The Cat's away the mice will play

The Cat’s away the mice will play©

By Michael Casey

Mum is off to London in the morning for training for her new job. So what will me and the girls be up to? Haven’t decided yet, but its half term too, so staying up late watching films or the MTV channels beckons.

We watch loads of films already, we must have 40plus on our Sky+ box. But we’ll have fun and sweets, and maybe an illegal bag of chips or a kebab. Remember the girls follow Chinese diet, even though Shanghai and grannie is 5000miles away or 8000km if you are metric. So non-Chinese food is a treat.

We like Elementary and Body of Proof, so that’ll be on the list for tv shows to watch. Or Coraline for the 20^th time. Stardust will be on the Disney channel so that’ll be watched again for the 10^th time. Stardust has a name on the crew who’s reading something of mine, but that’s another story.

So getting up late and feeding the girls will be the start. Piano practice in return for a treat afterwards. In the army you have to do 100 push ups, in our house you have to read 200pages. Only then can you move forward to fun. Monopoly might put in an appearance , just as it did 45 years ago. I’m recreating the fun and love that I had as a child so that the girls will do the same when they are parents themselves. Monopoly down the generations.

I do of course have to tell them that orange juice is bad for them, otherwise they’d steal all my juice. Phycology is always in the parent’s armoury, or if you prefer how to lie to children for the sake of your own peace and quiet. They mustn’t do x y or z or their nose might drop off, or if the tv is too loud their ears might drop off.

Parent’s always say these things, just watch Disney channel if you don’t believe me. Once the children are fed and watered you can settle down together to enjoy a show on the box. Is it going to be live show as my Shanghai wife calls it, or one of 40 programs recorded on the Sky+ box. In a way we are spoilt for choice. 

Then there are the ads, 3 minutes of ads on non BBC channels. At least it means I can keep up with the news or weather while the ads are on.

Then there are the toilet breaks because we have had too much drinking chocolate. At least Sky+ has live pause so all toilet emergencies can be fitted in. Or when mum rings us from London we can pause the tv while we chat with her.

Then satisfied with our tv watching I can hunt the girls to bed while I watch the press preview. So I assume everybody reading this will be doing the exact same thing. The only difference is that everybody else will be eating Chinese as a treat, but chez nous it’ll be chips with everything. Happy Half Term everybody.

Waiting for Saint Jude's Storm

Waiting for Saint Jude Storm ©

By Michael Casey

It feels as if we are Americans now, we have a storm coming and it has a name. Saint Jude. I had to look at my religious calendar to my right before I saw where Jude had come from. 

In 30mins it will be Monday 28^th  and that makes it Saint Jude’s day. I got the calendar for free I should add, just as we have a Chinese religious calendar in the kitchen, handy for all the kids activities.

I’ve put everything that can fly away, so that it doesn’t. I’ve even picked up a few stray cola cans from the street, so I’ve done my best to keep us safe. My father actually saved the undertaker’s son’s life, and all because of a stray cola can.

The can had been squashed by traffic, then as the undertaker’s son was crossing the road  a beer wagon from the brewery had run over it and sent it flying, cutting the undertaker’s son on the leg, so he was flat on his back in the street. Just then another beer wagon was thundering down the road with beer barrels rattling. The sun would have set for this son. Only my dad stepped into the road and dragged the son to safety.

I put this story as part of the fiction , into The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker my first book. This all happened 25 years ago and more. When my father died years later the Undertaker’s son was able to thank my father properly, as only an Undertaker can. In death my dad looked 10 years younger, thanks to the son he saved.

So now the clock is ticking and we hope and pray Birmingham and the rest of the country are spared from the wrath of Saint Jude. My mum used to shake Holy Water into the storm asking it to be quiet. I’m sure many prayers are being said, by many Faiths an none, in number 10 too, we could all do without this storm.

We are all united though, we’ll look after our old nan and make sure we keep all our kids out of harm’s way. One death is one too many, and that death has already been reported. So wrap up tight and stay home, lose 3 hours pay and play with the kids. Only when the BBC weather says the worse is over, then venture out.

For tomorrow is another day, and let’s hope Saint Jude does the impossible, keeps us all out of harms way.

All you need is love, or I'm not in love

All you need is love, or I'm not in love ©

By Michael Casey      

 I was looking through all the newspapers online, as I always do,  I stumbled over this piece in The Guardian. It was all about Japan, their low birth rate  and how in the future their population could drop by 30%. From 120m to 80m. So what you may ask?  In terms of economic affects you could lose your position in World Trade. Then who will look after the old in future, they’ll be no money in the kitty to pay for the top heavy demographic, nor enough carers to go around.

