How do men shop? something from May 2013

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 too 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.

The Sunshine of your Smile

The Sunshine of your Smile ©

By Michael Casey

I was wondering what to call today’s piece when Paul McCartney gave me an idea, he came around to clean our windows, he’s nice like that, he learnt it from his dad George Formby who was forever cleaning windows. So he sang The Sunshine of your Smile so I thought that’ll explain today’s talk nicely. I’m listening to his Flaming Pie album, I wish he’d just get on and clean our windows, but so long as they are done by the time the album is finished or I’ll tip the bucket of water on his head. Liverpool folk  are just too chirpy some times.

Today is bright and very sunny, but the cold would freeze the arse off Kim, any Kim, you care to mention. But so long as you wrap up, by which I mean put lots of layers on, not sing some song by JayZ, then you’ll stay warm. I did stop by the Plastic shop, which sells all things made of plastic, and buy some silver lined insoles to protect my soles, by which I mean the soles of my feet. My Soul is God’s, well I keep on telling myself that. As for Seoul, that’s a place far away with a very noisy neighbour. I hope I haven’t confused my Eastern readers, but Poles and Ukrainians have a good sense of humour. Or has somebody on reception been having a joke and making all the new staff read my rubbish on night shift at the hotel. They should be cleaning the common areas not misusing Opera, the manager will make a song and even dance about it in the morning if the foyer does not glitter like a palace.

Ok, enough of the puns, but if Shakespeare did it, then I should at least try. What is so good about sunshine and smiles? Well it makes us all happy. A pretty girl without a smile is ugly. Just look at all the ghosts modelling on catwalks if you don’t believe me. A smile is like the sun itself. It is liked Dawn itself, and I have seen Dawn break hundreds times when I used to work the night shift in Birmingham city centre. Dawn is a new beginning a new hope, a new love.

When a girl forgives you, remember men are always wrong and always to blame and so always in need of forgiveness. If your priest did not tell you that when he gave you pre marriage instruction then he failed you badly, besides what do priests know about women? They live with 100 year old housekeepers.

So when we are forgiven the smile broadens and the lights light up in your loved ones eyes. I imagine the same happens when you are Gay, people are people and Love is Love after all. So you get the smile and the eyes twinkle and you are powerless before your love. What happens next is up to the both of you, so I’ll leave it to your imagination.

In general though smiles are sunshine and if you have somebody at work or just up your street or in the family that makes you smile as an individual or as a group then you are very lucky. The little ray of sunshine, really does exist. As does the sad bad mad cloud that kills life and laughter, you can pick your own bosses and world leaders and even your own family members or former friends who are like that.

One of my bad habits is making jokes to hard pressed shop assistants who are too busy to listen, though sometimes I can see that the shop assistant is sad for some reason so I’ll try and perk them up. Remember at CPNEC Birmingham I was the first person people met when they entered the hotel, so I have 100,000 people interactions up my sleeve. A distraction  even from the fat silver haired guy in shades can perk up people, a smile can bring a bit of happiness into a life. No I’m not Paul McCartney, and he still hasn’t finished cleaning my windows, and I’m not a  super model either, not unless you want a Michelin man model, but all of us can bring sunshine with a smile. I’ve seen enough dull and sad people and bosses in my life to know I want to be the exact opposite.

Sharing a joke does lighten the yolk, it can start new friendships too. You can say to that Asian girl you really fancy, your eyes are like stars, and your teeth are like diamonds. Then you add, do you take them out at night. She will either give you a big slap or just smile and tell you she’s a dentist, yes for real a dentist.  Then she may push you back in the chair and ask you to open your mouth before  pouring salt into it. It is used by dentists to prevent infection after all, and she may think you are an infection. At this point you will either storm out or think, she’s the one for you. As the whole of Subway watch a marriage is born in Heaven, or rather in Subway.

So my Spring Rolls beckon, my daughter is cooking them in the kitchen and my smile is widening, memories of food always make me smile. And anticipation of food makes my smile too. So I’ll finish by suggesting you buy fairy cakes and ask your girl to teach you how to bake them. It’s something really easy to do  but the secret is in the mixing, so mix and bake and smile and put buns in the oven. 

