broke America. Lending money to folks who had zero credit rating broke America. America is divided, just watch Fox news having a discussion programme, 50% don’t bother to vote, and the rest are divided. So 26% of the country tells the other 74% what to do. Politicians need to grow up but they won’t. And Still folks naively vote Tea Party. In then end you have to negotiate. I feel sad that USA has reached this point. Perhaps we need the spirit of the 60s again, when we all had hopes and dreams. Spending billions to get elected is obscene. USA can be great again, but it needs to start from the bottom up. Don’t complain about China, especially when China is bailing everybody out. USA has to recapture its spirit again, they need to start today immediately, and never never never put their hopes in any politician, change USA one person at a time. Its not a spiritual message, its a love yourself back to health and strength then USA can be what it wants to be.

Red Carpet

The Red Carpet ©

By

Michael Casey

I was just reading the Daily Telegraph, its my paper of choice, they had a photo selection on the continuing celebrations for Paul McCartney and his new wife. This time it was in New York, the red carpet was rolled out, though I couldn’t actually tell from the photos was the carpet actually rolled out, a la Oscars. But the theme is the same, you are important, so the red carpet comes out, I’ve just had a look at Google for the history and Wikipedia says something but remember Wikipedia is not Gospel, look me up and see how inaccurate it is.

A  red carpet makes us feel important, as does a fawning flunkey, Dickens captured it all with Uriah Heep, and no I’m no Dickens expert, I just know 2 sentences about everything, which is one sentence more than the average guy, if I’m lucky. Or if any of you are old rock stars then Uriah Heep was a ROCK band. A new carpet has bounce and as we all know it’s the underlay that makes the difference, and more importantly than that it’s the carpet fitter, the bloke with the gripper  who turns  a house into a home. I saved up and had all my house done 6 months after I moved in, that’s 25 years ago now. It wasn’t red carpet but I felt important, I  was bouncing around my house, my red carpet home for weeks afterwards. Now years later and I’m married with girls in the house, we had to replace a chair so when the square yard it had sat on was revealed after decades of darkness the square was pristine and bouncy, as bouncy as a bouncy castle. So my girls enjoyed the bouncy square until the new chair arrived.

If you stand while you work as I’ve done in several jobs then a touch of softness underfoot is so so welcomed, whether it be red white or blue. I used to stand for 12 hours a day walking on marble in the hotel, CPNEC. We did 4 12hour shifts, the first day off I’d hobble down the stairs at home, I needed recovery time. So if ever I get the red carpet treatment, I will really enjoy it, but I do hope it has masses of soft underlay.

Red carpets are noisy they shout and scream at you, I am George Clooney, worship me, me I do actually look like George Cloony, google “michaelgcasey” and then hit images. Oh I was a bit economical with the truth during that last sentence, but  I do look like the Welsh news anchor on the BBC, well my wife thinks so. Yes, where was I, on the red carpet, would it make any difference if the colour was changed? I think it’s the concept of an outdoor carpet, we could have wallpaper on the outside of our homes, that would be extravagant, here in UK we have Blue Plaques to show/honour famous people and where they live. Just up the road from where I am talking is The Birmingham Oratory, and it has a blue plaque, John Henry Newman lived there, if you go a few hundred yards further up the road there is a blue plaque for JRR Tolkien, I doubt if there will ever be a blue plaque to me, MichaelGCasey. 

So will I ever be smiling from the red carpet walking arm in arm with my three girls, as they talk in Mandarin as we walk the red carpet in Shanghai, my books  translated and filmed, the top show in China, probably not, but if anybody has any carpet going spare, my living room now needs a new carpet, any colour accepted.    


Sunday 16 October 2011

Inner Laughter

Inner Laughter © 

By Michael Casey

Our smallest will be a year older this week, she’s a natural comedian, we wonder where she got it from. Her Shanghai grandfather was a comedian, and I try and write comedy, though I choose the word humour mainly, and no not as a get-out clause. So how can a 7 year old be so funny, is it in the genes or is it because she feels so happy and loved that the laughter just runs out. Her humour first showed itself back in 2007 when we were in Shanghai visiting the Chinese family, she would have been 3 and a half then. She picked up chopsticks and mastered them during a family meal for 30 or 40 in a restaurant. The Shanghai cousins begged her to say something, so finally she did “A fan pi, A fan pi” she said which meant “A had farted, A had farted” laughter rippled around the room.

