29th Feb 1988

29^th Feb 1988 ©

By

Michael Casey

Well what were you doing on Leap Year’s Day 1988? You were not even born? You were at school, at University, down the pub, getting arrested? Me I was excited and gently crying, I had just become a novelist. That was the day I finished my first ever novel. Today is the 26^th year anniversary. Though should it be tomorrow? As today is only 28^th Feb 2014.

Remember Romancing the Stone? As Joan Wilder finishes her latest book, well I was a bit like that. I knew I could finish it so I decided to finish it on that special day, a Leap Year’s Day. I was learning to write when I wrote it, it took me 4/5 months. I did have a great poem in it as well, because I wanted Percy the undertaker to be a poet. I also included the bit about the undertaker’s son’s life being saved. This was in actual fact a true story as my own dad had saved the undertaker’s son’s life.

By writing a novel I had learnt how to write, blame Pad because after I had written a few short pieces it was him who said, write a book. Pad is now a computer engineer, the first time I met him he was 16 and working in the computer room with us, so he must be at least 42 now.

This book was written with a typewriter balanced on a stool in front of the gas fire as I shivered. This was before I had double glazing installed. Years later I got a computer with a word processor on, an Atari 520 and started copying my novel into the Atari. This was boring though, just copy typing, so my 235 or 238 pages became 600 pages because I rewrote the book, the Atari then got into the book itself.

Now my novel can be found at   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 The link is to my Amazon Kindle Writer’s Page, now I have 7 books available worldwide.

So you think you are a good writer? You are not. Without marketing behind you or luck you are, you  just are what you are. Yes I do say I’m a writer, because I write. Or you can call me the white haired old granddad on the school run. Nobody in the playground knows or cares that I spend my time writing.

Americans put John Doe - Author, on their Facebook or LinkedIn, I use the word writer because I do several different forms of writing. Being a good or great writer doesn’t make any difference. It’s just luck. If I wrote a self-help book, it’d sell 2 million, but nobody would actually read it. Trees must be screaming “make a nice book out of me.” Not just books for burning on the fire.

I’ve written loads of short stories too, and how you market them can increase sales. It’s all luck though, a LinkedIn friend said it can be an idea whose time has not come yet. So I think I’ll just have to keep waiting and writing as Sandy suggested this morning. Right now I have to hang out the washing, a hausfrau’s work is never done. Then later it’s the school run for this, silver haired dad, even if they think it’s white and I’m a granddad.

spring is coming so look out for new material

Spring is coming so look out for new material

you can buy my 7 books on Amazon Kindle just look for my face

Trust

Trust ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve mentioned on LinkedIn and in my essays/stories the soap on Phoenix TV, the Chinese station, 785 on Sky UK. So thinking about that and other events I’m thinking about impressions.

What kind of impression do you make with your LinkedIn profile for example. I’ve put a silly photo up on mine for example, I am a humour writer after all, so I’m never going to look Business Professional. So how do you impress, and what kind of impression do you make?

The first time I met my wife she had a vacuum cleaner in her hand and she told me to get out of the way, she was cleaning my dad’s room. She was very scruffy with bad hair. Now when she leaves the house and it is 2 babies and 15 years later she can stop traffic. Though the girl I fell in love with was the scruffy one, not the model.

So what kind of impression do you make? You talk to somebody and you get one impression, then when you finally meet them you are pleased or disappointed. Good things can come covered in all kinds of wrapping paper. Wrapping paper is another story I wrote, look it up later, you’ll enjoy it.

You talk or write or should I say email somebody, then you discover through his words that you don’t have anything in common. In fact you can even hate the SOB because it was all just a scam to get you to invest in this or that.

I don’t know about you but at some point in your life your patience will snap. Or rather you’ll decide to put yourself first. I’m in part two and less of my life now, so I don’t want to waste time when I could be doing something nicer. I did put myself first  when I left the hotel I worked in, after 3 years of very hard work I put myself and my toddlers first. They changed my shifts so I left. Seeing my kids was more important than the job.