The problem in Japan and it is a problem is that the youth, and I mean the under 40s, they don’t want to be troubled by sex, love and relationships. Being single has too many benefits, such as career and fun. In Japan the norm was stay at home mum once the baby arrived, and now nobody can afford that life. Two wages are needed to have a good life, so marriage is a bad deal over there.

What is worse though is the fact people don’t want to kiss and cuddle and more anymore. Manga games, having fun, going out with the girls, or with the boys has so few complications. So the desire to hold hands in the rain, to make babies or even just practice making babies is dying out, as is population growth.

In Ireland they call it “the urge” and it gets you in the end, and you start your family, in my own case when I got past 40. My relatives too were over 40 when “the urge” caught up with them, by which time we all had enough money saved so we could all afford to start a family.

Jump to Japan, and I don’t wanna hold your hand, I’m not in love, big boys don’t cry, and why? The Guardian piece mentioned how lack of a religious aspect meant people did not have any “pressure” to make happy families. So freedom to do their own thing leads to a single life for me, as happy as can be.

I can understand this especially from a female viewpoint, now in Japan females can be as free as a bird, but for men and women this can lead to crash landings. Yes you can have a sex takeaway, dial a sex, or whatever you want or need, but in the end this is always so empty and worthless. In the article in the Guardian the reporter even met people who said holding hands almost sickened them. I don’t wanna hold your hand.

Intimacy has been taken off the menu, replaced by technology, when I fall in love with you it will be forever, replaced by forever alone. Stand by your man, replaced by Annie get your gun, he’s a low down bum. Love is all you need, love conquers all, Cinderella loses her shoe at the ball, only nobody is interested in picking it up.

This really does sadden me, the human spirit has been replaced by nothing, nothing, a vacuum. In space nobody can hear you scream, not even noticing the smile, the curves of a woman, the laughter in her voice. Not noticing a man and how badly he shaves, not interested in even talking to him, he is worthless.

Japan needs to finds its soul again, perhaps they need to read my rubbish. Love is a home, listening to each other, laughing together, leaning close together, conspiring together. Two becoming one, and then maybe three or four.

Perhaps we should bring the Rose of Trallee to Tokyo or line dancing. Dancing frees the spirit  and brings us all to life.  Perhaps they need some wild Irish music and Stella Artois. I’ve never been to Toyko but I’d love the chance to teach them Irish dancing, which will lead to romancing.

Alarm Clock

Alarm Clock ©

By

Michael Casey

The alarm clock sounds and you curse, it cannot be morning already, it’s still dark outside. It’s always dark outside, you had blackout curtains fitted because of all the streetlights, but you forgot about that. So you stumble in the darkness to switch off the alarm clock. Only you trip over the book by your bed and stumble forwards and grab the curtains to stop yourself falling over. Bringing the curtains down off the rail, so you are covered like a parrot’s cage.

I am the alarm clock in our house, my daughter sleeps like the dead. I’m the furthest away from her clock in my room down the landing, or should I say her phone clock. So I shout “ get out of bed sleepy head” only the clock or rather phones still chimes on. So I have to get out for the comfort of my bed, to wake her up. Her school starts early so I have to raise my “dead daughter” so she can eat and shower before school.

Then I can go back to my warm bed for a while, until I have to wake the other daughter. Schooldays mean school runs, which is a  4  mile walk a day, I used to do 5 miles a day when I worked at CPNEC hotel, so this is less.

People have different attitudes to getting out of bed, do you curse and ignore  the alarm?  Or do you switch it off and have just 5 more minutes, which ends up as 30 minutes, and you are a stripper in reverse as you leave the house and run for the bus, because you are late.

I love watches as you all know, is it because of this that I have a good wake up attitude? Am I part watch? Or part clock? I just get out of bed, and get on that bus to work. Luckily I’ve always lived close to town, so it’s not a long journey, which allows me 30mins to an hour more sleep than those who live further out of town.

Being a dad now I try and encourage the girls to be organised, have the clothes and schoolbag ready, no last minute things. Then in fact you can have a lazy breakfast and catch that bus. If somebody is picking you up you are all set and ready to go out the door. Never keep anybody waiting, and always be on time. Or is that old fashioned nowadays?

If you are excited and about to go to Shanghai, then you will wake up on time and early even. You have to or you will miss that plane. Your body, or rather your brain tells you to get out of bed, fun and adventure beckons. Though if you were on Death Row, you just wish tomorrow never comes, you don’t want to wake up. Which is exactly what does happen, after you wake up, you’ll never wake up again, thanks to the executioner.

