Tears from a Clown

Tears from a Clown ©

By Michael Casey

Let My Tears Be My Words are the first words from a poem of mine, which I’m told is very touching, the words even made a Vicar cry, Priests are much tougher as they’ve heard more Confessions. So this morning I was doing my usual routine, counting how many rubbish emails I get trying to destroy my computer. How many religious people of many faiths who were dying and wanted my help in moving 1,000,0000,0000, 000 USD if only I sent them 10 quid first in 1p coins in an old sock, and they would pray for me. The amount of folks who have stepped on the fast train to Hell is unbelievable.

So I though what should I talk to you about today, and I had no idea, then while I was thinking of plot lines for Tears for a Butcher, my next full length comic novel, which is the follow up to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, while I was thinking of that a tear came to my ear, sorry eye, only Picasso has tears to his ears. So that gave me the idea to talk about tears. And yes Tears from a Clown, would be one description of myself.

So what makes you cry, the quality of my writing? You are all so cruel, you will make me cry now, if you knew the years of training I had before I could stand here naked before you. Ok I’m not naked, it’s a figure of speech, and no none of you would enjoy looking at my naked form. And yes that does make me cry, the years of kebabs and fizzy pop been wasted on your unsophisticated eyes, you would not know a great form if you saw one.

But I was side-tracked, what makes you cry? Is it the size of your pay check or the snubs you get from the girls of your dreams  who won’t go out with you because your pay check is so small. I know a man who wanted just one simple thing, to be  married and perhaps have a family. This man had loved a girl but she had not loved him, they had been friends but no more. Then one evening her mother died, they had just been to dinner and were due to see Les Miserables at the theatre, only a call came and his Cinderella had to go away.

She rung him, her mum had died, and no she did not need his help, she was prepared already. So there he was all alone, the penny had dropped, she would never be his. So perhaps full of self-pity, you can judge, the man cried, and looking up at the photo of his dead mum by the fridge made a heartfelt prayer. All I want is to be married and perhaps have a family.

No Fate is a strange thing a very strange thing. The  previous year the man had met a model a real life model in the Czech Republic while he was staying with the friend of a friend, a Gay doctor. It’s all in a Czech Story you may find it on the Internet. So this blonde model came to Birmingham and he taught her English for a month, then she went back home, never to be seen again.

So now it was a year further on, and this Joyce Grenfell like girl did not want him either, hence the tears of a clown. Now God has a sense of a humour so God heard the man’s prayers, where would the man meet the girl of his dreams? The man would meet his future wife in the only place the man visited every single day, every single day for 3 years.

His mother had died and 8 weeks later his dad had almost died, hymns had been picked for his dad’s funeral. It’s all in Padre Pio and Me on the Internet somewhere. So after his prayer by the fridge a takaway girl appeared, a little Chinese girl. He still had dreams of his Joyce Grenfill  girl, but in the end the Chinese girl won his heart, she turned out to be 10 times prettier than the Czech model.

So the man had tears of joy, his prayer by the fridge had worked, he found a bride and 2 daughters followed. And if you are wondering if this is another of my stories, and I have reached over 830 now. Then no this is no story, this is my life and it’s the story of how I finally got a wife. 

So if you want to dry those tears and banish all those fears, try saying your prayers by the fridge with your mother next to you for support. And if you don’t have a mum nor a fridge, then just pay a visit to Iceland the shop not the country.

Cyber Security

Cyber Security ©

By Michael Casey

My brother said try computers, so I did and got a job as a computer operator, this was back in 1978, yes 1978 I really am that old, or rather my Birth Certificate is. In my head I’m 20, though the state of my organs says I’m 95, but still very very cuddly. But enough of my sex appeal, I’ve been watching this Cyber Security disaster for a few years now, and it really IS terrible.

Hello Love, I’ll be home late, I’ve left the house key under the Tony Blair garden gnome, you know next to the Trump gnome, of course nobody can hear me, where am I, in the pub, I need a few beers, that’s why I’ll be late home. So what happens? You are robbed.

Computer security is very important, especially as it controls everything nowadays. Back in 1978 our computers, DEC PDP 1170s for the computer Historians out there, controlled just a small amount of data, Market Research into Alcohol Sales. It was a job for life, well 21 years of my life. The computers could not be hacked then, the word was not even thought of let alone invented, and as for being actioned on, well it would be really  really advanced and unbelievable science fiction, total fiction.