Christmas Was Cold or my seasonal job from a few years ago, yes really would I lie to you? I am your writer.

Christmas Was Cold

Christmas Was Cold ©

By Michael Casey

Christmas was cold, and Kevin did not like it, he didn’t like it one bit. The agency had said they had a job for him , it was a temp job and it involved a lot of travel, and it paid well, very well.

So Kevin took it like a shot, he’d been unemployed for a while and he wanted to bring some money in so he could go on holiday to some place any place warm. They had said he’d get a free holiday as part of the package IF he took the job.

He arrived at the port and went into a warehouse, he’d be interviewed in there said the agency. He looked all around and he could see nobody, nobody at all. Then he heard the sound of boots echoing behind him, he spun around to see and elf approaching. He laughed, the man in the costume looked so silly.

Only it wasn’t a man in a costume, it was a real elf, only Kevin was too stupid to realise it. He’d never seen a real elf in his life. The elf looked Kevin up and down, he half smiled. Kevin was fat, very fat, the kind of fat where his belly was bursting his belt, it wasn’t overhanging his belt, that would have been disgusting. No Kevin was fat, perfect fat, for the perfect job.

The elf asked him did he know why he was here, and did he have his passport with him, the usual stuff when you apply for a job nowadays. The elf walked away with Kevin’s documentation in his hand.  Kevin looked around the warehouse it was empty, full of nothing.

Full of nothing as far as stupid people could see, if Kevin could use his eyes then he’d see that the warehouse was brimming with people and every kind of thing. This was Christmas warehouse. The elf returned holding a Santa suit in his hand, Kevin laughed, so that was the job, Santa at a store. Well he needed the money so he put the suit on.

Kevin felt dizzy, he had to lean on the elf for support, he had stars in his eyes, he was seeing things. The elf took a glass of water out of his pocket and Kevin drunk it willingly. Noise and fireworks appeared in the empty warehouse. Kevin fainted.

Kevin awoke in another world, in Santa’s world, now he could see that he was in Santa’s workshop, there were elves everywhere. He must have been drugged, he rubbed his eyes and felt his face. He had a beard, a long white beard. He’d been drugged and transformed into Santa, suit and all.

The elf explained, that only a man with a perfect belly could stand in for Santa at Christmas. Kevin was the chosen one, he was the man, he was Santa. The real Santa had broken his leg while skiing in Birmingham, so Kevin was the standin.

The elf went through the Health and Safety rules, HO HO HO, always 3 HO HO HOs, other than that there were no Health and Safety rules. The reindeer would explain everything. Kevin looked around he could see no reindeer, the elf led him outside to the dock.

A submarine surfaced and the sleigh and the reindeer emerged, reindeer can hold their breath for such a long time.  They are waterproof or seaproof too, the sleigh has water repellent paint on it too, made in the paint factory in Birmingham, you know the one just down the road from the reindeers friends in Ladywood Fire Station.

Kevin was impressed this was more like James Bond, he high fived the reindeer, they licked his new beard, that’s what reindeer always do to Santa. The elf smiled he was sure they’d get on well. The elf answered the unasked question, why the submarine?

The submarine was to get into countries where Santa was not welcome, North Korea was one of them. A sleigh would be spotted on radar, so Santa would sneak in and shower love and happiness and hope amongst the people.

Kevin shed a tear, he was Santa now, so his heart felt the things Santa felt. The submarine levitated and turned/merged into a bigger sleigh, a very large sleigh. Eat your heart out James Bond, Santa has much better toys, literally.

Kevin shook the reins and away they went into the night sky, Kevin ho ho hoed his way around the world. His fat belly was too big to get down a lot of the chimneys, but that’s where the reindeer came in, they formed a team, a tug of war team and pulled him up and down the chimneys.

The reindeer could of course get down all the chimneys, they held their breath and wriggled their bums, it was easy for them they had been doing it for centuries. That’s why your Christmas trees get nibbled in the night, it’s the reindeer, its hungry work flying around the world with Christmas presents.