You may meet rich sponsors who could change your life, they can make your dreams come true. They make a great impression on you, or so they think. Then you think about it and realise they are not helping you, they are helping themselves.

The only person worth impressing is yourself, you have to talk to your own soul, is this really what you want. Do you want to talk to these people or not.  Do you want to work with them, if something is too good to be true then it is. Don’t do it.

We used to have road shows for homes abroad, perm tanned people with year round deep sun tans. They’d come and boast about living in the sun, getting away from British weather and how cheap it was to buy a home in the sun. Let’s just say that I’m glad I never meet those people ever again.

Obviously they make a bad impression, and I don’t know about you but once my mind is set nothing changes it. Yes give people the benefit of the doubt, but if they are bad they are always bad. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, suits don’t mean honesty, quite the reverse. We all remember from our Bible, that if people cannot be trusted with small things they cannot be trusted with large.

Money goes to money and that is their faith. So why am I saying all this, because I could be on the cusp of big chances, though close but no cigar seems to be the story of my life. So really I’m writing this for myself. A final thing to remember just trust yourself, never believe in praise, and ignore negative people, don’t even listen to them. You will know the answer in your heart.

Jane Fonda and Me

Jane Fonda and Me©

By

Michael Casey

What can I say about Jane Fonda, Barbarella springs to mind, it was  strange and weird and sexy, and comic and science fiction. Duran Duran the Birmingham pop group took their name from a character in the film, they say Lady Di loved that band.  Jane was in Klute as well. Her daughter was in a few good films as well, playing an assassin, as well as a really good film set in Paris with a Chinese actor, that film was really good, Chung Win Fat was the actor I think. Jane Fonda’s brother Peter was in Easy Rider. Not forgetting her dad Henry, one of the best actors ever.

So why am I talking about them, or rather her? Well in the paper it said Jane Fonda was 76 and now afraid of her own mortality. My mum was 76 when she died in the marriage bed beside her husband of 47 years. Jane has had a few husbands, but that is Hollywood. Why is she afraid of death? If I had produced a body of work as an actress, and as a keep fit guru, I’d be happy with my life. Then her family achievements, it’s great by any standard.

So why should she be afraid? If you are at peace with yourself and your God, if you have one, then any time parting is fine. I’m not saying I don’t mind not waking up in the morning, I’d love to see my grandchildren, my own children are not even teenagers yet. My children only have one grandparent and grannie is in Shanghai, far far away from Birmingham. So I’d like to be there when and if any next generation of Caseys arrive, though as I have daughters the Casey name could disappear.

So what’s wrong with Jane Fonda? Inner Peace. Or rather the lack of it would be my guess. Life is strange, perhaps I’m only talking about my own, or perhaps not. Life is a game of roulette as my brother once said. Something bad can lead to something good. Ending up a computer operator and after only applying for one such job DID change my life.

So what can I teach Jane Fonda, exercise routines? I’d probably have a heart attack in 5 minutes if I tried her workouts. Fashion and beauty tips? My wife could, but not me. Acting, I could teach her to look like a pig in a poke. My Chinese name is Panzi which means Fat Fat Boy, though my bilingual daughters said it really means PIG. But I laugh even more now because I know the true meaning.

Laughter Jane that’s what I can teach you, laughter, real laughter. Yes we are all going to be in a pine box someday, but just enjoy your friends and family. I could say live in the fast lane, but I won’t. Just look inside your own head Jane, that’s where the beauty is, not on the red  carpet.  For what’s in your head will be what carries on when you  are in that pine box. So enjoy your interior life not the interior decorations.

Speak Clearly, Write Simply

Speak Clearly, Write Simply©

By

Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I am NOT impressed by people who speak in circles. By people who want to blind everybody else with science so to speak. Talk simply and clearly, so the majority understand without having to scratch their heads.