She dresses up as a princess or in traditional Chinese costume, she lines up 40 teddy bears and teaches them and takes the register. She parades around in my wife’s shoes, bracelets and necklaces clicking as she walks. Faces are pulled and accents put on, English and Chinese. She crosses her legs like LULU, the Chinese interviewer not the Scottish singer, and holds her clipboard and asks questions. Dolls houses are her joy, she got a Slyvestan family dolls house as a Birthday present last year, I hope I spelt that right. Anyways, that wasn’t enough so 2 or 3 shoe boxes were converted into dolls houses, and sweet wrappers were turned into wind blinds. Other items for her dolls houses were manufactured by her and her imagination.  Then she decided to try her hand at writing stories, I’ve been doing it for nearly 25 years, her Shanghai grandfather also did a bit of writing and then there is the Shanghai great uncle who is a political journalist, so its in the blood. When I read a piece of hers the other day I was amazed by the style she had, it will be her who makes money from writing before I do. Her Irish grandfather was a blacksmith and he’d be so proud of her. Pride and love I suppose that sums it up, we should all let our small daughters have freedom to use their imagination, but remember to hide your shoe boxes.

Resignation Pantomime

Resignation Pantomime ©

By Michael Casey

Oh sorry Sir, I was caught with my trousers down, with my hand in the till, or was it on the bosom of a secretary or some other members wife. Either way I did nothing wrong I can assure you, it didn’t mean anything it was only sex, great great  sex but nothing dirty or squalid. I did put the Ministerial red box under the bed and out of site. So why all the fuss, it wasn’t as if she was from another political party, she was true blue, true red white and blue, and as for her sister that just happened it wasn’t intended. And now both are pregnant and its against their principals to kill the baby, what amount of Child Tax credit will they both get. Do I have to leave my grace and favour home? Can’t I stay there, there a great creche nearby. I’d be able to push both bastards in the park and the little bins will be great to throw away all the nappies, and Ministerial papers. Perfect, so why can’t I keep my job. &*% the public, I’m better than them anyway, what the *&%$ do they know about politics, all the nuances and so on. So I have a Swiss bank account and friends  from all over the world, but that makes me an even better Minister, if the public how much blood I’ve sweated for those ungrateful B&%$£. They’d be making ME Prime Minister, and as for the S&&%$% in the press with their zoom lens, so what if I went to a late night store smoking a joint and looking for contraceptives. If I hadn’t to leg it away from the press I would have had protection and both my girlfriend and her sister wouldn’t now be pregnant and selling their story to the News Of the World. I will of course be now resigning my Cabinet position, after 15 days I thought I’d got away  with it, 
Your Close Friend John Doe 

Monday 10 October 2011

Turning Back The Clock

Turning Back The Clock © 
By
Michael Casey

Soon we’ll be turning back the clock, Winter will be upon us, we’ll be reaching up to the high cupboards and ferreting out our duvets and blankets. We be smelling them to see if they are musty, should we put them on the washing line outside to air them, to make them fresh, or perhaps just bung them in the washing machine. Or if we are students, we’ll just spray them with deodorant and then throw them on the bed, just in time for the night of passion.

Boots catch our attention next, we look under the bed, what’s hiding there? Spiders perhaps, or if we are students in our digs in Selly Oak or wherever perhaps a mouse asleep in our boots, or dead even. So we search for the vacuum cleaner, now where did we leave it, have we got one anyway? Its hard to remember where a vacuum cleaner is when you never use it, your flatmate usually  does or did the vacuum cleaning, he was besotted with cleaning and  he always cleaned up, but that was a month ago, when you split up, when you caught him in bed with your best friend, your sister! 

We decide to go shopping and buy large tins of soup, soups are always good in Winter, and there’s always stale bread in the house as we never like throwing it away, just like Heidi in the old old story. 
So we will be doing our bit for ecology, recycling our bread, the squirrels would love it as would the birds, but no we will have all the stale bread with our Heinz tomato soup, as the nights close in we will be wrapped up all warm with our bowl of soup.

We’ll look at our pile of wood in the woodshed, do we need to do more chopping? Should we order some turf or coal. The scent of peat burning or coal fills the air, it evokes memories from childhood, the coal man coming up the entry with a sack of coal on his back, 3  sacks was what we had, a hundredweight  each, that’s 8 stones, then in the 1970s we got central heating, as we were in a smokeless zone. Watching tv together in the Autumn/Winter evenings was such a joy, dad telling us to close the curtains as it was so dark and black outside. Going around the corner to the off licence to buy sweets and crisps, and Cidrax a pop that tasted like cider, there was money on the bottles too. I used to drink the dregs and then buy mojos or blackjacks with the money; only my brother knew me, so he used to pee in the bottle first….