Kevin, or should I say Santa realised why he needed the beard, it kept him warm, it got cold, very cold flying high in the sky. They did stop on the River Po, just to say hello to Don Camillo, he was a priest but sometimes he was on the naughty list, and sometimes he came off the naughty list, depending on what he and the mayor had been doing.

The sleigh/submarine had a never-ending supply of presents, Kevin, I mean Santa got into the swing of things, the reindeer sung carols, 1000s of them in lots of different languages, they were a carol jukebox. Some brought tears to Santa’s eyes.

Dive, dive, dive they had to sneak into a country to bring Hope and Love, no presents just a loaf of bread. The reindeer didn’t nibble on any trees, as Christmas trees and Christmas itself were banned. The reindeer cried, but there was always Hope.

High and Low, Up and Down the sleigh went over the face of the earth, Santa HO HO Hoed, tonight Christ was born, a new light had entered the world.

The work was done, the world had been crissed and crossed, the reindeer headed back to the warehouse. As the sleigh landed Kevin’s beard dissolved, he was Santa no more. He looked around the warehouse, the elves were dissolving into nothingness, the reindeer trotted away still singing Rejoice Rejoice Emanuel.

Had he been drugged, was this all an hallucination, it couldn’t be he felt Love in his heart, he had been Santa for a night. As he walked out of the warehouse his footsteps echoed into sky, Kevin looked up and could see Santa in his sleight, his crutches besides him, and the reindeer still sung Rejoice Rejoice Emanuel.    

That Special Moment

That Special Moment ©

By Michael Casey

Christmas is coming the  goose is getting fat, well it is 28^th November so forgive me for mentioning Christmas, though I do believe Christmas should be kept in December, and not August as some retailers may prefer. We had Harry and Markle on tv yesterday on about special things, I’m not going to talk about them, but how did Harry fall in love with the leader of Germany I’ll never know, as English people are notoriously bad with languages. My own speciality is bad language, so don’t vex me. Though I can stumble along in French and Spanish and one of brothers was a bit of a linguist, and another did live and work in Paris for 4 years. Not forgetting the Shanghai wife and our bilingual daughters. But I’ll leave Harry alone with his American/German phrasebook. The Windsors  are from Germany after all.

So what makes a moment special? In actual fact it’s the Future or is it the Past? When in the future you look back at your past you only then realise just how special the moment was. I think in real time you are too busy to realise how good a time you are having. It’s when you go to bed and you rewind your day that you realise how good it was as you thank God when you say your prayers. That’s if you pray at all, I bet only 15% of people actually pray. Forget the Christmas Christians or other faiths, the ones who actually have faith in their life, not those who attend because they have to. These are the believers of all faiths and none.

But you can argue the philosophy of prayer next time you are down the bookies smoking a splif as you share a can of Guinness with your local vicar. Or whoever leads your prayers. Now one special moment is when the Queen’s horse romps home and you have had a bet on it. You win 700 quid, or 2 weeks wages in money terms. You did lose double that 2 months before, but now you are triumphant. Luckily the vicar though seeing double because of the splif decides to intervene, so he grabs your winnings, no metaphor intended and puts them down his pants. So you chase him out of the bookies and up the road to the village green, where you try to debag him.

The little dog laughed to see such fun and the dish ran away with the spoon, so says the nursery rhythm. In reality people are wondering why their trendy vicar is being attacked and having the pants torn off him. A tear appears and ten pound noses flutter from the vicars torn pants.  The vicar continues running away, as Michael Casey Trainee betting Shop Manager stands in the door of the bookies and wonders will every day be like this. Smiling Paul the bookie in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker  would be taking bets by now on how long before the vicar would be knickerless with just the odd 10 pound note to hide his modesty. 

The vicar’s pants come off and tenners float everywhere, the vicar has just his union  jack underpants on. The crowd are impressed by all his bulges. The vicar’s assistant appears still wearing vestments, she takes off her cassock so the vicar can hide his bulges. Then she turns on you to lash you with her tongue. She used to be a bingo caller before the call came, but now she’ll lash you unmercifully for daring to disrobe a vicar in public.