We’ve all seen War Games years and years ago, a back door lets a kid play with MAD, mutually assured destruction, a kid gets control of the world’s nuclear war computer controls. It’s a great film, the back door was opened by a password based on the inventor’s dead daughter’s name, film buffs can correct me if I’m wrong. The point being that back doors allow evil people to get control.

Of course our computers are super dupper, the best in the world, forget the Cray, ours is better. And nobody can ever hack it. Then an autistic kid in England hacks into it, and the USA wants to extradite him and put him 1 mile down in a jail for 100 years. If it was me, I’d give the guy a job, and a tour of Nasa, he was looking for Area 51 and Aliens, instead he’s hounded through the Courts. Empty Pride means you fail to accept the fact that your computers are hackable. Eat humble pie and give the hackers jobs as security experts, remember Catch Me if You Can?

Computer security or lack of it can cause companies to fail, stock markets to crash and governments to fall. It’s not fantasy football with a few quid bet on the side its billions upon billions, or more importantly people’s lives.

So please can we unplug the phone to infrastructure and air traffic control, and not use mother’s maiden’s names as passwords. All companies that get hacked should pay huge fines that really hurt. I would even go as far as saying they must  not be allowed to keep your financial details at all, yes it’s a pain having to type stuff in each time you buy online, but if they companies cannot prove in advance that they are secure, then better safe than sorry.

There should be a 10million dollar prize each year for cyber security inventions, and all companies should be forced by law to attain standards. A GCSE in computer security is not good enough in today’s world. Company directors should go to jail and pay huge fines if and when their customers are hacked. People used to have floppy discs stuck to filing cabinets with magnets, and not understand why the floppy discs don’t work anymore.

So please can we remove keys from under Trump garden gnomes, can we unplug critical functions from the telephone network. And let’s use the best minds to improve cyber security, even if they are Autistic British hackers looking for Aliens. 

In England in was a Gay man who broke the Enigma Code, perhaps the future is crying out for left of field people to guide and protect the future of the world itself.

Obviously fat writers from Birmingham with a quadruple heart bypass and arthritis would be utterly useless as cyber security personnel, but “strange” people can be the heroes in today’s computer world. So employ a few strange people and improve cyber security before the world comes to a halt. 

and bonjour a toute la monde en la belle France merci pour lire mes mots comic est vous M.Holland?

Love and all that

Love and all that ©

By Michael Casey

Today I’m to talk about Love, I could say it’s a many splendored thing, and it’s all you need but you can watch Moulin Rouge for yourselves, it really is a great film.  My favourite bit is where the black member of the troupe punches the Count, who is a right pain, see I avoided the obvious joke, I am capable of doing that you know, though you have all thought of it for yourselves now that I did not mention it.

What is Love, read everything from Plato onwards and you may just scratch the surface, and no Plato is not the new player for Manchester United, they could not afford him, he’s off to PSG next. So what exactly is Love, well the Irish call it the Urge, this is more exactly when your body says I must be united with another body and start having children. In Star Trek Spock had the Urge and took over the Enterprise he just had to find his mate. Though in the end Spock commented that The Desire is Greater than the Need, things fall flat and everybody is disappointed.

Though Love can be eternal, and when you lay your husband to rest you wonder just who are you going to argue with now, the old bastard died on me and I hadn’t finished talking to him. Some do go to the grave every day to talk to their lost love, some are buried at sea just to avoid such a fate, your eternal rest should be your eternal rest.

We also love things, we have passion for a thing, you may have a collection of  National Geographic magazines, though I must say my 2 daughters do enjoy them  and its very educational. Some collect elastic bands, each band a different colour, each one represents a different music festival you attended. So just by looking at the elastic band all  the memories come flooding back.

The orange and yellow band was the best festival of all and that’s where you met the girl who became your wife. So you treasure your pieces of elastic as you grow older the elastic bands are testament to your Hippy Youth. Then your daughters grow older and snatch them to tie their hair back. Only the bands break and you start to cry, your mum has to tell you that each band was such a special thing.  So your daughters spend days on the internet finding replica elastic bands to replace those split and damaged.

Then as a Birthday present dad gets 22 coloured elastic wrist bands, cost 2.99 plus 58p postage. Dad is overjoyed it’s the best thing he ever got in his life, apart from his wife’s garter on her Wedding night. See a piece of elastic having so much Love and Power behind it.

Some people collect Bath Bombs and then use them up in a splash of colour and scent, so they really do come up smelling of roses. We could have used them when my own dad came back home from the sweat of the steel works, the District Iron and Steel Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. Girls love soaking in the bath with flavours of scent surrounding them, a bath is much more fun than a boy anytime, not unless he is covered in chocolate, can somebody explain why chocolate is so important to women.

