SO HERE'S THIS AGAIN 21door keys the story so far
43,000 words or so
Post Trump Words 3rd Nov 2020
By Michael Casey
This is everything after Trump
The Morning Afterwards ©
By Michael Casey
Well it’s a few days after the USA Election, and I start a new container file for my words, as Word cannot handle 1,640,000 words or so, which means the dustbin of my words with now be two dustbins. I did tell Microsoft before when 1,000,000 words seemed to be too much. So here and now I’m telling them I’ve hit the roof again. Feel free to give me free Word for life on multiple devices. Though I won’t hold my breath, it’s more likely Jeff Bezo gives my daughters free books for life, or the Pope, Trump and Putin really were in a band with Theresa May. Though I did write a story about a band with all 4 in.
Reality can really be stranger than fiction, hang on a second, a Yul Bremner, Kojak look alike is at my door, who ordered pizza?
So I want to amuse you all, and cheer us all up, the USA Election has been so draining, through the swamp still remains, and I’m over here in Birmingham England. The view from afar seems no better. But thank God multiple vaccines are arriving, and Warp speed did NOT fund it. Let’s be honest about it. So the day my Angel Gabriel arrived from Greece was the same day the vaccine news arrived, yesterday 9th Nov 2020.
So everybody has a sore head, and a huge sigh of relief goes up the world over. So how many morning afterwards have you had? My Kdrama about shoes, I do I do revolved around a one night stand, as usual it was very funny, and did remind us a woman does not need a man to depend on. She can decide for herself. Though in Kdrama land there are many many twists and turns, which are very funny, as well as being touched with pathos. An older woman, with a whimp of a man, what should she do, and did love grow afterwards, instead of first. I really do recommend Kdramas, I watch in Korean with subtitles, but you could change the settings.
There are other morning afterwards, alcohol and celebrations can cause regrets, but sometimes you really do need to do things, My Way, and have no regrets. You can spend your life putting up with rubbish, a bad boss, or another kind of bully. You bite your lip or say nothing, so the bully gets bigger. I’m more assertive now than when I was younger, they say you mellow with age, for me “rage” is bigger now compared to when I was younger. Before I had a target, saving to get a house, then working hard for my young kids, working long shifts galore, 14 years of nights included, up to 12 hours on a night shift too.
But you do what you have to do for your target and for your family, as you watch others drink, smoke and more while you do the chores. Now I’m just the penniless Writer sitting here talking to you all, I’m at home, all I can do is write, as my pained life edges forward to what? More pain, and lots and lots of words. Though I do want to make you smile and laugh, so I’ll mine my memories and put pictures in your head. I do look more like Santa now if I don’t shave, like in yesterday’s photo with Gabriel my new Angel from Greece. So when I go to the shops dressed in red, passing children wonder is that Santa, mommy? Still wearing my shades, like a bad Santa. And the quick-thinking mothers tell their kids to behave or Santa won’t come.
Quick thinking cats, attack the turkey at Christmas, my own mum had to hide our turkey in the pantry, and cut out a piece where Jean our black cat had gotten to it, or else throw it all away. That same cat always knew when it was Sunday because she got the giblets from the chicken for 20 years, starting nearly 60 years ago. Jean also climbed our tiny box Christmas tree and it came tumbling down, otherwise she sat on the old box tv, as all the valves made it hot, cat not on a hot tin roof, but on a switched off tv, an early tv critic. And when she poohed indoors when used the same corner of the living room. Totoro my cat, is cleverer and poohs in the bath, she is self-taught, because she is bright, a bilingual cat.
I could go on about cats, instead I’ll direct you to The Bad Cat that Wasn’t which is a nice story, touched with sadness, but still a good read. As well as my Lech Boris and Gregorgi stories, my Slav friends really do make me laugh, and any Russian readers should hit Translate and try the stories with Polish/Ukrainian/Russian first cousins from Popaloffoff. One day a cartoon or even live action film could be made, so Putin make it so.
Also look at the Queens Gambit a series on tv, where the finale is so great, playing chess in the park with old Russian men, was truly wonderful. We are blessed nowadays with so much choice, so Covid times have been a curse, but the silver lining has been the tv. Yes, I know what you are all saying, but you have to be positive, otherwise our Spirits will stay in the dumps. We must all rise again, the morning after Covid, there is Sunshine again. From the flowers in the dirt we will look to the stars again.