As she whips you with her  tongue a strange thing happens, you realise she is the one for you. You are being chastised by god’s helper, by god’s little worker. So as you finish collecting your 700 winnings you look deep into her eyes, and then and then and then and then  you puke all over her. Splif and Guinness combined with chasing the vicar and tearing his clothes off to get your money back has upset your stomach. Or it could have been the two spicy kebabs as you watch the race meeting from Ascot in the bookies’ shop. So the vicar’s assistant is covered in your puke.

Her face goes red with anger, you say it matches her red hair, and you just love her Edinburgh accent.  She punches you in the stomach, which was a mistake so you puke all over her again before you collapse on top of her. Now at this point God intervenes, he knows she has a really bad temper and had hoped the church would hide it. She has now been twice blessed, or is it twice puked over. As you lay on top of her saying sorry you use the 700 in notes top wipe your sick off her.

Six months later at your wedding to the Scots lass all this is remembered as a turning  point in both of your lives. A passing fire engine had hosed you both down, as for the 700 in the new plastic notes, that was given to the local children’s home, as a penance for being sick over the vicar’s assistant. The Scots lass had looked into your eyes and saw that you were the man with the child in his eyes, Kate Bush was her favourite singer after all.

So it was like being struck by lightning, or rather 2 shades of vomit.  The vicar  had lost his pants, the children’s home had gained a donation, you had lost your addiction, or rather the contents of your stomach, but gained a wife. And she would be a Verger no more.

Yes, looking back a really special moment.

Hopelessness and Prayer

   Hopelessness and Prayer

November 23, 2016

Hopelessness and Prayer ©

By Michael Casey

We all pray in our own way, sometimes really meaning it, and sometimes we are so full of hopelessness we cannot even pray at all, or not the kind of Prayer our priest or rabbi or imam would recognise as prayer but luckily God accepts all prayer.  Curses and oaths and tears, lots and lots of tears, and slamming doors or kicking the furniture or throwing plates against the wall, all these do happen in our distress.  Luckily God is a furniture restorer, God is good with glue too, the kind that works on all materials, Love is his glue.

So why am I talking about this tonight? Well house hunting is a very emotional process and it does make you curse when your hopes and dreams are dashed. You were a nanosecond late and so you miss your chance to get a nice house. It can be that competitive in certain streets, you really do have to put notes through letterboxes saying “ I want to live in this street, sell me your house” The householder just thinks it’s a Pizza Company wanting to buy your house and turn it into a pizza parlour, you get so many leaflets for pizza after all.

Your head is down you team has lost that match and you skipped class to travel to watch your team, now you’ve lost 2 days study time, and if you don’t pass you’ll not get into the best university. All because you followed such a dumb team, and you are dressed in green and orange the team’s colours. So on the bus home, you could not afford to fly, so you are on a bus for 20 hours and are trying to revise. God help me and I’ll start going to church again just please help me revise and pass the test.

A Chinese girl gets on the bus and she sits next to you, she is just too pretty, how can you revise when she is just too much temptation for you. You try and hide behind your physics book. Thanks God, you really do have an evil sense of humour, then the girl taps on your physics book to tell you she likes the colours, and are you Irish perhaps? You laugh and try and hide behind the physics book, you look upwards, God if you were here besides me I’d smack you in the mouth. Somebody ahead causes the bus to do an emergence stop, so the Chinese girl is flung against you.

Just like Physics she says as you  both move apart reluctantly, God what are you trying to do to me you think, but God is like Physics he moves in mysterious ways. The Chinese girl spontaneously squeezes your muscles, I like strong men, you are chewing your Wrigleys and nearly choke on it. Yes just like physics you reply trying to look into her eyes, and not any lower.


I like Physics too, I’m doing my PhD, adds the Chinese girl. Now God really is taking the Mick. So you know what MC=4C means, you say, the Chinese girl explains it. God has answered all his prayers. So they spend the rest of the journey talking Physics. She gives him a master class in Physics, he was in despair and with no Hope at all and God had sent him a pretty Chinese PhD student in Physics.

At the end of the journey he was at least A minus as far as the test would say when he took it. Though for the Chinese girl this would be a disgrace and her parents would ashamed of her if she got such a low mark, distinction or nothing. The Chinese girl had decided she would make him her husband, though she only told him boyfriend, she did not want to frighten him after all, Chinese make decisions very fast after all.

