The Family Divided By Television

The Family Divided By Television ©

By Michael Casey

Well I haven’t written anything new for a day or two, and I wasn’t going to write anything tonight either, that was until we became a family divided by television. I’ve come to the family desktop to escape watching the 2^nd half of a film my wife first  watched 10 years ago when I was working at a hotel by the airport at the NEC, this being at the other side of Birmingham from where I live.

The Core didn’t look too interesting so I’m here instead talking to you all. Our girls are upstairs eating chocolate while the cat Totoro is pretending to be Goldilocks, and sleeping in or on or under all the beds, such is her life. The last day of April 2016 is like winter again, she has just discovered my room, so as it’s the warmest thanks to it being South facing and having a mass of central heating pipes running through it.

Yes, we are a family divided by television. If we don’t agree on what to watch we set a recording going while one or another of us watches what they want. As I’m a news junkie, I can just watch BBC or Sky news on the computer while the girls watch what they want. As we can watch Chinese tv too my wife can watch a serial on Phoenix should she want to.

A couple of years ago there was a really gripping serial we all loved about a romance it was very funny, especially as the boy worked in the marriage office. His ex wanted him back but in the end true love conquered all, which is what my own mother told me, little did I know I’d end up marrying a Shanghai girl, with the help of God and two policemen as my mum used to say.

Sky+ divides and unites families, you can record your favourite shows and watch them together when you are all home from work or school. If you have a student in the family, or a budding Dr to be, then you can record the important tv and it can be watched at a later time. Then being able to stop the live show as well that’s a godsend, because toilet breaks and rushing to the fridge for more fuel can be accommodated, this really a great innovation. 

When I grew up we only had 2 channels in black and white to start with, and the cat slept on the microwave size/shape tv, because it was so hot after an evening viewing.  Now with slim lcd tvs cats no longer do this.

Families do come together for chocolate and favourite shows:- Grimm, Blacklist, Elementary. Then Peppa Pig must be watched, this is now a cult programme with teenagers, why I have no idea. I’d eat Peppa Pig  on some nice bread with ketchup, but for my girls and their friends Peppa Pig is a cult.

All tv is suspended while the wife watches the BBC weather report, it’s an addiction of hers, luckily the advert breaks are so long you can watch the BBC weather while the adverts are on. Ditto I can watch the headlines before we can switch to the start of our favourite programmes, or we hit record then rewind to the beginning if we’ve missed a bit.

As I talk to you my wife has abandoned the Core and I can hear the Bee Gees singing in the next room behind me, either that or the neighbour’s cat is being castrated, so high are the high notes. If I hear anything good I can return to the living room to view for myself, I sit in the corner on the naughty chair. The irony is that we were buying new furniture from Argos prior to my bypass op, then when I got out of hospital it was too low and soft for me to sit on. So I sit on a hard dining chair in the corner, so that I don’t irritate my chest scars.

Obviously as a bloke I’d love a huge tv with a sound bar etc,  plus all the Sky film channels,  when I win the lottery I’ll have one in my mansion, Toshiba of course as they make great tvs. Then we can watch the Sky tv 6 part adaptation of my novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, well all in my dreams. Though the family might never want to watch it, you know what they say about a prophet in his own town, a  man and his tv series might be the same. For we are a family divided by television.

Inspiration and Science

Inspiration and Science ©

By Michael Casey

First of all blame my daughter for this piece, I asked which should I write about, Inspiration or Science, and she said both with a smile, an inscrutable smile, she is ½ Shanghai Chinese after all, the other ½ being Kerry Irish by way of Birmingham. So here goes, but before I forget hello to my reader in Mexico and Austria, the readership seems to be getting far flung, or maybe they are just trying to avoid me by traveling far and wide.

The Casey Clan is vast, I do have 40 first cousins after all, I am the nearly youngest of all of them. So I have a load of stories past down to me from my dad, and from my trips to Kerry too. I’d love to go back and do a tour, but I need a driver and maybe a jeep to get to all the places, but if I win the lottery or Amazon’s Flying Car Pit show ever goes I could tag along tied to the roof rack. It would give my silver hair a great blow wave look.

