Plain English

Plain English (c)

By

Michael Casey

So I keep on reading rubbish, and I keep on writing rubbish I hear you say, why don't you go away and burn ants with a magnifying glass just as I did in the 1960s. You can try this at home, as all the Buddhists complain, see simple pleasures have changed in 50 years. You can discuss this amongst yourselves, you have fly zappers in your stores, so who is the more cruel?

Times change and language changes too, though good old Anglo Saxon remains the same, ask Lenny Bruce if you don't believe me. Or just go Bla a Bla or Do a Do, or Soo a Soo or even Kapo a Kapo. You are so disgusting, how is that even physically possible? You'll send me a link to your Utube channel. Don't bother, I'll just wear snorkling gear and jump from the top of the wardrobe to, well mind your own business, what people do in the privacy of their own homes should stay there. Like What Happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Vegas is the name of our local fish and chip shop by the way. They dye the chips orange, he's a very nice man, he always gives me an extra shake of salt. If he knew that the Heart ward bans salt, then he'd stop, but I don't want to crush him.

Now what has this got to do with the price of a kebab, or a bag of chips for that matter? I don't know either, but I have to give you all a chance to warm up. So now that you are sitting comfortably then I'll begin, and you Pete and the back, stop wiping snot on the keyboard, are you that bored already? Now where was I? I read the newspapers every day, though with Covid19 I'm rationing myself a bit, otherwise it would be overwhelming. I would encourage you all to do the same. Major Mental Health Problems will arise after we all get out of Lockdown, IF we don't all think positive. Distract and Divert our Souls away from the Tsunami of trouble.

So read the Press but don't read all your DM, or Guardian or DT or whatever you read. Don't watch 10 hours of news on tv either. I confess I have been a life long News Addict, 50 years worth. I also read the USA news mainly in bed with Tinnitus my Roman slave. The thing is you must be selective, you must have a plan, otherwise I'm BORED, rears it's ugly head. It seems to me people have short attention spans nowadays, and what to be entertained. They don't have enough in their head already to keep them happy.

Maybe only children will be better at adapting to the Covid19 world, not just children themselves but grown ups who were only children. As they had to make up their own entertainment, or cruel kids who burn ants with magnifying glasses. Or poor kids, or kids with IMAGINATION, I used to have a paper clip and I traced up and down a brick wall, the mortar was the road, and the paper clip was a car for the Leprechans. Simple pleasures for me and Derek McKenna in the 1960s. Nowadays if the battery goes kids are marooned without any way of entertaining themselves. Which is so very sad.

Dirk Bogarde in his book tells of the look in the window challenge, you look in the shop window for a minute, then turn your back and try to remember what was there. Can you paint a picture? You can play this at home too. It's a way of exercising you observation skills. Dirk Bogarde was a Photographic Interpreter in WWII. It's a simple game, very simple, but it creates skills and stengths, and it costs nothing, nothing at all, so anybody can do it or adapt to your surroundings.

While you are at home, you can all teach yourself to give a speech. Useful in all areas of your life. And not just for the obnoctious wanna bes in the media, a smile and a figure, male or female does not make a good reporter. So here's how you learn. Have 5 objects in front of you, or look out the window and pick 5 objects. Then you take turns to speak for 60 seconds, like Just a Minute on the Radio. But without any interruptions. Then you give/get constructive advice. So 5 objects, 5 sixty second talks. Followed by constructive advice. Then you move on to another 5 objects, but you increase the talk time. This is the basic structure.

You can give yourselves prep time to make notes before you talk. So you have the idea. The “exam” the next day is being able to stand up and talk for 15minutes, from your notes. And yes I stood up and spoke for 30 mins about my Paris misadventures, this was Maundy Thursday 1998. Carole with an E nearly wet herself because she didn't know what I was going to say next. The next day I went to Czech and ended up talking to Jana's English class, I talked without notes for 90 minutes. So the course worked. Being able to write is one skill, but being able to talk is another. Being able to read a script is a different skill too, hard for me as I like free flow, so even though I've written a piece I need to learn/practice delivering it. As I am channeling myself, I bet you never thought of that, actors really do act after all. Go to my typepad and as I recorded more the delivery got better, though they were recorded 5 years ago I think. And then recording 5 in a day was so tiring. I'm not a machine.

As usual I was going to follow one path but I've gone another way, however IF you all follow my simple instructions, all of you, yes all of you should be able talk. You can then win the heart of that girl or boy or any which way, whom you wanted so much. Now you have the skills to win, beauty will fade, but laughter lasts forever, so if you can make your love laugh, she/he will chose you. And then everybody will assume you are rich, and so you are, rich in spirit.

What I was going to speak about was, use plain English, otherwise readers will say he's up his own backside, as if we give a monkeys, don't they know there is a war on, a Covid19 war. And yes you can draw cartoons of Covid19 as an ant, with you burning them with magnifying glasses, well metaphorically speaking.

So that's it for today, over 1100 words, and yes you can learn to write too, though I spent 20 years listening to BBC Radio4, quality speech radio before I ever picked up a pen. It's up to you, you can do whatever you want to do, it's up to you. I just wish John Denver would stop singing that so loudly, maybe I should change my ring tone?