The Nobel Art of Advertising ©
By Michael Casey
I had a strange email yesterday from a real proper company, they know who they are, and it was in Chinese. Then today I had a retraction from the same company, saying not to worry. I get loads of rubbish in many languages, it’s my own fault because I have loads of Translations of my books and stories on my Wordpress https://michaelgcaseyfrombirminghamengland.wordpress.com/ so I can annoy the world. Korea is looking at me bigtime at the moment, whether that’ll lead to anything only time will tell. So the world assumes I’m multilingual, ok the hackers and jokers send me rubbish in many languages. It does say English only on my site, if I can Google translate then so can they. I do write everything in English, my mother tongue after all. Anyway because of that stray email yesterday I am talking about this today. But before I forget, I just delete any email stating people are dying, or they work in a bank. I just click phishing and hopefully they lose their email account and/or the police come and take them and their $100,000,000 dollars away, along with their monopoly set.
Which brings me back to Advertising, but first I have to close the windows it’s cold, my daughter came back from 6th form college and burnt her dinner in the kitchen, and the stink has spread to here, the “study” I opened then window and the stink got stronger, my daughter said it was better than my B.O. or my aftershave, but I digress. So why do we Advertise? To promote and sell. Obviously I’m no good at selling, otherwise I’d be living in Harborne the posh zone in Birmingham. I’ll stay here till I die, which some days feels very close, but my back is healing now after 2 weeks, but I’m walking around like Groucho Marx at the moment, and I can only stand for a minute or so before the pain is too much. I hurt my back 10 years ago and it clicks out randomly, the appointment for the back hospital arrived the day I got out of the heart hospital after my heart bypass, so much for Ying and Yang. Maybe if I have more children, me and my imaginary Korean Kpop wife, we’ll call our daughters Ying Casey and Yang Casey.
Advertising is for selling and sharing. Churches have signs, give us our daily bread, as do bakers for jam donuts. By advertising you make money, and then you can live your life of luxury. Though as I’d said before I’d donate away money, if I earnt any, all you need is enough, then share the rest. But let’s get back to advertising. How you dress is a form of advertising, the selfie is the ultimate advert. Look at me I’m so great, are you jealous. As girls pout and stick out their bum, but my bum is bigger and tighter and firmer, no cellulite on mine. Though mine is hairier, perhaps I should advertise for Harry’s the perfect bum shave, though they do say their razor is not suitable for heads, what about bums? Should I send them and email and ask. Or is there a whole new career path ahead.
What else could I advertise? Toilet paper, I use enough, so I am an expert. Look at the sheets, sheets I said, count the sheets, as some offers are not as good as others. And if you want my expert bum opinion Kirkland paper is the best, sheet per sheet, it goes a long long way, and is better value than Andrex the leader here in UK. You’ll all be looking at Amazon right now. And don’t forget Baby Wipes don’t flush away, they just block and flood, as a friend had a flood because somebody used Baby Wipes, and then blocked and flooded. Yes there was a big stink about that.
Here in UK, humour is used more to sell stuff, it is claimed some of our adverts are better than imported TV programmes. Yes, I would love to write for adverts and I am available for a four figure sum. And here’s and example, so if you want me to write for you. Michael Casey is the FAT silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, that’s BirmingUM as in England. What can we say about him, he’s so adorable, and you chose him he’ll keep you laughing, and you’ll have beautiful children with soft silvery hair. He’s such a catch, with scars everywhere like a pirate, a chest scar that is ever so long, with a delicious balloon like hernia poking through his bypass scar, which fills with air like a balloon, and if you make Michael Casey laugh he’ll cry, in pain, as it hurts when he laughs. Such fun to see. And when he takes off his trousers you’ll see his scars on his legs, where veins were harvested to go into his heart. See a fine figure of a man, scared to save his life, from ankles to his naughty bits. But his legs are so strong, topped off, topped off, not Topol, by a firm and large derriere. Beyonce was sent a silhouette and she was so envious, she hid hers with a Jersey, or was it JayZee. Then moving up his frame a very hairy left shoulder, an A3 size brown birthmark covered in hair. Are you getting palpitations ladies, or even men reading this. Could you control your lust, would you, could you, must you, you just had too. The 9 months later, small Michaels arrive. Or is this advertising so bad and terrible you’d just use it to wipe your bum with. Have I no hope, no future of being a father to more? What’s that knock at the door, is it a suitor, or just Amazon delivering more toilet paper.