Yes in ages past, the peasants could not understand what the master was saying, so he must be right because we are the ill educated, and he is the master after all. Then the printing press was invented and everybody could read. So we were not as impressed with the master’s learning.

Then you get the great writers, are some trying to impress themselves, polishing their own ego. I like a good story, either well told or well written, storyteller is the 2^nd old profession in the world. Somebody had to tell the rest of the tribe what went on in the bushes, or whatever was the ancient equivalent of behind the bike sheds.

We have the quality newspapers and the tabloids, the style is different in each. You have the Dan Browns and the Jeffery Archers, each tells things differently. One is a storyteller and the other thinks because his plots are good people will put up with the lack of good storytelling.

Frank Cason used to say “It’s the way I tell them,” and he was right. Telling tales is a skill, a great skill, the storyteller got a seat by the fire, and a bite to eat, nowadays they are called After Dinner Speakers. It is an industry in itself, I’d love to get my foot in that door.

The use of words as toys, that can be built like Lego into many different things. You have love songs which will pluck at your girl’s heart strings and get you into her bed. We have songs that’ll make your blood boil as you march off to war. We have melodies that bring tears to all our eyes, simple words can have so much power. Think of Last Night of The Proms.

A speech in the House of Commons has rallied the Nation in time of war, mere words have changed a nation’s course in History itself. I believe that it is the simple clear words that have counted most, which have exploded through History, and beaten tyrants into the dust.

So all you writers and speakers out there, this is not The Good Old Days, with Leonard Sachs introducing the acts. Communication   means what it says, the transfer of ideas from one person to another. And if the ideas are not being transfer then it’s your fault and not theirs, so keep it simple, or do you enjoy the sound of your own voice?

We all love Freebies

We all love Freebies ©

By

Michael Casey

I used to work in a 4 star deluxe business hotel, CPNEC Birmingham, I was there for 3 years. It was hard work and low pay. Hotels say why should we pay you, if the guests are going to tip you. Its scandalous really. It was though the most fun in my working life. As Steve said at the interview road show, hard work but fun.

We had a toy fair and there was a meeting room full of toys. It was the company that had  the green dinosaur toy. Come home time I helped the guest clear away the toys and load his van. There was a small tricycle, and I did have a 3 year old, so I mentioned it and he gave it to me. That was a very kind man, so God Bless him.

I had to walk across the field to the train station, then catch the train from the NEC to New Street. Then I had to cat the bus, and finally I had to walk down the road, all the time holding the tricycle for my daughter.

She was so pleased, as was I, a toy I couldn't afford, but thanks to the nice man my daughter had a bike. My brother 30 years previously had bought my sister a tricycle, with his student grant.

Another time we had a Jaguar even, 12 brand new jags in the car park, wining and dining people, then a spin in the Jag. A team of people just polishing and valeting the jags too. My job was to deliver Jaguar car coats to the rooms. at the end of the 3 day event there were a couple of official Jaguar car coats left over, or rather body warmer gilet things. So I was given one.

Now the organiser and me were chatting and I said I had toddlers at home, so it was a very nice surprise when a few days later a very very posh teddy bear arrived with a note, thanks Michael.

These events make all the hard work worthwhile. Sometimes there'd be a letter from Japan or from a former Nato  diplomatic officer praising all the hard work and care we provided. That's the standard CPNEC Birmingham provided, I imagine they still do.

Generally though I was too busy all around the hotel doing 10 different jobs to make any tips.  Once Roger the driver counted 12 different things I did, and he did say I shouldn't do all of them as it was not my job. Me, as I had a wife and toddlers to feed, it was great to have any job.

Today right now I'm sampling another freebie, it’s called Word Online, it really is a great product. It looks so clean and crisp. And no Bill Gates hasn't paid me to say that. It’s good, and IF I can download what I'm writing to my own hard drive then it’s perfect.