Now some would say this tale is just beyond belief, but speaking as somebody who spent all his time, 3 years every single day visiting  the seniors home hoping against hope that dad would stay alive, then where did my own Chinese future wife appear? And yes I really was vetted by a Chinese Ballerina from the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

So do say some prayers when things are utterly hopeless, besides the fridge next to a photo of your dead mum might be a good place to pray from. Though I will tell you all  the real answer to MC=4C its Physics  in a way, it means Michael Casey equals 4 Chinese people, because I used to weigh as much as my wife, my mother-in-law and my 2 infant children, which gives you  MC=4C. You can try that as a chat up line to your Chinese girls in your Physics class. And if they don’t become your girlfriend, tell them they will make your Panzi friend cry, and the will tell you what Panzi means.

A special message for my premature reader in USA

I spotted the fact that almost immediately after I posted Home Comforts a USA  reader with a mac, though it could just be a dirty brown overcoat had read the post. This would be about 5.30pm usa time on 27nov 2017. So thank you Columbo or Jared or White house Press corps, or just some guy on the desk in a hotel somewhere. All readers are more than welcome.

The Home Comforts from Abroad was a reference to a Book Title from decades ago, I did a quick google after I posted the piece and could not find it.  But for homework you can.

I would really love for people to start buying my books as I really do need a bigger house, hopefully with 2 bathrooms aND  4 bedrooms. But as I said to somebody in an email recently, this may only happen when Donald Trump becomes Humble, or Tonga enters the space race and starts a rugby club on the Moon.

I have had this dream of a big  house for years, I can see it on the back of a bedroom door, drawn in crayon by my daughters 10 years ago,when they were small. A big house for us all with rooms galore. Well we got the cat Totoro at least. so next stop should be the house and a dog for me.

Can anybody tell me  have I got a spy that makes my arrow pointer move, or is it just Windows 10 Creators edition bug? Other than that thanks for reading my stuff, I'm 72,366 words into 15Up my next book, so maybe by year end if I  reach 100,000 words I put it on Amazon, where none of you will buy it.
SOB SOB SOB, this is English for tears not the American sob which is something totally different.

Go to bed now  and make love to your North Korean Army girl or boy.

And maybe then Kim will just give up as Mugabe did. As all the Army are otherwise engaged.

Home Comforts

Home Comforts ©

By Michael Casey

Home comforts and being comfortable are very important things, I noticed Harry and his girl seemed so comfortable together tonight, so rather than write about them I’ll write or rather talk about comfort. A girl a boy is a very comforting thing, to listen to you, or pretend to, to give you physical comfort too, after a very difficult day.

But what other things are a comfort? Soft toilet paper and plenty of it, nice warm towels straight from the airing cupboard. Hot water in the tank so you can have a bath, your antidandruff shampoo so you don’t look as if you have just come in from a snow storm, or from a wedding or from a carpentry shop. Providing that your children haven’t used your shampoo  to wash Totoro the cat,  so you have to use the dregs of shampoo and even a bar of carbolic soap on what’s left of your hair. All these are the comforts of home, any home.

Milk, your milk left in the fridge so that you can make a cup of coffee the  British way, with milk, but no sugar. Or just have milk to go with your cereals. Though as often as not, Totoro the cat purrs “milk” so she has the last of the milk so you cannot even have a final cup of coffee. Your girls love the cat much much more than they love you , their dad.

Dry clothes that have been brought in off the washing line, and left to air on the radiators, providing your girls were not WhatsApping their friends, whatever that’s supposed to mean. So when you the leader of the family need dry clean clothes they are there ready for you, on the radiator.  There’s no space in the family wardrobes as you live with 3 girls, so your clothes are squashed into a small corner, where the cat loves to sit, but thankfully not spray.

Up a corner of the living room is your bare wooden chair that you sit on.  You bought new furniture 3 years ago, by coincidence when you had your unplanned quadruple heart attack, but it was too low and hurt when you sat on it post op. So you perch on a bare wooden chair, made comfortable  with the addition of some horrid stripy cushions, while your girls stretch out on the brand new trendy but low sofas. Home is comfortable for them but not for you as you all watch tv.