Time itself moved, dad would grab the clock and take it upstairs to  bed with him, “don’t have that too loud” he’d say pointed to the tv, then he’d be gone. We’d stay up to watch the horror films on ATV, Peter Tomlinson used to have a teddy bear beside him as he introduced the films, all this was when the clocks went back, back in time now as I remember, 45years ago. I hope as you all turn back the clocks you remember everything with a smile, even when you forgot and ended up an hour early for Sunday Mass.

                                    a tired looking me

Saturday 8 October 2011

Star Trek

I saw the 2009 Abrams Version of Star Trek again tonight, it was on last week, so many repeats....
I liked the idea of Spock getting the girl. Simon Pegg was great as Scottie, a great use of Simon Pegg, I like him more and more, his Hot Fuzz is a great film too.
Tonight's Star Trek looked great and the music was fab too, like classical music.
A  lot of people my age will have loved it too, all those years ago in the 60s and in black and white we watched Jim Kirk and his adventures. Star Trek is part of our lives, just as Songs Of Praise is part of others' lives.

I know Star Trek is more than science fiction, its part of the feel good generation  which came about with the Beach Boys and pop music, its all part of the same generation. As I talk I'm listening to Gerry Rafferty, that's another era too, where have the years gone. I'm sure I'll wake up one day and I'll be dead. So on that note I'll go bed, sleep of the dead.

The Sky at Night

Our back garden forms a rectangle black box with other gardens so we can always get a good view of the stars. I've always encouraged my children to look to the stars, and to see if they can see ET. The other night my daughter said she saw a shooting star. She made a wish for a big house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, not forgetting a cat and a dog and a gerbil. So I hope everybody else will be looking to the stars tonight and every night. The stars are always a free show and if we can instill into our kids the wonder for them then we've done something really great. I can remember the Apollo missions and all that, the 60s were great as a kid, Apollo, Mumhammed Ali, Beatles, much much better than todays reality tv and wanna be stars. True stars are in the Sky at Night.

 

 

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Burglar in Reverse

I was relaxing on my new bed while I read up on the EU, see I always read rivetting stuff. The alarm went off, I went downstairs but nobody was there. Had I put the alarm on incorrectly? NO. I looked in the fridge and there were 3 litres of Tesco smooth not from concentrate orange there. Was this an Irish thief? No it was a Shanghai wife, she had slipped in and out of the house in a minute, putting the orange in the fridge before disappearing up the road. Its great orange by the way IF a little expensive, but if anybody wants to donate orange to me on a regular basis, feel free .
I am Irish after all, Kerry, now I have 60 more pages to read, so if anybody wants to put Camenbert in the fridge while I'm upstairs on my BedzRus bed, Lecco, its really fab.

 Michael
 www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

Sunday 25 September 2011

Rediscovering John Denver

Rediscovering John Denver ©

By Michael Casey

A long time ago I used to listen to  John Denver, my dad used to say he had a soft voice and if John Denver was on the radio he’d raise the volume. 35 years ago maybe I’d get my giro and buy a few books to read and a John Denver album to listen to. I had saved up £30 to buy a stereo from a previous job, it was 8 watts per speaker.

So me and John had good times together, I remember I read all the Alistair Maclean books at that time, staying up late to do so, I could read a whole book in a day if I stuck at it. Living at home was great, I couldn’t afford to live anywhere else either. My dad’s charity I repaid 20 years later, I visited him every single day for 3 years, and that’s how I met the wife.

Avoiding scratching the record was a major thing in those days, and fluff on the needle was important too. It was a different sound compared to today, you may have heard that some singers and bands try and put back the scratches on records. They don’t like the pure song. Now or should I say perhaps 10 or 15 years ago I got John Denver on CD, so I could listen on a decent hifi.
Time and technology moves on so I have put my CD collection on my PC, so I can hear whatever I like while I work on the PC.
Then the latest step is to move my collection to my 10 quid MP3 player, so now while on the bus to work I can listen to JD. I  have noticed something great, because I am using earphones I can pick up things I’d never heard while listening on speakers.

People have all kinds of headgear for listening to mobiles and to listen to their music, it is very annoying when its loud and you can hear them even though you have your own earphones in. They’ll end up deaf, THEY’LL END UP DEAF. I had an ear infection for 3 weeks so now I really do appreciate my hearing and God for it too.  I’ll finish now , but do go and dig out your own John Denver, or Depeche Mode and Crowded House. Just enjoy your own music, and send me 6 lottery numbers, there’s this house I’d like to buy, its £4,000,000 biggest house build in 100years in Birmingham. I can just imagine myself listening to John Denver in luxury. Failing that there’s a nice house for 1/16 of the price, home is where the heart is, and John Denver singing!