So Bill, Michael Casey the writer of 7 books, available on Amazon Kindle just loves your new product. And his latest piece written today 21st Feb 2014 was first written on Word Online, you can all read it at www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com

And that recommendation is my freebie to Bill Gates, do you think he can afford 3 bucks to buy my books?

this is my hotel look

I AM a Poet

I AM a Poet ©

By

Michael Casey

I’m a poet, yes I am. I can rhyme mine with thine. Or whatever. I can repeat a verse two or three times, thinking its improving with repetition . I can write an ode to a toad, I can talk about slime and mud, and splash as the toad escapes. What if it’s really a frog who can tell the difference anyway?

I can wax lyrically about the moon in the night sky, even if nobody really knows what “wax lyrically” means. It’s to do with the bikini line isn’t it, or uni-brow removal. The moon the moon, why does it make us swoon?  The moon the moon, why does it make us swoon?  See if I repeat the line it makes it ever so much more powerful. I am the new Lord Byron. You don’t know who HE is/was/whatever can’t you just go Google?

The heart, the heart, it bleeds and weeps when we are apart, I cannot stand the pain, that’s why I have all the weight gain. Oh comfort eating, oh comfort eating, that’s why my pants are splitting, because I miss you so much, the pain the anguish, the soul destroying anguish. When will you be back from the shops with my triple size frozen family size pizza. Then the longing, the tears will stop.

You rush through the door, I can see you once more, you drop the plastic bags to the floor. The pizza rolls out across the floor, I rescue it from the cat, who’s just finished a nap, stretching stretching, the cat claws at the pizza wrapper. Such a clever cat, it delights in being a chef, pussy just loves pepperoni, so I flip the pizza in the oven, gas mark 7.

Then I turn my attention to my love, sent from heaven above, removing her gloves to put her hands in the suds to warm her beautiful hands, from the cold cold cold cold outside. 4 repetitions  in a sentence, such great poetry. As I wipe her hands on the tea towel I look into her eyes, yes she did bring me a surprize, a surprize I can see in her eyes. Triple double dip donuts, she loves me she love me, the Lord Byron of Birmingham.

The cat rubs his body against the oven, the house is so cold, we can’t afford to  keep the heating on, we huddle against the oven for warmth. Soon the pizza is ready, soon the pizza is ready, it is ready soon. We are over the moon as soon the pizza is ready. The cat claws at the oven door, the oven door is clawed at by the cat, how the cat claws at the oven door, how the cat claws at the oven door.

The smell of the pizza fills the house, the smell of the pizza fills the house, how the pizza fills the house with its smell, the smell the smell, all is well, the pizza is done, the pizza is done.

The smoke alarm rings and rings and rings, the pizza is ready the pizza is ready, are you ready too, are you ready too. The pizza is ready. You open the oven door, you open the oven door, the oven door is open. The cat is ready with its claw, the cat is ready with its claw.

The pizza is flung, the pizza is flung, like a frisbee, like a frisbee  it is flung on the table. The cat the cat is ready for that. The cat is clever the cat is clever, such a clever pussy, such a clever pussy. The cat divides the pizza into eight, the cat divides the pizza into eight. No need for plates, no need for plates. The cat takes a slice, pepperoni is nice, a nice slice, a nice slice, a nice slice.

I devour the pizza, I devour the pizza sharing it with my love, sent from heaven above, sent from heaven above, well from the frozen food store anyway. Dripping pizza and sauce, dripping pizza and sauce we devour the pizza. We consume it, we devour it, we demolish it, we eat it, we scoff it, we we we, we just eat it. Enough of the verbs, enough of the verbs, we just have pizza, we just have pizza, pizza is had.

As for the cat it loves the pizza, pepperoni is its favourite, the cat sat on the mat, the mat was sat upon by the cat. Dripping in sauce the cat is cleaning its whiskers, its whiskers are clean, clean clean.

And what about us, and what about us? We are covered in cheese and tomatoes and pepperoni bits, the pepperoni bits are everywhere. So now that we are fed I carry my princess to my bed, to my bed I carry her, to my bed I carry her. Passion and Flatulence awaits, passion and flatulence awaits, but as we cannot afford to put the heating on that is perfect.