So what about Inspiration? It’s something that Inspires, yes I’m stating the obvious, but do allow me to sound sophisticated, in my own imagination for a nanosecond. If you witness events they can either scar you or give you great dreams, or even nightmares, but the spark they give does lead to something, even if it’s just the exit, fast.  

Fear of my teacher lead me to reading lots, this then led to 20 years of BBC Radio 4 listening which then led to being a writer these past 30 years. 50 years of my life just flashed by in a sentence, I cannot complain though as I’m still alive, and hoping to reach my 1,000,000 Words written in the next eighteen months. I discovered I was 2 hours away from death after my quadruple heart bypass as my pulse went up to 200 to 230 beats a minute. Others have died I’m still here, perhaps its god punishing my readers for not talking to him and reading my rubbish instead.  There you are, reading as punishment. Who would you make prisoners read as punishment for their crimes? Charles Dickens  or JK Rowling or even Terry Pratchett? You can have fun in the office talking about that by the coffee machine.

Now as my daughter said write about Science too perhaps I should say a few words on that topic. My small daughter  is a really great writer, she’s told me she’s better than me and I agree with her, any dad want’s his daughter to be greater than himself. We joke that her English teacher wants to adopt her as she is so good, the fridge is covered in praise slips. For balance I should reveal that my other daughter is top in the entire year group in Science, is that 90 or 120 pupils, it’s all Greek or is it Science to me. Though mum, my wife does have a Chemistry degree.

Now what shall I say about Science? Well I grew up with Apollo, no not the Greek god, though I do love Kebabs, I mean the Space Race. This was so exciting, and it was all in black and white. Ali was dancing around the ring, American politicians were all getting shot and so forth.

The music or soundtrack to all our lives was unbelievable, The Monkees, the Beatles, Sonny and Cher all kinds of everything, and not a manufactured boy band in sight, Simon Cowel is younger than me, so he would have been in school in short pants and getting bullied, and having his pants pulled down in the middle of the playground.

Science really is the future, I was watching a programme about Gravity and how they are trying to “see” by using the disturbances in gravity. It was really interesting, some of it was almost beyond me, but BBC science programmes really are so well presented/produced. 

The other thing is that fact that a man in his shed, usually in England really do have the first ideas about science. Though as usual England does NOT have enough money for the research so USA “steals” the talent and makes the big bucks. So I’d suggest our Lotto invests in science, put £500,000,000 into Science instead of clog dancing for the Welsh or sewing classes for welders in Scunthorpe. Near where I am we had a £40million Art Gallery called the Public, it was a white elephant, a fancy design which should have been on Peppa Pig. It folded and has now become a school after they built classrooms inside the original building. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-29144730

My Physics teacher Mr R he was such a good teacher and we always enjoyed the experiments, if the teaching is fun then difficult topics are understood and enjoyed. A good teacher really does make a difference, as does proper discipline, such as no phones to be used in school, it is NOT a human right to have and use a mobile.

We stumbled over my old school reports from 40 years ago and to my surprise I was great at Chemistry, I got 80% in an exam, but then I dropped it in 3^rd year, this is Year 9 in today’s parlance. At school if you are guided well by the teacher who knows their onions, and is more than 2 chapters ahead of the class then little acorns can grow into might oaks.

Well that’s enough from me for tonight I have to watch the Press Preview on Sky, it’s my form of entertainment. I’ll never be on tv, but I still dream of being on Radio reading out my short pieces…..

Title for New Amazon Car Show

Hello team, as a non driver I think my idea for a show title is best.

FLYING CAR PITS
feel free to donate 10,000QUID to my bank account for the  idea.
AND TELL FOLK TO BUY MY 9 BOOKS ON AMAZON
http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1
You can add Amazon to the title too
AMAZON'S FLYING CAR PITS
love and kisses from Michael Casey www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com
 
this is me in my concierge days 2002 to 2005
I'm also available for a walk on part, or stick me on the fridge with a magnet.