So how do you help your daughters to wake up, you have 3 alarm clocks. The radio, the phone and the Winnie the Pooh alarm clock. Oh I forgot there is a 4^th alarm clock, me, DAD.  As the girls sleep like hibernating bears, so all 3 clocks sound and it’s only the ballerina like steps of mine as I dance along the landing that actually wakes them up.

Enjoy the silence

Enjoy the Silence ©

By Michael Casey

Depeche Mode are singing and the song is “Enjoy the Silence” so I’m writing on the same theme. The girls are out, church first now out in town, celebrating mum’s new job no doubt. If I’m lucky they’ll bring back some leftovers from the food they are tucking into.

So I’m enjoying the silence, me and my music on the computer. Do you enjoy silence? In a way it’ nice but in another way it’s just too silent, hence the music. Silence is too clean, Depeche Mode have moved on to that track now, clean. Having Irish blood, silence is meant to be filled, silence is to be avoided.

Yes it’s nice to be quiet but then silence drags on. I think Scandinavians enjoy the silence or so we are told, but you never know what goes on in those saunas. Why are you so silent in the first place?

They say people are quiet because they have something to hide, or because the cat has got their tongue. Or because they have been demoted, or pushed sideways out of the way. Now they have had a sock put in it, they  have been silenced. Their face has dropped,  their smirk has wiped off their face. They have been forcibly silenced.

Silence does speak volumes. We have been chirping away, now we are quiet, as if somebody is dead. Silence is golden or so they say. Shut UP! We used to tell our singing sister. Didn’t work, 45years on and still she’s singing. My own girls are both in a choir, so music always fills the air.

Silence can bring us closer to our God, but so can swearing at him, the boils have to be lanced, if cursing works then use it. We get things off our chest, then we may breakdown and cry, but then in the silence afterwards we are at peace.

Me right now, the music has stopped, I can hear the clock ticking on the shelf to my right. Its company for me, in the other room the chiming clock chimes again, its 2.45pm. The tick and the tock are breaths breaking down the silence into manageable parts. If each tick and each tock  lasted 10 seconds or more then the silence would be too long, we’d be holding our breath till the next one came along.

Time does fly when you enjoy yourself, when you are not enjoying yourself then you look at your watch or the clock constantly. It seems forever for your food to arrive, for the train to come, for the bus to get you home. Then once you are together again with the love of your life, then all the minutes and seconds and even hours are forgot.

You can come home and just hold hands with your lover, your mother, your old dad, your sister home from Brazil. Holding hands and smiling, enjoying the silence together. Silence is whatever you want it to be, silence is not silence. Silence is a breath.

me and the girls 8 years ago

Being Discovered, Being Lost, Being Found

Being Discovered, Being Lost, Being Found ©

By Michael Casey

Paddington Bear was found at a train  station that’s how he got his name, though my small daughter probably knows more about this than me. She knows all about Winnie The Pooh too. She says she wants to be a Bear scientist when she grows up, my belly does remind her of a panda too.

It’s all about beginnings really, we all start as nothing and then we become something, then we die and are nothing for ever. I had a nice comment on my Wordpress site while I was deleting the spam. I should tell the spammers only I see their rubbish then its deleted in seconds, so why waste your time, nobody reads it, they cannot even see it.

But back to the nice comment, thank you very much for it. The idea of all the posts is to influence people to go and buy ebooks,  just look for my fat face in shades, Amazon Kindle world-wide. I don’t really write with dollar signs in my eyes, or pound signs either, I am in Birmingham England after all. I write because now after all these years its part of me.

You can be discovered by one person and they pass it on, then finally you get noticed and you finally get a few sales. You persevere with the emails and chances and half chances. Mandy.com is a good site, it offers Hope for writers and all sorts of media people. That’s how I heard about film producers, paying and non- paying, you can look for yourselves.

You have to wait a long time for any feedback from anywhere, in the old days it was six weeks. You’d post your treasure to a publisher and wait and wait and wait. Then you’d get your bulky A3 sized envelope back, a note attached “thank you for your pieces of paper.”

Can you face this kind of rejection? At least your bedroom or wherever you write is now artistically decorated, with rejection letters pasted to the wall like wallpaper. You may win a Turner Prize for your wall, along with your crumpled bed.