You decide to buy a single arm chair to squeeze up a corner so you are comfortable as you watch tv. Only they are too big to fit in the space. Until finally you find one, only you cannot find the legs, which are hidden under the seat, in a secret zip up section, something never ever before invented. So you lose face, but are saved and helped by a nice Polish guy, to find and attach your chair legs. Then finally you can squeeze an armchair into a corner, and like Little Jack Horner you sit there and watch tv, you bum is no longer sore after 3 years.

All these are simple little things that are my home comforts. A cat does make a house turn into a home, even if Totoro wakes me up in the middle of the night so that I can let her out a window. Then if in the middle of the night I get up for pain or for a drink Totoro will suddenly appear on the kitchen window wanting to be let in at 3am or 6am. Her job is to purr as I stroke her fur, she is a home comfort too, whatever your point of view.

Fruit in the fruit bowl  is always nice so long as  your pigs don’t eat it first, Royal Gala apples and bananas are great. Our new supermarket does have nicer food than the old one, though you do have to pay a bit more, but judging by the family happiness level, it was a good decision to switch when my daughter was revising for her GCSEs. Nicer bread, we have switched to brown bread all the time now, one brand is so much better than the others now we have made the switch. These simple simple things really DO make a difference to home comfort.

Underpants make a difference too, so long as they don’t shrink in the wash, I replaced a load of my flags and  guess what when I put them in the wash a load of the new ones shrunk. Tight pants that strangle your bits are no good to any man, a home comfort is a body that is comfortable, and not squeezed and squashed by tight shrunken underpants.

If you add all the things up that make up Home Comforts, they can be varied and many and don’t have to cost a pretty penny. You just want to feel relaxed and comfortable, like a pair of old slippers, and a tatty dressing gown which keeps you warm while you write your next talk for all your readers. Then your life will Sparkle, so good luck to Harry and Markle, for she is your home comfort from abroad.

I hope you all had a restful Sunday

I of course was down the pub with Aliens, the thing is they won't stop drinking after their first 17 pints of Stella Artois and cheese and onion crisps.

So I did not get around to writing anything new today.

So here's a randomly chosen piece to keep you all going.

Music v Words(c)

By Michael Casey

Vangelis does film music. I'm listening to some now. So how can a few notes stir us so much? From the age of cave men music has touched us, I'd kill my best mate, then I'd mate with his girl, after dinner, his body we'd play with his bones then realise what a great beat you can get by banging his arm bone on the top of his skull. Now this must have been when drumming began, Buddy Rich's forebears.That's when music entered our collective mind. As the bones mounted up, we discovered different sounds, and so many years later the fluke of whistle was discovered by using different selections of bones that had holes in them. But back to Vangelis how can he make us feel, really feel just by a collection of noise that becomes notes. Power is invested in notes, love is invested in notes. I was talking to my new neighbour and her mum recently and I was saying just how jealous I am of musicians. My neighbour plays violin, and my own girls are leaning piano. My point though is that in seconds a noise, a tuneful noise can touch our hearts and our very souls. Me if I write something here and say Elaine likes it that is very touching, but its slow. A writer needs 30 seconds to touch somebody's soul, as that's the reading time, as for music, its like drugs straight to the heart, as immediate as what the doctor injects to a heart attack victim. So I am and always will be in awe of musicians. Chung Kuo is playing on the Vangelis album now and I can feel my heart stirring. I am a meer writer, I will never be a musician. Sometimes as I sit here I dream another section of what will be Tears for a Butcher, I dream of the music that will go with it if ever it becomes a film, or as I listen to music I think yes that will go well with that scene I have in my head. Words on a page are an idea, but add a bit of music then you have passion. Perhaps I am being the director and musical arranger as I write a new scene or dream of a new scene. I cannot at the moment commit myself to a year of writing another book, if you like I am lazy and post here twice a week instead. Vangelis is playing The Tao of Love now, he is filling my mind and heart with pictures, because he is music and I am only words.

p.s. I need a haircut just as winter comes

Aliens visiting Earth

Aliens visiting Earth ©

By Michael Casey

I saw a bit of a film called Cowboys v Aliens on the tv the other night, James Bond actor Daniel Craig was in it, as well as Harrison Ford, then today I spotted a piece in the newspaper where a former Canadian Defence minister  said aliens had in fact visited us. So it got me thinking. Why would you come all the way to Earth just to see the likes of you and me?