Love Passion and Pepperoni Pizza, with the cat asleep at the bottom of the bed. This is perfect love sent from heaven above. Sent from Heaven Above.

SENT FROM HEAVEN ABOVE,

Dedicated to Pretentious Poets Everywhere.  19^th Feb 2014.  

Washing In Washing Out a comedy

Washing In Washing Out ©

By

Michael Casey

With all the weather we are having it’s a big job to get the washing dried. You look outside, you lick you finger and hold it aloft, and what happens? A pigeon dumps on you, your wife laughs and says its good luck. At least it won’t be on the clean washing.

She hangs washing portrait fashion, you hang it landscape fashion, you “debate” about surface area and drip rates. She just says “you drip”, case over, she should have been a barrister in another life. You say she could never have  been a barista, she always makes your coffee wrong. She says you should drink green tea, and not with milk, that spoils it.

Then she goes to scream to her mother in Shanghai, it really is like chickens, ask any Chinese you know. You are left to hang her knickers on the line. They are like small hand-kerchiefs with laces attached. As for your pants, they are like flags. Blue flags.

You go inside to drink green tea, WITH  MILK, defiantly drunk, as she screams to Shanghai. The wind builds and your flags fill out like a windsock, or barrage balloon, in her opinion. At least they’ll dry in the wind. So you retire to the computer to see if any LinkedIn folks want to help you with your ideas. In the background, Panzi is mentioned, that’s you, the fat fat boy.

You look up, clouds have appeared from nowhere, so you dash to the garden. Its thundering and hail, hail is falling. So you grab the washing, and trip, at least you hold the washing upright. The washing is clean but your knees are covered in mud.

She looks up and asks “my knickers”, so you have to dash back out for those, falling over again and nearly being garrotted by the washing line. Once back inside you are ordered to undress, no not passion, she wants your pants in the washing machine, so you go the whole hog and totally undress and put it in the washing machine. Only the next door neighbour was looking out her window and got the shock of her life. You can hear her tell her boyfriend, he looks like a gorilla, so hairy, yuk.

So naked you dance and prance around the house putting the rescued washing on all the radiators. While she laughs and tells her mum in Shanghai what Panzi is up too, you hear laughter from Shanghai, just like the penny arcade dummy, from the 60s.

You scour the house looking for your dressing gown, only you cannot find it. She threw it away last week because it looked so tatty. She didn’t tell you that, you should have known already, because she didn’t tell you, so stupid you should have known.

Steam rises throughout the house, it’s like the sauna they used to have at CPNEC. Or the local chippy on  a rainy day. So you sit there decoratively on the leather settee, trying to look alluring, only she laughs even more, Shanghai echoes the laughter.

Finally defeated, you get dressed, in your 2^nd best, but now only dressing gown. She opens all the windows to let the steam out, you draw pictures on the windows and the house mirrors. You sit back on the leather sofa, trying to be alluring in your dressing gown and very hairy legs. She just laughs and says you’ll catch a cold.

The day is over, the washing is dry, some of the wallpaper is pealing behind the radiators, and you have a cold.

Plant Pot

Plant  Pot ©

By

Michael Casey

My mother had green fingers as far as her elbow. If she saw a plant she liked she’d steal a cutting from the park where we were on holiday. Then she put it into a plastic bag after sprinkling water on it. A week or nearly two later she’d plant it and it would grow. For anybody else it would die, but for mum it lived.

My brother inherited her green fingers. He actually grew an orange tree from a pip, he only had a balcony 20years ago so he had buckets and stuff as his garden. Once he got a house, he had plants galore and the squirrels and birds came by to enjoy it.

Me I’ve got a couple of pots with shamrock in. Our Aunty Mary from Ballyheigh used to send us Saint Patrick’s badges and shamrock every 17^th March. Then mum must have planted some, so there was an outpost of Kerry right here in Birmingham, shamrock in a pot and in the flower bed too.