You may get a few fans who take your feed, or put links on their websites. Or more likely you get strange people gravitating to you. Facebook is a good tool, but you also get total strangers wanting to friend you. My own FB has died as I cannot remember the security question, and you cannot contact FB if you cannot get in in the first place. This is like the man who was declared Legally Dead, and cannot get it overturned in the USA  Courts.

Coming back to Mandy.com  there is a new publisher looking for writers, so I’ve send an email, whether I get a reply or whether they like my stuff is another matter. Life IS so random, which does make it more interesting. How do you describe your writing, your stuff? That can be the hardest thing to do.

Are you a comic writer, and remember in England this means humorous, or do you write Batman comics? Are you spiritual or thoughtful, is it horror or suspense, or just out and out sex? You don’t think of these things when you write, because you just write.

Americans go on courses to learn to write, and end up writing exactly like their teachers. Spend time reading and listening to speech radio is my advice. I did 20 years of listening, and not to mention reading by the yard before picking up a pen.

Reporters have the I’m so cool and bored style of reporting which I consider to be rubbish. Your own ego should be in the trash when you are reporting. If you are commenting that’s another thing. A reporter is passing on a story, he is like a postman. It is a complicated thing, I’d need a lot of space to explain,  or perhaps I should make a video.

My title refers to being lost and being found. When you find your style that IS a big day. There is a lot of rubbish style out there, just be yourself, write as if you are holding a conversation. That’s how I do it, be natural. People get stiff when they are talking in front of people, they have to learn how to relax and not blush in public. Writing is exactly the same.

I don’t know about you but when I watch tv, Body of Proof being a family favourite, I spot the bad phrasing, is this a bad habit? Or because I write, so I spot things? There is natural speech and there is speech the writers write.

Some phrases are so obviously not how really people speak. If you walk everywhere as I do, I hear natural speech at the bus stop, in the school yard and in the store. I use the word “store” because I assume that the few readers I have are in USA. If I heard the word store instead of shop I know that one word is in England and another in USA. “Have a nice day” is never used in England, in USA it’s almost  like a curse, it’s always used but never meant.

So choice of words gives the game away. Just as our accents give away our background, and our vocabulary or lack of it gives away our education. Though I will say the nicest people can be the roughest and toughest SOBs, they are more useful on a desert island.

People can try too hard with words, when a hug in the street can say far far more than all the words in Webster’s Dictionary. Having received a hug in the street yesterday, I know this to be so so true. So do I want to be discovered? Yes, it would be nice to know I haven’t been talking to myself all these years.

It would be nice if more people liked my writing style, and the content too. It would be nice to be able to afford to move house and buy a cat for my girls and a dog called Subway.

Update 08/oct/2013 90 seconds with Michael

Well I have now recorded 100 of my 500+ short pieces of writing. They can be found at www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com and there are some on michaelgcasey.tumblr.com

I will not load any more to cyber space. IF you are a Radio person DO get in touch.

here's my pitch again.

Hello , how about a Verbal Cartoon for   RADIO

I grew up listening to the radio, we all used to hide under the blankets and listen when we should have been fast asleep. Radio did change my life, a lodger gave us a radio when he had to go back to Ireland to look after his sick mum. In fact he left all his stuff and caught the first boat home. Months later he came back to see us and said me and my brother could have his old Bush radio. I spent 20 years listening to radio. That and being afraid of Mr Gallagher when I was 8 changed my life, and improved my intellect.

Today after 20 years of radio and 25 years of writing, 45 years in total I think I'm a good writer, and thank God so do others. Yes I'm 54 now, in my head I'm 20, though my wife would say 12.

I met my Shanghai wife in the old people's home, she was cleaning my dad's room. I was positively vetted by a Chinese Ballet dancer from the Birmingham Royal Ballet, now we are married with 2 bilingual daughters. I am the token male and English speaker in the family.

Now here's a few samples, what I'd like to do would be to read my shorts/blogs on your radio. Each piece is about 90 seconds long, 90 seconds with Michael is the idea, simple idea. I have gained 12,103 views on Funny or Die for a sample chapter of Tears for a Butcher which will be my 6th book. Only the other day a publisher said my book of shorts 300 and Not OUT was very funny. In fact I must have 500 shorts, enough for over a year. My  6 books are on Amazon Kindle

 http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

 and

www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com  is my site.

Here's the samples for radio or print.