 I would come to see Michelangelo to see Caravaggio, even to have a free dinner with Andrew Graham Dixon the Art expert, so long as his Italian mate was cooking. But to come to Birmingham to eat a donna kebab? Though there is one certain place where you would die for the kebabs, then another where you might die if you ate one of the kebabs, such as when I was in Paris in 1999, Valentines and alone. So what would make you get into your space ship to come all the way to Earth? Not unless it is the ultimate daytime tv, but for aliens.

Aliens reproduce by touching hands, just like in Barbarella, but Humans, it’s like Lego one piece fits another to make another, the legover method. It must be very strange compared to how they reproduce on Alpha Zeta or wherever the Alien Tourist Agency is based. Why come this far just to have a tour, with the Alien equivalent of  David Attenborough as your guide.

All these famous statues in museums have a leg or an arm missing, is it because Aliens take a graft and once back home grow the full statue to fill their displace cases   which are by the Alien toilets. Looking at a Human work of art helps make Aliens pooh. Is Human Art the cure for Alien constipation, well the prices would make anybody want to pooh. Half a billion for a fake recently. I know it’s a fake because an Alien told me the other night if it were real they would have taken a sample to bring back home to the stars to go in a display case, by the toilets.

Would aliens visit to see Manchester United when they were the best in the world, or to see Pele at the top of his game. Or do they just love Cheers and cannot get the box set on their planet so they visit Blockbuster  to buy all the box sets in the store.

Or do they visit to see how we pray, and how leaders get in the way of prayer? Or do they think the idea of God just a great big joke? Would everybody on Earth stop believing if they knew there were Aliens everywhere? Or would they assume God is bigger that all the civilisations on all the planets everywhere?

Is Earth just a petting zoo for Aliens, a quaint old place like the American view of England? Do Aliens think we are retarded, what with all our nuclear weapons, with the posturing and posing? Are Trump and Kim the new Punch and Judy, but with millions of lives at stake not just sausages for the crocodile, and I’m not talking about Zimbabwe’s new leader who judging him from his past will be equally evil as Mugabe was.

So is Earth the ultimate Reality Tv for Aliens, is there a Richard Branson Alien who organises all the visits to Earth? If I were an Alien I’d cry. I cry that Kim was destroying his beautiful North Korea, I’d cry that Putin was starting an Arms Race, or is it Trump, he just wants to sell arms to everybody. Giving Alms is the thing. Aliens could be scouting for a new place to live, their own planet could be dying, it is no Hollywood.

Why do Aliens come to Earth, was it the planet of their Birth, were Aliens here before, before devastation showed  them the door, did they quickly exit the time the dinosaur’s their friends were wiped out. Do Aliens visit hoping they can return, only to find the state  the planet is in now? Arms  race instead  of Alms race, reaching for the stars,  searching the oceans floor, finding Atlantis once more. Rebuilding the Alien culture which really is Humans first culture. Telepathy used to be king, now all we can do is sing, for an Alien its heart must sink, why has Humanity come to this?

Well I don’t know why the world is the way it is. But IF I did have Telepathy then I’d send all the leaders, this nightmare to beware, as you sleep I am sat in a chair watching you there. I am the Devil of your own making, I’m watching you all the time, and when you make that mistake it will be your final one. For you, your people, your country, your entire world.

Change must come, it comes from within, it’s never imposed, it’s always from self. So look around at the past, look inside, and look all around. What world do you want the Aliens to find? Or do you want it just to smoulder and sink and die because of Arrogance. Or do you want to return this Earth, our Earth into the Garden of Eden it once was, when dinosaurs were our lawn mowers, our friends, before it became  an alien world to Aliens the original Humans.