Monday 12 September 2011

Wood or Metal, which is best

Wood or Metal, which is best ©

By  Michael Casey


We all can remember the old fashioned sprung beds made from metal, and how you needed a spanner to dismantle them. I’m talking back in the 60s now and the beds now doubt came from the 50s. Pillow cases were stripy black and white, convict style.
Mattresses were just as uninspiring. Headboards were really heavy, made of steel with a wooden piece at the top.

I remember one of the single beds in the room we all shared. The leg had broken off, so first a tin of beans, then an iron, an iron iron, one used for ironing clothes was pressed into service to support the bed in the bottom right hand corner. I suppose we were quite poor in our childhood days, but much much loved.

We also had to move things about in our lodging house next door. Painting and decorating when lodgers bailed out. My mother bought up a load of material from the fire salvage shop down the road and made ticks and pillowcases for the beds in the lodgers rooms. Mum really was a devil on the sewing machine, I’m told dad carried it from West Bromwich to Berry Street Winson Green. Singer was the  name and sewing was the game, I think we have the very same machine tucked away somewhere.

So why am I talking about beds, metal or wood today. Well you see I am heavy, very heavy, even if do look 4 stones, ok 3 stones lighter than I look. I bought a bed when I moved into this house and it lasted decades. However when I replaced the pine bed with a medal bed you can guess what happened. The metal headboard went wonky, it riggles and jiggles. Then one side of the bed just gave up all together, like an elephant doing the splits, my bed split apart, but only on the right hand side.

So what would you do? Me I remembered my childhood and reached for an iron iron, but that was not tall enough. I did have a load of photo albums gathering dust, in fact my wife wanted me to throw them away. We had compromised so I put them  in an old bag and forgot about them. Now I remembered them. Perfect to fix my new metal bed, one load of albums at the top, another load at the bottom, and finally another load in the middle. I have to be very careful as there is a radiator right next to the bed, so to avoid a boiling eruption of hot water the bed must be supported corectly.

This has been the case for a year, but I’m getting fed up with this arrangement especially as the top of the bed is shaking more and more and clatters into the chest of drawers behind. So today I had a look at beds metal and wood, online and in my local furniture shop. There was a sale item in the window and I was very tempted, I had brought a tape measure with me and the bed would fit. However when I sat on the bed it wobbled like a jelly, and it did say it was a back support mattress. So it failed the test. I tried another bed before heading upstairs to look at what was there. I did find a great bed and it was on offer, £150 for the double. If I had cash in my pocket I would have bought it. I’m like that when I buy things, so normally I don’t carry money with me, just pocket money.

I went home determined to return and buy it. But first I’d look online. I found the same item cheaper online, 30quid cheaper, the exact same  thing. Then the question is, should I buy it online or from where I saw it in the fresh so to speak.I don’t want to buy rubbish. I have decided though I’ll never buy a metal bed again. I did buy a metal one from my daughter but it is beginning to sag a bit. Pine is nice to look at too.

That’s all I have to say for tonight, wood is always better. When I was single I could just please myself but once you are married with children you have to justify every penny. Should I have a new bed for me or should I buy shoes for the girls instead, so far the shoes have won.

Thursday 1 September 2011

How do you know you are fat?


How do you know you are fat? ©
By
Michael Casey

I’m not fat, of course I’m not fat. I KNOW I’m not fat, its other people who are fat, alright?
I’m big yes, but I’m not fat, got it? Just so long as you know, I am not fat. Just because I weigh nearly 3 times as much as my wife it does not make me fat. Just because I weigh as much as my wife and our 2 kids and the mother-in-law does NOT make me fat, alright?

Does this sound familiar? Then maybe, just maybe, YOU are fat, not me but YOU.
Can YOU see your feet when you are in the shower? I can, so I’m not fat, its YOU, so there. I do have to breath in and press my hands on my tummy, but I’m not fat. When you take your clothes off the washing line and hold them up and it looks like a tent the kids can play in, then perhaps you are BIG, like me, big but NOT fat!

I weigh myself every morning on the bathroom scales, after I’ve used the W.C. and my weight is the same every day, which proves, I’m not fat. 112kilos for the Europeans reading this, or 17.5stones for English readers, for any Americans reading this a “stone” is 14pounds. So do the maths, and we say maths not math, 17.5 stones is 17x14 + 7 =245pounds, I’m as heavy as a heavyweight boxer. But its tight fat, not wobbly fat, so I look 200pounds maybe. You can all go to Amazon Kindle and buy my 4 books and you’ll see some photos too. www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com is my site and there’s more photos there as well as a lot of blog. All of which will prove that I’m NOT fat.