Let There Be Light ©

 By Michael Casey

Let my tears be my words

Let the candle light be my eyes

Let the flowers in bloom be my lips

Let their scent be my blood

Let the wind be my breath

Let clouds be my mood

Let children’s laughter be my hope

Let widows’ sighs be my conscience

Let a stranger’s prayers be my delight

Let the bees be my wisdom

Let the trees be my strength

Let my patience reach to the stars

Let me be always remembered in your prayers

Sleepover©

By

Michael Casey

Sleepover is exactly that, your sleep is over, you have laughing kids invading your house, and driving you out of your minds. Well not always, but it is very distracting. You can’t remember what you were doing and where has that file gone on the computer. This is the 2nd time I’m telling this story, why, because my Word, or upon my word, the story died or rather Word did not close properly, so now you’re getting something different.

Total strangers, or strangers to you arrive at the house and kind of invade it for a night. You do shout up the stairs, keep them out of my room. Not because you have anything worth stealing, but they are stealing your privacy, and that’s all you have left if you have daughters in your house.

Then the smell of nail varnish drifts down the stairs and permeates everywhere, its worse than mustard gas from the Great War. You scream up the stairs, open all the windows fully, what about your room, dad? Especially mine.

Its then that your inner sanctum is breached as they bring their friends to help them open the window. They see the Teddy Bear that you’ve had since you were 6 years old, the invader laughs. She also sees the deep heat by your bed, And he complains about nail varnish.

Dinner time arrives and you have to feed the cuckoo, only she doesn’t eat this or she doesn’t eat that, on principle. So you say, you’ll have to stave then. Your daughter, the host, is horrified, so you relent and flick a pound coin at them, cholesterol free oil used to make the chips. So a compromise is achieved.

You put Sky Sports on to watch the match, they say Qatar is going to build underground stadia, novel idea. You are settling down to see Rooney when they arrive back chip laden. Her friend just loves the ballet and Sky Arts has Bolshoi on, so could they please please watch that. You say you’ll record it for them. But you are as bad as a puppy murderer even for suggesting it.

So being a nice dad you let them watch the ballet on your 46inch tv, while you retreat to watch the match on the laptop upstairs. They never tell you about this at parenting classes, just how to change nappies. Let’s hope William and Kate are told.

After the ballet they retreat upstairs for girlie music, and what were you doing in their room on the laptop. Didn’t you know you are just a dad not allowed in the inner sanctum. The Hits is switched on  their dab radio at volume 13, you retreat to watch the after match talk on the big screen.

Later its bath time, so you have to wait 2 hours for all the girls in your house, including the cuckoo, to pollute the bathroom before you a mere dad, and bill payer, can have a shave. Only your last razor has been used to save somebody’s legs.

So everybody goes to bed, all is well, holding your teddy bear, you sleep soundly. Until 3am, when a banshee screaming wakes you, your wife and all the neighbours. It’s the cuckoo, she’s having a nightmare, it must be the chips, and the cholesterol free oil from them. Or half waking up and forgetting where she was.

So remembering to put on your dressing gown you have to calm everybody down, and answer the door, to the police, as the neighbour from neighbourhood watch has rung them. So the police come in and have a look. Flatulence is written down in the Police note book. As you let the police out the house again your smallest daughter hands you your teddy bear, its ok dad, it’s only a sleepover.

  

How do Men Shop? ©

By Michael Casey

There is a difference between Men and Women, and thank God for it. But how do men shop? Shopping for men is about getting what you need, my shoes have a hole in them so I’ll go to the shop and buy another pair. A man will buy a new pair of shoes that are exactly the same as his old pair of shoes, or if he’s being adventurous he’ll have a pair of shoes which are exactly the same but with grey laces and not black. Now to a man this is being fashion conscious. If a man wants a new pair of trousers he just goes to the shop and sees if they have his leg/waist size and then tries them on, making sure they don’t split when he bends over and that his package is not squeezed. If a man needs a suit he checks the trousers before putting on the jacket, the jacket must be able to be done up without his belly exploding the buttons off. A man will never button up his suit jacket, but he needs to know that the buttons won’t fly off and hit anybody in the eye, if ever he does.

If a man needs a shirt he checks the neck size, 18.5 in my case, and then he sees if its full fit or not. Then he buys 5 shirts exactly the same all  in plastic . For a lazy shopper he’ll go straight to Slaters and get what he wants. In and out in 30 mins for everything. Then he’ll go to the pub and meet his mates and have one pint too many and leave all his shopping in the Queens Tavern. Luckily they are honest there and his shopping is saved, otherwise he’s have to waste 30mins in Slaters, before going back to the pub.

This is basically the difference between men and women. Woman shop, men pick up clothes or whatever like an order picker does, without any passion.  A man gets home and puts his shopping away and forgets about it. Just like in the film The Fly where the man’s wardrobe contains suits all the same colour, clothes are just a thing so they are all uniform.