Feeling Tired

Feeling Tired ©

By Michael Casey 

When you are tired you cannot control or coordinate your brain to your hands, rather like I am right now. As an experiment I’ll see what I can write while I am so tired, though you may all say it’s much better than my usual rubbish. So very kind of all the Borises out there, but we remember when we tied Boris’s shoe laces together when he was asleep instead of doing the security patrol. We hid outside the control room door and blew a whistle and heard him crash down on the floor, we knew he’d chase after us once he untied his shoe laces that’s why we were on the safe side of the door.

I used to work the night shift with Duncan, he’d be in his 40s now, now he could not sleep during the day no matter what he tried, so he’d be typing away at the banks of keyboards we had then suddenly he’d fall asleep and then bang his head on the monitor.

I stepped out to buy some milk and it was so cold it woke me up, but then I felt so tired once I got back to our house that I just had a 2 hour nap. That’s why you have the change of paragraph, I was sleeping. The pain monster did visit last night and it was after 4am before I finally slept. At 3 am I had Heinz tomato soup, with stale baguettes, just like Heidi, as well as dropping a plate, but my pigs stayed fast asleep. The cat did ask to be let back in, she keeps such strange hours.

Back to my computer room days, this was maybe 30 years ago, when the lads would go for a fag in the bogs, I’ll translate for the American readers, a cigarette in the rest room. So Flash as he was called cruelly, because the other lads thought he was slow. Well Flash went to the bog and while he was having a fag as he sat on the bog dumping, and dumping is not the computer usage for dumping. By dumping I mean pumping, I hope that is clear to all of you. So Flash fell asleep as he sat on the toilet, if you ever have to do night shifts you will have sympathy for him.

But Flash had lit a cigarette, luckily he had not had any beans that night or there could have been a major explosion. Instead he nodded off and dropped his cigarette, thus setting fire to his trousers. Good word thus, when did you use it last? Go use thus today, I dare you. Luckily he was wearing cotton blue jeans and not polyester, which as you know burns and shrinks as it burns. So his blue jeans caught fire around his ankles, and the smoke woke him up. As shift leader I let sleeping dogs pooh in peace, though we did wonder what was keeping him, it could have just been constipation which is the curse of shift workers, and people who take lots of pain killers, so now you know.

Flash came back to show us his smouldering ash, or was it ass? We all had a laugh, and then I had my sandwiches which were always red Leicester on ham which I microwave as it was 4am after all which was my usual lunch break time.

So you have had an insight into my world my life, my tired life that was shift working. You are always tired when you work shifts, so have sympathy for your nurse friends and store workers. Give them chocolate and kisses, though the chocolate will probably be the more appreciated.

It takes longer to think, to add up and to move when you are tired, your whole body can ache. That’s why doctors on night shift get people to double check dosage, or if they don’t they should. 5 seconds thought before actions can save a lifetime of trouble. Another thing affected by tiredness are your ears. You say “what” a lot when you are tired, as if you are suddenly deaf, mind you teenagers always say “what”. You are in a different time zone when you are tired. You are 10 to 20 seconds out of synch with the real world, with GMT, the Got More Time in bed people, than you. 

My life has been a life of shifts, if you do the horrible hours it makes you more employable. So after all the nights shifts I spent years doing the 12 to 8pm shift. Which led to years of instant meals with MSG in them which could have caused my unplanned quadruple heart bypass. Even though I never used oil just oven baked.   

My father was lucky in that his GP, Dr Hickman said he should not work night shifts, so he didn’t have to. So he just worked up to 16 hours a day in the heat of the steel works, The District Iron and Steel in Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. But being a worker like my dad did bond us even closer. Though my feet were never as smelly, as I didn’t sweat as much.

Well I hope I haven’t tired you all out by this talk of tiredness. I hope you respect the security guard walking around too, they tend to work really long hours. One day they may just save your life, that’s what they are there for. So blow Phil and Taz on security a kiss next time you pass by their station, it’ll make their day. Because speaking from experience if they don’t know the answer then they will know a man who does know the answer. Obviously it won’t be me, I’ll be fast asleep in bed, assuming I’m not slapping on the Movelat  or making Heinz soup at 3am for me and the cat.

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC 

if you all did really buy my books then I'd like to live here, it's always good for the spirit to dream, failing that does anybody know the lottery numbers?