So on it goes people have a love  for things, Love is a very strange thing, I do like shoes myself, not as much  as Emelda Marcos nor Theresa May but nice shoes are good, especially if you have to stand for 12 hours a day on marble as I did for 3 years at CPNEC Birmingham. So we love things because they give us pleasure and they have such great memories attached to them. We all remember Rosbud the sledge that Citizen Kane remembers on his deathbed. Sometimes it’s the simplest and most innocent of things  that brings the most joy in our head, so make love before you are dead.

photos are of me, Michael Casey the Birmingham England writer, my people are from Kerry. I am NOT the economist from Dublin, nor the Monk, I'm far far fatter and funnier. 26 Sept 2016 

Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday ©

By Michael Casey

Well we’re having a lazy Sunday, kind of, I wrote a piece about Jeremy Paxman earlier today and I’m going to double up and talk about something else now. For any foreign readers and I can get up to 100 a day I should explain that Jeremy Paxman was for 25 years the Rottweiler, the toughest Political interviewer in UK. 

So since I wrote that piece I’ve been doing a bit of research on the computer, all will be revealed later, no I’m not a nudist, well I am but don’t tell anybody.

So today we are having a lazy Sunday. My wife, or the witch as me and my girls call her, is doing her homework in Mandarin, my small daughter is reading, or trawling judging by the amount of books she reads. 

Her bigger sister has finished doing swat thrusts in the garden, this really frightens the squirrels, the magpies just laugh and the local cats just feel sorry for Totoro our cat, living with such strange strange people. Totoro for her part just swears at them in Chinese, she is such a clever cat after all, she does have a Japanese name too. Grannie had said that my big daughter was a bit porkie, which makes us all laugh as she is so thin by Western standards.

So now I’ve been told off for letting the kettle boil over and whistle too much which disturbs small daughter’s reading concentration. I was not even in the house, I slipped out to buy eggs from the Polish shop, their eggs are so good by the way and so yellow. Big daughter comes down to make her peppermint tea before disappearing again, she’s studying, 10 more years and she’ll reach her target, Dr Casey. Chinese people always say you should have a Dr in the family, or an accountant, grannie is an accountant in Shanghai.

I look for a stray biscuit to feed my Muse, only they are not there, small daughter has liberated them. Totoro had discovered how to open all our cupboards so we had to tape them shut, but it was not her who had freed the biscuits from the cupboard, I did once actually find her in a cupboard once, before we started taping the doors shut.

Spotify has radio station mode too, so I’m listening to Tom Petty as I talk to you, I’m sure Paxman is listening too as he sits in his chair in his study and practices his casting with his pole, he may even have photos of politicians on the floor and he tries to scratch their faces as he practices his casting. It might be a nice way to spend an afternoon while he waits for his tricycle to have its slow puncture fixed, it just hisses too much as he trundles along with his fishing kit in the trailer behind him.

All the hissing might encourage him to do Panto, Greville from Strictly Come Dancing has been pestering for 3 years to come off the fence and be a Panto star, there is good money in it after all, more than the BBC ever paid Paxman. If the old James Bond, the one whose name I forget, if he can be a baddie in Hot Fuzz then why of why cannot Paxman do a bit of Panto. It could be just the thing to spark his dull life along.

So it’s just gone past 5pm now it’s been a sunny Sunday, we are all quietly contented with our day, despite not winning the Lottery, if only we won, we’d love to live in the Toblerone house, a house we spotted on a property website, it has so many triangular shapes in it, hence why we call it the Toblerone house. It’s nice to dream even if we’d need all 6 numbers before we could afford it, though social housing like the White House is very nice, that’s how Joe Biden described where he lived.

At this point in a story I read back what I have written to see how it reads, or rather how it sounds. If I have a good sound I finish or I may add a sentence or two more. Otherwise it is the end. I just need to visit the fridge and have a slice of Cajun chicken from Aldi, it’s very nice.

Though Totoro our cat recognises the sound of plastic wrapping paper being opened and is faster than Kim Jun Un to the cheese plate, like a whippet or faster than Hussain Bolt she bolts down the stairs and gets her big eyes out. She wants some, and she does have such imploring eyes, so she always gets her way, rather like a wife or somebody else’s wife, be careful out there in readerland.

So it seems like a good place to finish now, maybe I should go to the Finnish Sauna I might meet Jeremy Paxman in there but that was the previous story, or it could be Jeremy Corbyn cleaning his slate, again.

enjoy the photos this really is me, i was in a dark computer room for over 20 years hence the shades,