I don’t know about having big bones, we don’t have a dog, so how would I know, but at least my wife says I’m “medium” fat compared to the folks we saw when we were in Florida a few years ago, and compared to folks we saw in Frankfurt, which all goes to prove, I’m just big, not FAT.

So are you all agreeing with me, or do you think I a sad sad fat guy? Do you hear the same words often? Spoken by yourselves. Well my girls love me, my smallest loves me so much because my tubby is like Winnie the Pooh’s. I tell my wife she gets more value for money, pound for pound she has more husband compared to those wives who have small husbands. Compared to a regular Chinese husband, she has an absolute bargain, she has me. And I have white hair too, what more could a fashionable Shanghai girl want. Then there’s our bilingual daughters, so pretty, if she stuck with Chinese she would not have had such pretty girls. And its there that I silence her, and I’m still NOT fat.


How do you know you are fat?

How do you know you are fat? ©
By
Michael Casey

I’m not fat, of course I’m not fat. I KNOW I’m not fat, its other people who are fat, alright?
I’m big yes, but I’m not fat, got it? Just so long as you know, I am not fat. Just because I weigh nearly 3 times as much as my wife it does not make me fat. Just because I weigh as much as my wife and our 2 kids and the mother-in-law does NOT make me fat, alright?

Does this sound familiar? Then maybe, just maybe, YOU are fat, not me but YOU.
Can YOU see your feet when you are in the shower? I can, so I’m not fat, its YOU, so there. I do have to breath in and press my hands on my tummy, but I’m not fat.  When you take your clothes off the washing line and hold them up and it looks like a tent the kids can play in, then perhaps you are BIG, like me, big but NOT fat!

I weigh myself every morning on the bathroom scales, after I’ve used the W.C. and my weight is the same every day, which proves, I’m not fat. 112kilos for the Europeans reading this, or 17.5stones for English readers, for any Americans reading this a “stone” is 14pounds. So do the maths, and we say maths not math, 17.5 stones is 17x14 + 7 =245pounds, I’m as heavy as a heavyweight boxer. But its tight fat, not wobbly fat, so I look 200pounds maybe. You can all go to Amazon Kindle and buy my 4 books and you’ll see some photos too. www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com is my site and there’s more photos there as well as a lot of blog. All of which will prove that I’m NOT fat.

I don’t know about  having big bones, we don’t have a dog, so how would I know, but at least my wife says I’m “medium” fat compared to the folks we saw when we were in Florida a few years ago, and compared to folks we saw in Frankfurt, which all goes to prove, I’m just big, not FAT. 

So are you all agreeing with me, or do you think I a sad sad fat guy?  Do you hear the same words often? Spoken by yourselves. Well my girls love me, my smallest loves me so much because my tubby is like Winnie the Pooh’s. I tell my wife she gets more value for money, pound for pound she has more husband compared to those wives who have small husbands. Compared to a regular Chinese husband, she has an absolute bargain, she has me. And I have white hair too, what more could a fashionable Shanghai girl want. Then there’s our bilingual daughters, so pretty, if she stuck with Chinese she would not have had such pretty girls. And its there that I silence her, and I’m still NOT fat. 

Monday 29 August 2011

Peace Corp

Peace Corp ©
By
Michael Casey

I heard about The Peace Corp on the radio4 this morning, it was a good programme. I didn’t know it was 50years old. It did get me thinking which is a good sign for any programme. JFK was the man behind it, the thing that changes the most is the soul of the volunteer, soul being the right word. To think that your gift of 2 years of  your life, your work for 2 years is a soul changing thing, and the place where you are working benefits greatly too.

DC is on about having community service here, if it worked that would fun for the youth and society could benefit too. The thing is though, do people in general want to be the Good Samaritan to Society, or are we all so selfish nowadays? Are we ready to have our soul changed? Years ago we had a guy at work he took a year off to travel around the world, when he came back he hadn’t change an inch, so I think it was a waste of a year. It might be my Irish blood but we tell a tale when we come back from Aldi  just up the road, our Chinese Irish kids are that way too. You have to connect with the world before you can change yourself and your surroundings wherever that may be. You cannot be Peace Corp unless you travel first to yourself, the Inner Journey is the biggest and best journey.
 