As for women shopping s something different, the clothes have to be tried on and they must make the woman look perfect, her bum or boobs mustn’t be to big or too small, everything should be right. To help the woman chose her clothes she brings two or three mates or her children with her. Her man is forced to come too, but he plugs Radio5 Live into his ear and listens to the football  while she is choosing. Men know 5 colours, red, blue, red, green, yellow or maybe one or two more; as for a woman there are at least 50 colours, and just as the eskimos have 30 words for snow a woman has 10 words for each colour and its hews.

This brave man, or am I stupid, I just give my wife the debit card and say leave me in peace, so she goes off with a smile with the girls with her, they are young Fashionistas after all. I decided years ago what a wife needed was space to shop and not constant looks at my watch. So that’s what she does and her bulging wardrobe will testify to the wisdom of my decision. When a woman comes home its 2 hours of mix and match to make sure that the new clothes match the old clothes, the husband tries to watch the big match on tv but his wife is prancing around the living room asking “does my bum show” and various other questions. It’s a penalty, and you sit on the edge of your seat, the wife appears and blocks your view, so you miss seeing why  your side was relegated. Normal life in homes up and down the country.

The next day you watch the match again in peace, you remembered to record it on Sky+ and as for the wife she’s gone back to the shop to return ½ of what she bought because it doesn’t match her shoes. And it’s your fault because you wouldn’t give her your debit card again so she could buy cheap £100 shoes.

All Things Bright and Beautiful ©

 By Michael Casey

I haven’t written a non-pain piece in a while, so I’ll try and forget the pain and write something new. We’ve just had the half time holidays and my girls have been playing “shop-girls” as they call it. They even have a sign on their bedroom door saying “open” or “closed”. They steal my wife’s clothes and prance about upstairs. Our eldest daughter has bigger feet than my wife now so that’s a relief as she cannot steal my wife’s shoes any more, but it does not prevent her younger sister from wearing mum’s shoes. There is also the matter of the beret with silver sequins, that’s an absolute Fashion Must.

Me, I’m not fashionable at all, three girls in the house is enough, if I gave in to them they’d be beading my eye brows, I do wear pink on occasions, so that’s as far as I go. If I were maybe 3 stones lighter I’d try other things, I did see a nice cord jacket in Cotton Traders 48R, it was bright blue, Kingfisher Blue, my girls called it a “Clown Jacket”. With encouragement like that what am I supposed to do? I did say if I win Euro millions I WILL buy the jacket. My wife has a nice light brown one, although as she is a woman there will be a more accurate colour name, men don’t do colours. If you think of it its black and white, blue, green, orange as far as men go, but women at least another 40 names for colours. As far as my hair goes, its silver, though a friend used to say I was an old man with white hair. As the colour of our hair change it’s the 7 ages of man.

I remember Ali saying why wasn’t it “Whitemail” instead of blackmail. We are in the Pink if we have good health, I long to be back in the pink myself. We say we hope be back in the black not in the red when we do company accounts, we look for the silver linings. We look look look for the rainbow as the song goes, we may find the crock of gold, all our troubles may be over and we can pack them up in the old kit bag. Hope springs up within us, it is now Spring after all, and as Chance the Gardener said “in the Spring there will be growth.”

Cheese and Chorizo ©

By Michael Casey

The thing about girls is that they steal your stuff, you think they are nice and sweet smelling, but they are not. If they get up before you they’ll raid your side of the fridge and eat your cheese and chorizo. Cheese and chorizo on toast, with hot chocolate to follow, this is how your daughters treat you. This is how my girls treat me.

Yesterday mum bought biscuits, and did she share them? NO. The girls got some but I got none. They were  the ones I really like, its always the ones you really like. I looked high and low, just like an Ah Ha song, but nothing. JJ the wife just laughed at me as I went from pillar to post looking for a biscuit, the Tunnock ones. See this is how the 3 girls in my life treat me, I am biscuitless. Finally after much derision my small daughter showed me  where the biscuits were, a new hiding place, that’s why I could not find them. So I was victorious, I sneaked a biscuit into my pocket and slipped away to eat it in peace.

Shoes are a big thing, so our small daughter walks around the house in mum’s shoes, mine are too big so thankfully they are left alone. However having two daughters who like Textiles, which is the fancy word from school for sewing and making things. If they like textiles then your clothes are not safe, they drag a shirt or two out of the wardrobe and say they want to turn it into something. Jumpers are not safe either, they can cut them down to make a dress  or even a handbag. And as for needles, it’s like having a porcupine in the family, DANGER. You only realise that after you have sat on a needle or two, the wife just says its free acupuncture, no need to asked Dr Hu to pay us a visit, and yes he really is Dr Hu, not Dr Who, but Dr Hu.