Mum used to grow rhubarb  at the bottom of the garden, our cat used to shelter under the leaves when the summer sun was too much for her. Then there strawberries too, rhubarb and strawberries what more could you want. Though I always hated rhubarb, and was not allowed to eat all the strawberries.

A cutting here or a cutting there can brighten up a garden, or a pot in a corner of a room. I have a large pot of shamrock  sharing with a green plant with red flowers, don’t ask me the name of the plant, it’s just green with red flowers. It’s pretty so I bought it, a change from a Christmas poinsettia. It brightens the room.

I did plant the poinsettia in the same pot as the shamrock but it eventually died, so I exhumed it and planted the red flowering thing. My brother would know the name and so on, but if it’s pretty that’s all that matters.    

The girls got seed planting kits from their uncle, the same brother, so we had to do that on the living room coffee table, which is also the family dining table. So we put old newspaper down first, then you cut out all the instructions and make labels on a stick, so you’ll know what’s in each pot.

Once the labels are ready you have to put the cocoanut husks in order, then put the compost is each pot. Watering is then done, rather like a priest baptising a child.  In this case just compost.  It expands before your very eyes. 

The labels are planted, then and only then the seeds are added and buried in the compost.

“When will they grow,” the girls badger me, so I tell them it’ll be a few weeks. So they put 2 plant pots on the windowsill in their room. I take the 3^rd and put it on my windowsill. The girls complain that my windowsill is South facing and theirs is North facing. I offer to swap pot put they don’t fall for that trick.

Its weeks later now and I have won the race,  I have sweet pea growing in my pot. It’ll be a few weeks more before their pots have anything growing.

As I said at the start our mum had green fingers all the way to her elbow. When mum died she still grew plants after her death. She must have sneaked up to my sister’s house and planted daisies. A few weeks after her funeral they appeared  in my sister’s front garden. Fragrance  and love from mum.

What are Dreams For

What are Dreams For? ©

By Michael Casey

What are dreams for? They are there to help us, to guide us, to share our love, to give us hope. If we are without dreams then we are without hope. If we don’t dream then we are just a block of wood, or worse a lump of rock.

With dreams we can turn a piece of wood into furniture, we can create the perfect desk for a writer. This writer will have such a nice desk once he sells enough books. Like one Charles Dickens had, and HE was a great writer.

Dreams give us a destination to aim for. A goal, a dream, a hope, without hope there cannot be any dreams, we are just lumps of rock. But with dreams a lump of rock can be turned into a David by Michelangelo, into many many great works of art. We all have to dream.

Today Britain got its first medal ever at the Winter Olympics, this is because of dreams. One girl’s dreams that today became a reality. That today became an Olympic medal for Jenny Jones.

So we should reach for the sky with our dreams. But what of the sleeping variety?  Night dreams are there to untangle the spaghetti which is our thoughts, to knit order into the tangled wool of thought. To produce that Xmas jumper in our minds wool.

Dreams are the cinema of our hopes and desires, we want that job or house or love. Dreams can give us that many years before hard work will bring it to us. Castles in the air my mother used to call them, when dad was saying how he’d like a nice house, and if ever he won the lottery he’d buy all of us a house each. And yes I have that same dream still.

Night time dreams can be very strange, like Salvador Dali paintings, twisted and distorted, taking the ordinary and changing it totally. There is no logic in dreams, they are what they are, dreams. Too much Greek feta cheese does enhance dreams, so beware of night time cheese on toast.

We may dream of lost parents, of lost hopes, lost loves. The process of dreaming is complicated. If you awake it’s hard to return to the same spot, there is no sat nav in dreams.  Dreams guide themselves, you are just a feather being blown by the wind of dreams.

Too much tv can lead to nightmares, so don’t watch too many Japanese horror films before bedtime. Yes watch studio Ghibli but not the horror movies. Your mind has some cache in it too, just like your PC, so don’t fill it with fear before bedtime.  Or when you sleep you’ll be uploading it to your dreams, and you will scream.