The journey within means you know yourself, you know your own heart, once that is known you can set out on whatever   course you want to take. Sometimes in a life you do have the Dark Night of the Soul, but once you pass through that you do have an even greater insight into yourself. Naïve dreams give way to realities, you stop trying to run before you can walk, you plan, even if its on a piece of paper stuck to the fridge. The Peace Corp idea may have been first sketched out on the back on an envelope, but it grew and now its 50years old. Over here we have The Duke of Edinburgh scheme and The Prince’s Trust, next time I have a beer with the Duke and the Prince, or more likely in The Duke or The Prince pubs, I’ll have to ask them did they think their soul changing schemes would make a difference. If you can discover or touch your own soul then you can have a little peace, peace will have a chance and John Lennon will smile again.



flying lessons

Thursday 25 August 2011

Fashionistas Strike Again

Fashionistas Strike Again ©
By
Michael Casey

Well my daughters struck again, they knew my wife didn’t really like my black jeans. So I was encouraged to donate them. Well what can 2 small girls do with one large pair of black jeans? First of all they cut the legs off, they always said I should wear shorts in the Summer. So now I had a pair of shorts. I tried them on, one leg was higher than the other, or is it one leg was shorter than the other? Either way, one thing was certain, I now had my first ever pair of shorts.

As for the girls, my smallest now had a skirt,  it was made from one piece of one leg, there was a problem though they had managed to put a hole in the back of her new skirt; inspiration came and they slid on another piece of  leg on top of the first, now she had a more stylist skirt, with a more fashionable design. As for my bigger daughter she had turned one piece of leg into a fashion bag, she had sewn up one end and then with a thin strip of leg she had made a strap. To make it even better she had added a spangle broach to it.

I had seen the results and had given in and tried on my new shorts, while they did the catwalk in the living room, Gadaffi was forgotten, they had more important things to do, catwalk. I gave in and donated another pair of jeans, in seconds I had a 2nd pair of shorts. What will the girls produce with the 2nd donation? I’ll find out tomorrow no doubt. I did have an interlude in the afternoon sun, my daughter cut my hair, it was a bit of fun, I do have 2 weeks left before my holidays are over, so my hair will grow back before I return to work. I suppose I look like the gay designer in The Devil Loves Prada, but my hair does  grow very very thick and fast, but white.

With that thought I’m  off to bed,  maybe I’ll add photo tomorrow. For we are a Fashionista Family.

Sunday 14 August 2011

From Lenny Bruce to Innuendo

From Lenny Bruce to Innuendo ©
By
Michael Casey

I was thinking about words and their power the other night as I drifted off to sleep, Lenny Bruce’s name drifted through my mind. I was thinking about how we use words  and perhaps I was thinking about my next blog. How nowadays nobody has a vocabulary, just F(*&^ or &*^%, that’s what you get if you remonstrate with anybody under 30. I won’t bore anybody with my take on the past week’s mayhem.

I have a friend called Jim, we worked together at a 4star deluxe business hotel, Jim had worked very hard all his life,  he had a tongue on him and he knew how to use it.
The thing though was that he could say anything and could get away with it, why, because he had charm, an old rogue’s charm, so instead of getting the sack guests would say, a la Dick Emery, “you are awful”. So if you like his use of words was acceptable.

If you rarely curse then it has more power when you do. But 15 year olds can and do curse ad infinitum, so although we can say its bad in fact its more boring than bad.  In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Belgium is the worst word you can use. Perhaps we need to invent a few more words, Politician, NofW, Wall Street, Stock Market are just a few that spring to mind. If somebody has “stock marketed” you, its akin to some kind of rape, that has left you battered and bruised, spiritually, mentally, financially.
No doubt I’ll be criticised for my last sentence, which proves that people don’t bother to read things in context.

Over here in England we have Innuendo, we have camp and other styles of comedy. In USA Irony is not understood, and you even get attempts at using irony, and you get the joke backward telegraphed and the star saying “I was being Ironic”, when really they were getting it wrong. Innuendo is a good form of language. You can say so much while saying so little. I like the comedians who used it so well in the past, I like words used as weapons of laughter, think back to the Goons and Around the Horne. Kenneth Williams and Duncan and Sandy invented Camp humour BEFORE it was invented, I hope USA readers will Google all this they could make a comic discovery for themselves. 1950s, 1960s  were light years ahead of the game. You don’t need an overpaid fast talking guy looking at his own reflection, just go back to the old days, and they really were the good old days for comedy. I have been told myself that some of  my stuff leads people up the garden path, which is all you need to do.

Lenny Bruce said, “ have you ever Blaaaed a Bla, or have you ever Dooed a Do” I think that’s a line from the film. It makes me remember too just how good Dustin Hoffman was/is 2 Oscars and  loads of other stuff. The point is though that you don’y have to curse all the time, I think its just boring and lazy. I did a post called Metaphor This a few weeks ago, that proves that language is a balloon that can be twisted this way and that way to form a giraffe.