Food for Thought (c)

Food For Thought

Think AS You Watch TV

By Michael Casey                                                                                    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As we sit in our armchairs watching the news , do we care what is going on over there , in some place hot , too hot to think about , or too cold to bear , ice and snow everywhere . Are we just waiting for the sports report , are we waiting to see was the battle hard or a walkover , did our favourite player score a home run , or 10 touchdowns , were the crowd , the audience behind him , did we win 100dollars from the bet we had on the side . In the interviews after the war was won , were we just watching to see the design on the teams shirt , is that a new logo , is that the same logo spruced up . Or is it a new logo entirely , does it make any difference in how the team played , or just another million dollars in the owners pocket , paid by us the audience , the fans , just so we can all look so identical . The reporters are screaming loudly , half excited and half in fear , they want to watch , they want to cover their eyes , but they are there so they must report . Are they in some arid desert , or in some cold cold place , pain and fear and hope etched on their face , are they in some war zone , or at the stadium , if all we heard were just their words , could we tell the difference , do we care , so long as we can switch it all off with our remote control .

******something from a few years agro, I've been having a few pain days so I'll do something new in a day or so.

 

The Spaceman and The Arch-Angel

The Spaceman and The Arch-Angel ©

By Michael Casey

Mikhail Mikhailovich was a spaceman, a cosmonaut as the Russians  call them, he’d been in space forever, he held the world record already, he was testing himself to see if Man could make it to Mars. He and Tim Peake had had a lot of fun in the space station, but now Tim was gone. So Mikhail was lonely, in fact Mikhail was having a dark night of the soul, flying high in the sky orbiting the world. He was on the edge, but bear a bear of a man he told nobody, if only his wife Katarina was with him to make him strong, but he was floating in space and she was back in Saint Petersburg.

Michael the Arch-Angel had just pushed back Satan back into Hell and had sealed the gates with a pair of Rosary beads, now he was taking Mrs Murphy’s soul back to her body, he was in a hurry before her body died without her soul inside. At Saint Michael the Arch-Angel flew in space with Mrs Murphy’s soul safely tucked in his belt by his sword he felt Mikhail’s sorrow. So much sorry, he flew as fast as he could fly towards to space station, a soul was in danger, the space station was in danger, a man’s life and soul was in danger. Mikhail was on the verge of thinking of doing something mad bad and sad. Michael felt this and as an angel he must intervene, he spiralled directly towards the space station, he went straight inside and grabbed Mikhail’s arm.

An angel does not need to use doors, the spirit just walks through walls even in space, love knows no boundaries, and an angel is just that, love. Saint Michael the Arch-Angel gave Mikhail a bear-hug and nearly broke his ribs. Mikhail screamed in fear, Michael just laughed in his face and said he screamed like a little girl, was he going to pee his pants as an encore. Mikhail rubbed his eyes, there was angel in front of him, speaking Russian, in fact he sounded like his own old grandfather, with the same local accent.

I could punch your lights out, but I’m an angel so let’s talk, have you got any beer, my wings are tired I need a beer, asked the angel. Mikhail laughed, where do we have the room for a barrel of beer in a space station? The angel reached behind him and two pints of Stella Artois appeared in chalices, so Mikhail took one and drank it, after such a long time in space it was heavenly to say the least. So Mikhail and the angel had 4 pints each, which is enough to wet their whistle if they were both Russian. Mikhail wasn’t scared any more, if this was a dream he was going to enjoy it. He’d love a big sandwich of Russian beef and bread with lettuce and tomatoes, so once more Saint Michael reached behind him and the sandwiches appeared. Is Paul Daniels behind you joked Mikhail, Tim the English spaceman had told Mikhail about Paul Daniels during his time on the space station. No replied the angel, but God is behind me, and in front of me and in all directions too, he has my back, and your’s too, that’s why I’m saving you.

Mikhail, looked at his feet, he’d felt a failure, he could have, but he didn’t, an angel had saved him. Michael the Archangel gave him another pint of Stella Artois, Paul Daniels was working overtime you could say. Why were you in space anyway asked Mikhail. I was returning a soul to a body, Mrs Murphy was risking her soul to save the life of her priest, or rather the soul of her priest. That’s when Satan pounced, so I had to give him a kicking, and then mum asked we to return Mrs Murphy’s soul to her body, before her body expired. Mum who is your mum? Mary is my mum, she’s everybody’s mum, she prefers to be called  ”mum” it’s  the highest title of all. Mikhail Mikhailovich started to cry, so Michael wiped his nose with his wings.