K-dramas and Me ©
By Michael Casey
Well as promised, my bad back healing and a shaved face, I now have my bum in place, here on my chair, so if you are sitting comfortably then I’ll begin. What is a K-drama, it’s a Korean soap, a kind of 16 hour long mini-series. It’s not a hot and steamy thing on the Internet. It’s a family orientated soap, like Coronation Street here in UK. Though K-dramas are shot like James Bond, with lots of high-end stuff, and plenty of product placing, though as I’m poor I wouldn’t know what product had been placed. The standard of living is so much higher over in Korea too. Such as folding phones from Samsung, 2000 quid, I googled and nearly fell off the toilet. No I’m not Trump I never use a phone when I’m dumping or pumping. I am watching Go Ara in the piano series at the moment and those fancy phones are being used, so I googled. So you can see the high-end qualities of what’s in the series. Korea is a land of hills too, as there are always people walking up and down hills.
The fashion is great too, it’s like people from a James Bond, all in a mini- series. When I was in Shanghai once we did see a scene being filmed in the street, obviously they waited till I walked out of shot before they continued filming. And yes K-dramas are better than the Chinese series we use to watch, so these past 2 years, since we moved to the new house I have discovered and enjoyed my K-dramas.
Now the girls are really pretty in K-drama land, the boys look like male models too. They study for up to 5 years before the debut, that’s why the singing and acting is so good. The format is love, and loss and love again, waiting for the first kiss, it might take 8 episodes, before the couple kiss, there’s no coupling, just kissing. So the anticipation grows, until with a rush of music and a background song, the kissing starts. Its different to Bollywood, you’d have to ask your Indian friends to explain the difference for you.
The swell of music and the kiss, the heart breaks and the breakups and finally the return to true love. Kind of Soppy but not. It’s all so very funny, like the gang of ladies in the hairdressers in La La Land in the piano K-drama I’m watching right now. There are also car crashes and action too, watch K2, that was great as well, Yoona was in it, and yes she was my first K-drama love. Then there was the one about the Ghost catchers, the Pop star who came from the past to the future. The Robot girl, the man who was too sensitive, not forgetting the Shoe soap and many many more. The girls are so pretty and the boys so tough. The stories are so full of twists and turns, all with a loud soundtrack and motifs. The accent can be very strong and loud, almost like a comic book, but generally it’s normal but in Korean, so I watch with subtitles, you could change the settings for your own tastes. And when the girls cry, and there’s always tears, it breaks your heart, and even the male actors cry sometimes too. Those tears will wash any doubts away, it just has got to be K-drama.
So that’s why I dream of a speed typist from Korea, who’ll type up Tears for a Butcher for me, though I’d probably need back expert too. Then we marry and have 4 kids and form our very own Kpop band. Though all this is just in my head, and in Never Never Land, so Go Ara will never arrive, as we lost the piano when we moved house….
When Santa’s Angels Came to the Rescue ©
By Michael Casey
Santa was sad, even he had caught Covid 19, he thought he was safe at the North Pole, but no, he caught Covid 19. So how could he get on his slay and deliver presents, besides which, what about all those grandparents who were sheltering and may not see their grandkids this Christmas. It was all so sad, Santa just wanted to cry and ask for a cuddle from his mom. He sniffled and Rudolf pushed his fleece back to cover him more, Rudolf was worried too, nobody had a clue what to do. Rudolf sneaked out of the giant igloo and would have cried, he had to hide his tears from Santa, a reindeer must always be strong. Rudolf looked to the skies, overhead a shooting star passed by. But it was not a shooting star, it was the Space Station.