Now that our 11year old is 5feet tall, as big as mum, she wants to wear her clothes, but you can imagine what kind of clothes a Shanghai girl wears. So there is debate in Chinese, I cannot understand a word, but SANINGONGA is heard quite often which means no. Which also means my girls, our girls will return to steal from my wardrobe again. In a way it’s like having moths, but instead of holes in your clothes, entire items just disappear. BUT it’s not just the girls, its mum too, she’ll decide that the Fashion Police would not like this item or that item, so it  disappears. When do I find out? Never, or nearly never, until I walk past a charity shop and see a tent sized item in the window, it’s my clothes.

So if you want to keep the clothes on your back, don’t have daughters. If  you want your favourite food safe in your side of the fridge, the none Chinese side of the fridge, then don’t have daughters. If you want to save your pennies, don’t have a Shanghai wife. But then life would be boring, just make sure you look before you sit.

From A to B from Sat Nav to Blocked Sink  ©

By Michael Casey

Well I hope you are all fine this morning. For us the Sat Nav debate continues.

In the old days a Black Taxi would not be seen using an AtoZ, it was beneath his dignity. He'd done the Knowledge and it was all up there in his head. Jack Rozenthal wrote a great play about it, was it 30years ago? Maureen Lipman was his real wife.

Delivery drivers have and egg and bacon butty in one hand dripping egg on to the AtoZ in their other hand while they try and deliver a chest of drawers, with 5 days growth of beard for good measure.

Bus drivers know their route, so once they've done it a while its automatic, they know what they are doing. All they have to do is put up with kids trying to use a 3 day old ticket, and not get too high from all the cannabis on the bus. Or remember when they have switched routes because that can lead to strange directions.

Door to door salesmen all those years ago, with the rap at tat tat on the back door had their route carrying the suitcase with samples in. I can vaguely remember one at our back door did my mum buy a clothes brush? But that must be 45 years ago.

So basically we all know what we want and where we are going. Going further back they say people only knew a six block radius around their home. Going to War changed all that as did radio and then more importantly tv. Tv being our eyes on the world, previous to that only Merchant Seaman knew of the world. My own granddad was a merchant sea man, I sometimes wonder did he ever get to Shanghai

Or was it me, his grandson who got there first. Had he visited at the turn of the 19th/20th Century 100years and more ago.

Which brings us back to Sat Nav. Me I use a bus which is fine apart from the pot heads who sit next to you on the bus and all I want to do is puke. My wife is a car driver, so she and our girls love the car. But my wife has borrowed a Sat Nav and likes the ease of it so now she wants one of her own. The result is that I’m being nagged to provide one. You pay, me pay, yes you pay, why me pay, because you are the husband so you pay, no way me pay, you pay you pay yourself, I say. And on the ding dong, sing song goes. Which is the fun part. Me I no pay, use computer I say. You can get perfect directions off the computer all you then have to do is print them off, if our printer was still working we’d be doing that. So really all the wife has to do is copy them down, in English.

She’s  busy with the wok as I talk to you, she’s compromised now, she only wants me to pay half. So I say I’ll be doubly generous and double the share I won’t pay, I’ll pay zero and she can pay 100%. That’s the true spirit of negotiation, now I have another thing to resolve, she’s blocked the sink, so pardon me now as I take the plunge, or rather take the plunger to the sink, no need to use a Sat Nav to get there, its over my shoulder in the next room, just turn left at the tv and go straight on to the sound of bubbles. Love is everywhere don’t you know it, just find it, no Sat Nav required.

Thanks for reading this, that’s if Junk did not get it. I have come close and not got a cigar many times in my life, so I decided to try you. Radio is the medium for my words, 90 seconds with Michael, could go nationwide, it’s a simple idea, with great words, mine if I can be boastful.

Cheerio, Michael Casey 

Email michaelgcasey@hotmail.com

 www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

p.s. my 1^st book is called The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker and it would make a great serial, Charles Dickens 1^st appeared in a newspaper as you know.

 I am not on FB I have forgotten my security question, so Mark Z its up to you, mind you you may not want me polluting your toy.

me in Malta April 2013, looking very inconspicuous   

The Casey's Carpet

The Casey’s Carpet ©

By Michael Casey

I had my entire house re-carpeted a year after I bought it. I was really expensive, but I was still single then so I could please myself and I had nobody’s opinion to take into consideration. I could afford it too because I had no wife and no children either. Wives and children are an expensive game.