A sex scene when written down does not need to be graphic, a metaphor can be far funnier. He touched the scales of justice, he adjusted the weights, he was pleased with the result, law was duly served, he pleaded his innocence, but he felt the full force of justice, and he was fully processed, then he was taken down to the cells, he was relieved. That’s how I showed Romance between a lawyer and a milkman/baker in my novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. I’m no Jilly Cooper you can go to Amazon Kindle and Judge Me for yourselves.

Yes I do curse on occasion and when I write my actors may curse too, but words are like a cloak, they are clothes for my actors, and words show more Fashion and Class than some moron who can only “Daa a daa,” and doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.

Saturday 13 August 2011

Why is everything getting smaller?

Why is everything getting smaller and smaller? I bought a personal DAB radio 6years ago and it was as big as a pack of fags. 2 days ago I got an MP3 player from Amazon (£13.50 a bargain)_ and that is about the size of my thumb, or smaller than a box of matches. You can get 600 or so tracks on it AND it has an FM radio. You do need a magnifying glass to read the LCD display, luckily I do have one. I'm old enough to remember the windup gramaphone player we had, this was as big as  a small fridge, I even remember breaking it up when it ceased working. So from the size of a fridge to a box of matches in one lifetime. 

For more go to www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

 or Amazon Kindle where 4 of my offerings are for sale. 

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Fridge Family Casey

Fridge Family Casey ©

By

Michael Casey

 

Our fridge died on us. My wife had been nagging for ages about our fridge, finally I gave in. I agreed we needed a new fridge, and we could afford it.

So I started looking on the Internet to see where are the bargains were. Argos, Currys, Comet, John Lewis, these were the target sites, not to mention loads of others the google search gave us. But with something like a fridge, or rather a Frost Free Fridge Freezer, you really have to go to the shops and look at the offers.

So Sunday was Family Fridge Day. It began with my wife and girls going to their church, with a promise of a visit to Costco afterwards. I hadn’t decided which of my 3 churches to go to, it all depends on how tired or lazy I am, that’s why I’m here there and everywhere, so I have 3 priests praying for me. My wife and the girls go to the C of E while I stick with the Catholics. I forced myself to go to my local church around the corner, this is where our Topol look alike priest sings to us. Don’t take my word, go and attend.

My wife was surprised when she returned that I’d been out to Mass, and why had she returned instead of directly going to Costco, the simple reason, what did I have in my pocket? My wallet. So off the family went to Costco.

I like Costco because you can have a beef hotdog and a soda, with soda refill for only £1.50, yes really. While we were there we spotted a fridge freezer, so we had a look, trying all the doors and so on. There was one problem, we have a galley kitchen so we had to think, would the door open fully, if it couldn’t then we

couldn‘t buy it. We bought our stuff from Costco and I enjoyed the hotdog.

Next we were off to Wing Wip, he’s a major Chinese food hypermarket, several of my wife’s friends work there, Mr Ying Yip himself, one of the brothers waved us bye bye as we left the store. I’m told "byebye" is originally a Chinese word.

Afterwards we went to Sainsbury’s in Selly Oak, which is a student area, next to Birmingham University. There my wife met more or her friends who happened to be shopping.

So the next port of call was over the dangerous road behind Sainsbury’s that’s where Comet and Currys and Homebase are.

We looked up and down the aisles we had a good play with the fridges. Ma, my mother-in-law in Shanghai had admonished us to get a big fridge because the kids were growing and would want more food very soon. There was a nice big Indesit a silver colour, immediately we agreed on that. But we still needed to look in the shop next door. So that’s what we did, in the next shop my wife eyed a very big Bosch which blew the budget out of the water. So we looked at it and pulled and pushed all the drawers and doors open and closed. Then we went to Homebase but they don’t have fridges in the shop, only online.

The final problem was the lack of space in our galley kitchen, really we needed a tape measure to measure from the back of the fridge to the door wide open position. So we thought we’d come back the next day with our measurements and compare to what was in the shop. These are the things the Shanghai Family Casey have to do out of love and madness. I suppose we are like the Adams Family when we hit the shops.

Safely back home we decided to take our measurements down, once we had these we were half way home. But I don’t know about you but wouldn’t it be easier to just do it online? So armed with the 55cm measurement we went searching online. Hey presto we found an Indesit Frost Free Fridge Freezer that matched our 55cm figure. To be honest it was the very same fridge I had suggested a couple of days before, only I’d been overruled, which meant the Adams Family had to go playing hide and seek while we looked for a fridge.

Family meeting was held and our two girls looked at the Dixon’s offer. Yes that was the one. I hit return and bought the fridge freezer, frost free too. That was Sunday, though it felt not like a Sunday more like a Bank Holiday, a family day out while we looked at fridges.