Rudolf was inspired, the Dragon Capsule had filled the space station with men, so they could take turns to help him. Rudolf flew skyward, his red nose flashing, SOS, SOS, SOS, which as you know means Save Our Santa, Save Our Santa, Save Our Santa. The spacemen thought they were seeing things, but the Monk was reading a Christmas Carol to them from the comfort of his study. And as they excitedly said Rudolf was flashing them, he took the photos of Santa from beneath his 1st Edition a Christmas Carol. In an instant, he knew what had to be done, the three cousins from Papaloffoff would have to go to the North Pole and help Save Santa.
Now how could a retired USA general get Russia to help. The Monk rang a number and then did not speak, he just tapped his thumb on the phone, in Morse Code he asked a friend for a favour. Could Vladimir get the three cousins to the North Pole. Now Vladimir was just a janitor, or so he claimed, but he had fingers in many pies. So when he heard morse, of course he’d help. No words had been spoken, nothing had been said, just tap tap tapping, on his special phone that his friend had given him years before. One day we’ll save the world with this phone the monk had whispered. The phone was stuck to the back of a icon of Mary, a gift from one super power to another, from brother to brother.
The Monk smiled, he had the exact same icon on the wall in his private office, you see icons have power, because they are painted with love and prayer. The Monk went back to bedtime stories for spacemen. Meanwhile, a helicopter descended on Popaloff, and with little discussion the three cousins were away. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi were given Artic weather kit and told to dress quick. Alexi Goodenoff whispered, these orders are from on high, you have to Save Santa, he saved you now its your turn to save him. All dressed in white with googles on, a bottle of vodka each they transferred to a plane. You can drink the vodka now explained Alexi Goodenoff, for what they were about to do was insane, and only a madman a fool or a man from Popaloffoff would dare do it. James Bond himself would say I should cocoa if asked to do such a dangerous thing. The 3 cousins would jump from a plane straight onto the North Pole ice shelf, they would have skis on and only Rudolf’s flashing nose would be their beacon. Santa needed help, and only they would do.
Now back in Papaloff, the icons glowed, the love, the power the prayer was there with the boys. You can take a man out of Papaloffoff, but Papaloffoff is always in the man. So the power was pulsing through them, as was the 2 litres of vodka they had each downed in one. It can be very cold at the North Pole after all. With that Alexi Goodenoff pushed them out of the plane as it slowed and came in low. Rudolf flashed and with his mates they dragged the slay behind the. It was close, but Rudolf was a pro, they caught the three cousins as they fell from the sky. With a belch, and a bump and a fart, Lech, Boris, and Gregorgi were safe in the slay. Two litres of vodka each, was a great way of relaxing, so they instantly fell asleep. They awoke to find themselves in front of Santa, they hugged. Santa was wearing a space suit, to make sure he did not spead Covid 19 to them.
So you see boys I just don’t have the energy, what with all Covid 19 and all that. So Rudolf thought you could help, and because the Elves caught Covid 19 too, I don’t have any presents either. But Love is all you need, slurred the 3 cousins, who had not yet sobered up after the 2 litres of vodka each. We should just give everybody Angels this Christmas, that’s enough, Angels we have heard on high. As they said this a mother cried, and her tears spilled all over the floor like pearls, so it was decided by the King. This Christmas everybody the world over would be a special angel from Santa, or rather Lech, Boris and Gregorgi.
The cousins were told all they had to do was stick the Angels to the windows, no climbing down chimneys as they were all too big, besize Santa has magic powers that allowed him to get down chimneys, and sadly with Covid 19, it might be best not to enter the world’s houses. Again a mother cried, and on high stars shot by. This evil pest, Covid 19 was doing it’s very best to hurt everybody. But the boys from Papaloffoff were on a mission, and as they flew through the sky, icons in the East began to glow, in the North, in the South and in the West. In Churches and in book stores, and in private collections hidden in bank vaults, the Icons, the Holy Icons were coming alive. You see this was no tale like A Christmas Carol. Tonight Prayer and Hope and Love would descend from Heaven above, and Covid 19 could go to Hell.
Norad tracks Santa every Christmas, but this Christmas Santa seemed to be very erratic, popping up or is it Popaloffoffing up here there and everywhere, until finally Santa seemed to split into three. Norad did not understand, but the Monk and Vladimir the janitor knew, and as they each drunk their cocoa, with vodka in, they smiled and the icons in their rooms glowed. You see, a mother’s tears this Christmas time had all her prayers answered.