So my new carpet was 1987, now 26 years on we really do need a new living room carpet, that’s the most traffic area they say. Notice I used the word “WE” I have a wife and 2 daughters now. So I have to listen to their opinion, or pretend to at any rate. That’s what family is all about, pretending to listen to one another. You can ask any couples you know for their opinion, if you doubt me.

Though some I’m told do actually listen to each other. My uncle used to turn his deaf ear to his wife, or so they say.  Then he could say he didn’t hear what his wife said, when he went ahead and did his own thing. Shanghai wives are known for their beauty, their intelligence, my own wife has a chemistry degree, and their temper/nagging. Just ask any Shanghai husband.

So the first thing to decide is the colour of the carpet.  I love blue as you may have noticed in online photos of our living room. I also don’t want a colour which will show the dirt in seconds. We do follow Chinese convention and wear slippers around the house, we also sometimes wear PJs all day at home until we decide to go out somewhere, even if that somewhere is just to the shops. I don’t have any PJs myself as I wear nothing to sleep in. So I have my house clothes and then my street  clothes.

So what colour does my wife want? Cream.  No, that’ll show the dirt. My girls would like various other colours of the rainbow. My brother has a light green carpet throughout the house. It’s very nice. So what do we do? How do we decide?

We both start looking on the Internet. I liked this, she liked that. Look at this, look at that. We agreed finally, so we sent off for a sample. I had to explain that the fitter is almost as important as the carpet itself. They have tiles in Shanghai you see, so carpets are a very English thing. Then I had to explain about underlay. I even moved a chair to reveal a brand new looking piece of carpet, and we had a bounce on it.

Today as I walked home from the school run with my small daughter I explained the difference between carpets. We have 4 or 5 places that sell carpets. I stopped to show the back of a carpet to her. Cheap rubbish is exactly that, rubbish. As I looked at a carpet outside a shop I told her what my dad used to say, “if you buy cheap stuff you are wasting your money, you end up buying twice.”

So my daughter had her carpet education today, but I know what will happen, my wife will finally choose something. Then it will cost an arm and a leg, and as I faint I just hope I have a soft landing on a nice comfy carpet.

Music Matters

Music Matters ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve just watched a film about Phil Collins’ Face Value album, it was very interesting. So while I talk to you I’ll be listening to him, it does bring back memories, my dad used to like him too. Dad would come in from the kitchen where he was shaving and raise the volume on the radio, I should add the bathroom upstairs was too cold to shave in, he wasn’t shaving  while my mum peeled the potatoes in the sink.

Music matters because it touches all our hearts, yours, mine, everybody’s. That’s why producers are so rich, I’d go on X file myself but it’s more likely Simon would want me as his new 17.5 stone boyfriend  than me win the show. Joking  apart what is so interesting is how the layers are laid down on a track. How this added to that makes something more soundworthy, a little bit of base or an added bit of horns in Phil Collins case.

The layering of sound builds up a picture, it is sounds as pictures. When I write or dream I add pictures and I can see how my story will be if only a producer takes it on. The pictures are in my head and I hope the reader sees those pictures or I give them enough information so they can make their own.

I bought a picture from the local library’s art exhibition last week, it was with my Birthday money my sister gave me. I was talking to the library lady about how music and art was “quicker” than writing in touching the senses. So when I paid for the picture, its hanging on the wall to my right, and I’ll be praying for the artist every day now, sadly he died of cancer recently, so I gave a poem of mine to the library lady to read. Then I said compare my poem to his painting.

It took her a little bit for her to read my poem, but I think I proved my point, painting IS quicker than prose. When technology advances so words create imagines in the mind immediately, and no I’m not talking about substances to all you old Hippies out there. Only then would we have a fair race as far as touching people’s hearts.

Music is of course the hands down winner. It must be because we have a beating heart, and love too is a rhythm, you have your own picture in your minds now. Music and the lap of the sea on the shore is in itself a form of music. Wind too touches our face, and rain is a beat on our face. Then we are encouraged into music by the rhythm of the tree swaying in the breeze. At the nipple we are rocked to sleep, so movement and the rhythm of suckling is in all of us.

Nature makes us all musicians, birds rat a tat tat as they talk to each other and build a nest in the tree. We walk along to the beat of our heels on the pavement, we chew gum to a rhythm too. The planets move too, there is even The Planet Suite .  Music Matters because without it we would not be alive.