LinkedIn Profile and CV

LinkedIn Profile  and  CV ©

By

Michael Casey

We’ve all been on Facebook and LinkedIn, we get to know people and make “friends”. On LinkedIn it’s more about connections and maybe business connections. So we have to rely on the Profile, my LinkedIn profile tells my story, as I am a writer. But how accurate are these Profiles?

I am a born leader.

Means he was the firstborn boy in a family of 11 girls.

I created the supply chain structure.

Means he decided to use a clipboard and notepad instead of just his memory.

I optimised the sales among target audiences.

He chatted up all the girls, he was kind to seniors and went to church.

I was inventive and creative in gaining new sales.

Means he designed a flyer and went street to street delivering them.

I was never afraid of going the extra mile for the business.

Means there was a street gang chasing  him after he was at  the bank

I am great at communicating the business message.

He just would not shut up, so the boss got him to tidy the fruit outside the ma and pa store.

I always try and improve myself.

Means he has no friends so he reads a lot.

I created the new scheme to optimise the business cash flow.

Means he took the store’s cash and put the money on a horse.

I am now looking for new opportunities to excel

Means he got fired, cops not called as the owner married to his sister

I created a great new idea for centralising purchasing delivery.

Means he was a guard for the money delivery company, crash helmet and visor.

I created my own start-up company

Means he stole the money from the cash delivery company and started his own company.

I am now on a learning sabbatical before resuming my career

Means he is in jail, working in the library.

So when you read those LinkedIn profiles or reading a CV or resume think what do they really mean. Check the photos out too, the reality can be far different. Just like actors, photos can be 10 or 20 years old, and they are. Dig deeper.

Me, I google and check people out, as far as you can on Google. Google me and my sites and think for yourself. I am on a sabbatical myself, no I’m not in a library, thought we have plenty of books in the house, no it’s called arthritis, which comes and goes and makes me scream sometimes. But at least I can sit here and make some of you laugh, as I Google everybody.

 

Business Opportunity Easy Reader for English as a 2nd language students

THIS IS MY LINKEDIN SUMMARY BELOW. THE IDEA IS A CD OF ME READING IN CLEAR BRITISH ENGLISH MY SHORT STORIES THEN YOU HAVE A BOOK WITH IT TO FOLLOW THE STORY AS WELL AS A FACING PAGE TRANSLATION IN JAPANESE OR CHINESE ETC SO HAVE A READ BELOW AND LOOK AT MY SAMPLES ON MY SITES. THEN GET IN TOUCH VIA MY LINKED IN OR EMAIL

I have written 7 books

I have a film producer looking at a script

I have got OVER 13,649 views On Funny Or Die for Tears for a Butcher
http://www.funnyordie.com/michaelgcasey 
other posts gone over 1000+ views

http://www.spreaker.com/user/michaelgcasey to HEAR 127 of my short stories
click on Episodes

On http://michaelgcasey.tumblr.com/ too

I also had a publisher say 300 and Not OUT my 5th book was VERY FUNNY.

My play Shoplife was called "Sparkling, very real, great fun, hilarious, we could not stop reading it, 

we hope to produce it"

Poets like my writing as do Radio people. One Poet said my prose was like poetry.
I need a slot on the RADIO so I can read a new STORY a day, listen with Michael.
I have 127 recorded samples at www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com JUST LISTEN
I have written over 500+ shorts so plenty of material

I know that a Book and CD of me reading my shorts could be used as an easy reader for ESOL,
you could also add a translation in Chinese/Spanish/Arabic/Hindi/Urdu on Facing page.
I was an ESOL teacher in the past.

PUBLISHERS & MEDIA DO GET IN TOUCH

BEFORE I started to write I listened to speech radio for 20years, at least 16 hours a week, from the ages of 8 to 28. So DOES that make me a PhD of Radio Listening???????
If you want to be a writer you must have good Ears and Eyes too.