At each house an Angel was stuck to a window, Angels we have heard on high, singing gloria in excelsis deo. Andrew Graham Dixon the greatest British art expert was in the bathroom shaving when there was a knock at the window, he opened it so see Lech throw an Angel at him. Then a few minutes later Boris was there with another Angel, then a few minutes more Andrew Graham Dixon had a third knock, it was Gregorgi with a third Angel, Gregorgi did steal a stay can of Guinness that was sat on the window ledge. Andrew Graham Dixon looked like Santa with shaving foam all over his face. He laughed, it must have been the pudding.
So on, the boys from Papaloffoff flew, 3 parts drunk still, but still delivering Angels everwhere. Now you won’t believe what happened next. Yes, they fell asleep, and 3 became one, or rather all three of them were back in the slay. In the morning the world over people delighted in seeing angels at their windows. Perfect angels, icon like angels. Now the thing is, as Mary looked at her angel, she began to cry, if only grandpa was here. And grandpa looked at his angel, if only I could see my granddaughter Mary, she’d love this angel. And so she did, and so grandpa did. As they both said it simultaneously a hologram, or perhaps a Holygram appeared. Grandpa was really there with Mary, and Mary was really there with grandpa. You see the power of love, and pray, icon style. Mary really was with her grandpa in his house, and grandpa was with Mary in her house.
Now this happened the world over, just think of me and I’ll be there, reach out and say my name with a prayer and I’ll be there. So by the power of Angels everybody was together, even though they were apart. That’s what icons do. Now maybe I was wrong about the 2 litres of vodka each, perhaps it was not vodka after all. Maybe just maybe it was Holy Water, so the three cousins had breathed Holy Water everywhere, and it was a Blessing so Families could be together.
There is one footnote. When Andrew Graham Dixon checked his three Angels, because he was a friend of Popaloffoff that’s why he got three, he discovered they were in fact long lost treasure. Three Angels, a set that belonged back in Saint Petersburg, so after he cried with delight he returned them to Vladimir the janitor in Moscow. Who gave him permission to film anywhere and everywhere he liked, because if you know the janitor, any door can open.
Hello, hello ©
By
Michael Casey
This will be the last piece to go into 2020 Words, which will have me in a “mask” on the cover, we are in Year of The Covid after all. Trump hopefully will exit stage right, far right. And we will never see him again. He has corrupted everything he has touched, and now we have Georgia on my Mind.
I always have a title and then away I go, so I had a title for this and I knew the spots to join and where it would take me, and you. However I get loads of ideas, so this will be a 3rd idea, and we’ll see together where I go. I’ve been in pain from my back for a month now, but at least I can walk about the house. I have not been down the hill or out of the house for a month. Yes, I have to avoid Covid 19, what with my health record, but I just would not have been able to go anywhere such is/was the pain. Anyway I discovered an old “Flasher Mac” in my wardrobe, and I’m using it as a walking duvet, and it’s really warm, though I would not wear the “Flasher Mac” outside. I recycle everything, always have done for 50 years and more, so it makes me smile when folks lecture, have they new been poor? Do they have no imagination? Don’t throw-away, use again, or give away, or the mean sell you their S*&%, to paraphrase my dad, or to be exact, people are so mean they wouldn’t sell you their S*&%.
What’s that got to do with anything? Well I’m forming an idea as I write, make it up as I go along, but I do have an enormous reservoir, so I just tap it. My dad I remember used to say Hello Dear, how are you? Only a father of six can say that, without it being misconstrued, one uncle a farmer user to say, Hello Michael my darling young man as he slapped my knee in a bar, he was a father of five by the way. So a Hello, really does make a difference. I myself in my hotel days, Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC, 2002 to 2005, I used to boom hello at everybody. I was like a puppy dog welcoming everybody. And I was told by the guests I was the best thing in the hotel, I’ll allow myself to reveal the truth, no flasher mac included, now that it’s so long ago. And yes it was the most Welcoming of Hotels.