I wish I could be a father but being in the space program has put paid to that, I am a hero of Mother Russia, but my own wife cannot be a mother, we will never know the joy of children. Mikhail cried again, the angel gave him a huge hug, almost breaking the spaceman’s ribs and Mikhail’s face turned bright red due to lack of oxygen. A tear fell from the angel’s eye, it trickled down his face and splashed Mrs Murphy’s soul, this was enough for Mrs Murphy she was saying the Rosary in a nanosecond. Her body was dead by now, but at least she could pray for the spaceman.

Michael and Mikhail had some fresh fruit, bananas and grapes, washed down with more Stella Artois. Mikhail unburdened himself to the angel, all his hopes and dreams, being a spaceman was the last of them. Tim had told Mikhail about David Bowie and the two of them had put the face makeup on and sung the songs. Now Tim was gone and Mikhail missed him, but most of all Mikhail missed something he’d never have. Children. As a child Mikhail loved listening to stories, stories from all over Russia and everywhere else too, but then studying came along.

Saint Michael the Archangel has a secret, he loves stories too, he’s spent ages, literally Ages listening to stories from all over the world. So as they drunk their Stella Artois Michael told Mikhail some of the stories. First in Russian for the Russian stories, then he switched to Chinese for the Chinese stories, Indian for the Indian stories, and Japanese for the Japanese stories. Michael knew thousands of stories in told them all in all the native languages. The food and drink flowed, Paul Daniels really is a great magician, how he hid all of it in the space station ready to save a soul, a Russian spaceman’s soul we’ll never know, perhaps he’s just an angel.

How long would it take to tell tales from all over the world, as long as there is food and drink on the table there will always be tales, and this angel doesn’t follow Logic, only Love. In Earth time 50 years had passed, or was it just a dream? Michael and Mikhail hugged, this time Michael could not breathe and he turned red. Mikhail had been filled with Love, and food and drink thanks to maybe Paul Daniels, so he was a big Russian Bear once more.

You are Mikhail Mikhailovich a Spaceman who did not fall to earth, you are the Storyteller from Space, you are a “father” to billions of children, and to your wife you are the best husband in space and on earth who gave her seven children, angels love the number 7, Snow White really did exist you know, but that’s another story. Mikhail snored, he been dreaming hadn’t he.

Michael flew off into space, for decades he’d been talking to Mikhail, it was a coincidence he’d spotted Mikhail, he thanked God. As Michael looked at his watch, by which I mean the rotation of the stars in space, he realised he’d actually gone back in time by 2.9 nanoseconds. Einstein had been livid when he’d got to Heaven to discover that Time and Relativity was just one of God’s jokes.

Mrs Murphy’s soul was returned to her body, but her 50 years of prayers so that Mikhail could have a family had not been wasted, and as for her priest well that’s another story, Tears for a Butcher by Michael Casey to be exact, if God gives me the time to finish it.

The next night Mikhail said he had a story for all the Russian children, so he told them about the night the angel came to the space station. This was an instant hit all over Mother Russia, it was so funny too, though he had to explain who Paul Daniels was, they liked the story a lot, not a little bit. The Indians wanted to hear the story so could he tell them too, so he did but Mikhail told them in one of the major Indian languages, and as each child hear the story they hear it in the voice of their own grandfather. Japan was next and they were astounded too, not only did know their language but the accent was perfect, Mikhail was like a United Nations, his stories perfectly told demanded silence, followed by tears of joy.

Mikhail spent another month in space, each night he’d tell stories to the world’s children. He was out of this world literally and in all other ways. When it was time for him to return he was an international hero, for science and for story-telling. Putin himself said he drive him from the airport to the Kremlin for a reception. When Mikhail came down the steps from the plane his wife jumped into his arms, Putin was dressed as a chauffeur, the election was next month and he know good PR. The president as servant of the people.  Putin did have to close the privacy screen in the Zil because the spaceman started on creating his happy family on the back seat of the Zil limousine.

So Mikhail got what he wanted a big happy Russian family, was the angel right in guessing 7, no he was wrong, Mikhail and his wife only had 3 pregnancies. Three being Mrs Murphy’s favourite number, three sets of triples. Mikhail set up his own Utube station to tell stories to the world’s children, he called it You’ll Like It, a lot. 

Then his friend Putin suggested he should run for president, so that’s how a spaceman called Mikhail became the President of Russia, because an angel came acalling, twinkle, twinkle.