I started writing in 1987, read my Writer's Profile on Amazon Kindle

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I Love Shoes

I Love Shoes©

By

Michael Casey

Shoes, I just love shoes. Not as much as watches, but I love shoes, I may write a piece about shoes in the morning. I bought some in a sale and I only wore them a little bit and the sole was pitted.

So I returned the shoes and finally got a refund. I won't reveal the name of the bad shoe company. AS a bit of irony I returned the bad shoes in a GOOD shoe box. In a Clarks shoe box, telling them with this message that their shoes were rubbish but Clarks are great.

Once I got my refund I returned to the fold and bought a new pair of Clarks in the Clarks sale. Clarks are the bees knees. I have wide feet, size G and Clarks have my width so it’s a no brainer, just buy Clarks. If you can catch the sales then you are so lucky.

Brown shoes are cheaper that black shoes, so I buy brown shoes, sounds like a track by the Rolling Stones, or is it Elvis? My dad always had industrial boots for his job at the steel works. Once in 1974 I think, cos  I was still at school, he had an accident some red or white hot steel jumped the pit and went into his foot.

The company only wanted to refund him the cost of one  boot, that’s how I remember my dad telling the tale. I can remember my dad having a walking stick for a while,  and we had to go on the free school dinners, people felt ashamed about that back in the 1970s.

I have a pair of indestructible Clarks that I only use in winter, the design I don’t really like, but every winter I dig them out and they are my winter shoes, more like boots. So if you see me wearing them it’s better than any weather forecast.

Today’s new shoes from Clarks are so comfortable they feel like my slippers. And why am I slightly obsessed by shoes? I had to stand all day for 3 years when I worked in a hotel. It was twelve hour shifts as well for the first 18 months. Later I worked in a hot, 30 degrees hot law firm print room, for another 3 years, so shoes matter. As well as my years in computer rooms running around all night.

Kicking your shoes off is so nice, and putting your slippers on, bliss, now you are at home and can relax. The Clarks shoe box has now been slightly rebranded to show C & J Clark were the brothers who started in all nearly 200 years ago. It’s really posh so whoever did it for Clarks did a good job.

Children love to wear their mummy’s shoes, it must be something in children’s DNA, though wearing mummy’s dresses is another thing entirely. I only did it once, haven’t you ever worn a woman’s dress?

It was a fancy dress party, and we stopped on the way there to use a cash machine. So me dressed as a woman, with my friend Chris dress as Big Ears from the books by Enid Blyton. Coming home late at night I had to sprint back to my house so my neighbours would not think I was a transvestite, like that comedian.

School shoes are a real pain. My daughter has big feet, nearly size 7 and she is only 12, but she is tall for her age. But the school insists on plain shoes, not shiny, no designs, even a tiny motif is banned. Then school shoes are so expensive, £40, so you have to hunt around the shops and Internet to find the perfect for school rules shoes.

I think we should sent the head teacher out and tell her to find the shoes herself. Then there might be a bit of common sense in the rules. Other than that the school is great, because the ethos is of a grammar school, and its girls only. Which is great as far as me and the wife are concerned.

Back to shoes, or rather trainers, why do trainers always stink? No matter what you do, trainers stink, roses are red, violets are blue, and trainers always stink. Though I have to confess that in 2^nd year at my grammar school, which is year 8 in the new terminology, I cleared an entire coach in Romsley, because of my smelly wellies.

Now modern shoes sometimes have antibacterial coating or spraying or something so they don’t smell. In the days before Odour Eaters were invented some people used to put talcum powder in their socks. Which is a good idea, I’ve done it myself.

However as shoes sometime have a design with tiny holes in the leather, what happens? The talcum powder escapes and you look as if you are a miller with flour on your shoes, or if you are wearing old shoes you leave a trail of footprints.

So I always use Odour Eaters. So learn from my experience.

  

 

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this is my pretentious writer pose