Today Tuesday, the day after tomorrow, the lads rung us up early and said they’d be with us in 10 minutes. Then hey presto they appeared with the new frost free fridge freezer, our Indesit. They stripped all the packaging away in the street and they carried in the new fridge,

a bit like undertakers, but carrying in instead of out. They did carry away our old fridge, and in a matter of 10 mins we had a new addition to the family.

Our girls could not wait to try out the new super freezer, so after 4 hours, which is the wait time before you can switch on a new freezer, I was told this, I didn’t know this. So once it was ready me and the girls made up some blackcurrant squash and poured it into the 24 ice cube slots. They were impatient to see the results of their experiment, several times they opened and closed the fast freezer box. Finally all was revealed, we had cracked it, we had flavoured ice cubes!

The girls say they have lots to grow now, as they measure their height against the fridge. Doesn’t everybody’s kids, or is it in this Shanghai Casey’s family only? The new fridge is 1.74 metres, or up to my eyebrows so IF the girls grow that tall then they will be Models, they are pretty enough already, the wife could have been a model too, only she wasn’t tall enough, and turned down a chance to be a model for childs’ clothes in Shanghai.

How she married me is another story, I think it was my ability to chose fridges that swung it for me.

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Cooling Off

Its really hot here in Sunny Birmingham.

I was thinking of filling the bath with beer and lying in it. I could have a couple of straws to quench my thirst.

I could then get my Shanghai wife to top up the beer by throwing buckets of beer all over me.

I could get the neighbour's dog to wag its tail to cool me down.

How much beer would it take to fill the bath.

Or maybe I could just use double strenghth squash as  my bath filler.

Though beer would be best for my hair, beer shampoo is something the girls know about.

I've never tried orange squash shampoo, but it would be far cheaper than any celebrity hairdresser's products.

Hang on, is that the icecream van outside.

I just bought 20 99s so if I rub them all over my body I'll cool down for sure. When the cold dissipates the neighbour's dog can lick it all off, maybe a few cats too.

The wife has just shouted to me, she's filled the bath with beer, I can jump in now, all the Nectar points have finally come in useful

So SPLASH.

Thursday 28 July 2011

Waiting In

Waiting IN ©

By

Michael Casey

We all wait in for workmen or gas man to come and read the meter or whatever, and one thing can be certain, they never but never turn up on time. Waiting for a parcel or a home purchase delivery can also mean waiting forever.

You wait and you wait, you will the man to arrive, you hope and you hope that it will arrive, you may even pray, the first time in years. Dear God make the DHL, the UPS or the Royal Mail man arrive, I really am looking forward to enjoying my latest lump of plastic gismo which will make my life worthwhile. How I lived without it I’ll never know, I’m holding in my pee so I don’t have to go, I don’t want to miss the delivery man again. Once I was in the bathroom and I missed him and then it was 3 more days before I got my stuff.

This week we had a deliveryman convention, the van stopped and my wife was so happy jumping for joy, only it wasn’t for us it was for a neighbour. A huge big thing, the delivery man was just wanting to offload it, any house would do, so long as he gets a scribble on the form or the  new electronic machine they all now use. So reluctantly my wife was palmed off with somebody else’s rubbish and not her own.

My wife was waiting for a Sat Nav, she’d looked everywhere online, and they were sold out, Tom Tom had gone gone gone. So finally she found Best Buy and they were the only place with stock and 10quid less than anywhere else, and a  10quid voucher too. So she was using tom toms to tell the world where to shop. As for me I spotted a Clarks online sale, so while she waited for a Tom Tom I was waiting for a pair of ½ price G fitting size 10 shoes. We were taking bets on whose stuff would arrive first.

I won the bet and danced around the living room with my ever so light and comfy shoes. My wife just heckled from a settee. I told her that the Sat Nav was delayed because the courier could not find our house.  The next day, very late in the afternoon her treasure arrived, she had her Tom Tom, and why is Tom Tom called Tom Tom, did the inventor have a stutter, or was the product so good it was named twice the same as New York New York.

I was given a 2 hour lecture or is it a joyful nag on the joys of Sat Navs, our kids thought it was a good toy too, it even talks to you, turn left, turn right. Almost as good as a mother-in-law in the back of a car.
I decided to take refuge in another room and wait for another pair of shoes. I hadn’t ordered any more, I was just making an excuse to avoid the wife’s advertising for Tom Tom.  My waiting in was really waiting for her joy to end. I did ask her though could the Tom Tom give a route to Ma in Shanghai. 


I hate Pretentious Writers, or those who just cannot write

I hate Pretentious Writers, or those who just cannot write 4 years studying English does NOT make you a writer I  LISTENED for 20 years, or ...