Down the hill, I enjoy saying hello when I do go to the shops, and old Annie up the road from our house says she goes down for the company, she is 80 plus now. It is all these little social interactions which form the chattering cement of our society, and yes I coined that phrase in 1987 when I first wrote The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, just in case anybody wants to call me a thief of words. Chattering cement binds us, and in the old days in the butcher’s there as a chair to sit on for any weary customer, and that too is in my comic novel. Maybe it’s because of the style, the ordinary people that it’s read in translation, up to 10 different languages on the same day, and I have readers in 80 countries now. It is the universality of things that make them popular, though I may be dead before any recognition comes. So long as my daughters read all my files, then they have part of me with them forever.
People say hello, and fat farty Frank is missed because his echo was not there one day. I didn’t reach for the air freshener today, why’s that? Has anybody seen Frank, you mean fat farty Frank. No, I was wondering why I did not have to open a window. Now that was option 2 of a story I could have written, but instead you are getting option 3, as a test you can write a one page story for yourselves, then translate it into English for Queens, not that Marg, ever reads my stuff, Marg stands for butter, or is it Majesty. I’d tell anybody to kiss my a*&^ if they wanted to be called Majesty. You can make a stink about that, and yes fat farty Frank had fallen downstairs, but the shopkeepers came and found him. Just as in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker the shopkeepers save the day, and the life of a child, you can read the book for yourselves via my wordpress https://michaelgcaseyfrombirminghamengland.wordpress.com/
or even buy my original English on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
So why is a hello so important? It means we recognise each other, we notice each other, we are not a company of strangers. StatMR where in 1978 I started in computers, market research into alcohol sales, yes really. It was renown as a company of friends, people did not want to go home, and such was nature of the work it involved long long hours. I could list all the names, but they know who they are, I’ll just say hello to Gill with a G, because I liked what she said about my writing, I lead people up the garden path.
So this Covid 19, 2020 year, has brought some of us to our knees, but on your knees can be a very interesting position. I could list what I mean, but some of you are ahead of me, so I’ll just leave it there as Gill slaps me. I was talking about tying up my shoelaces, it’s all in your mind, on y soit qui mal y pense. Now make way at the bar, StatsMR are here to do their after work, market research into alcohol. So you say hello to them as I say good bye to Covid 19.
Old Clothes for New ©
By Michael Casey
I haven’t written a story story in a while, so here goes. This will in fact be going into my 21st full book, 21 Door Keys, I’ve just named it, so come back in a year and I’ll have 200 pages or so for you, or 100,000 words, but only God knows. And how did I get the idea, I had nothing seconds ago, well my small daughter sat at her desk next to mine remarked on my old Flasher Mac, that I’m wearing to keep warm. And that was a spark which will become a story, so if you are sitting comfortably then I’m begin.
Gerry worked in the Charity shop, he sorted and hung all the clothes up on hangers, and tidied up after the rush. The rush mainly being Old Folks looking for a bargain, it was not like Primark with knickers discarded everywhere, or the back of the Old Hens Nest bar, where knickers also used to get discarded, but that’s another story. No Gerry was no Pacemaker, though he did have a pacemaker inside of him, so he avoided standing too close to the radio. All in all though he liked his job, 3 days a week in the warm of the shop, so he saved on heating where he lived in a Tower Block.
There were benefits working in the Charity shop, when old old stock was dirty he could buy it even cheaper. So all shades and fashions became his passion, he had a washing machine and knew how to use it, so he ended up, a very dedicated follower of Fashion. There was a 6th Form nearby, and a retirement village too, so a whole variety of clothes landed at the Charity shop, Gerry mixed and matched and became not an Englishman in New York, more like a dandy from Birmingham. George Melly, but without the belly, though he did know how to have his hat at an angle. He watched Jools Holland on tv, and learnt all the tricks, to stand with attitude and make clothes sing, it was a music show after all.
So all this meant turned up at the shop looking different every day, almost gay but happier. Gay means happy by the way if you are younger that 50 you may not even know that. Trevor was Gay, he was a gay Gay, always with a smile on his face, he also did a day at Charity shop, obviously he and Gerry hit it off. Trevor was studying Fashion at the Uni down the road, and he could ponder the world while he worked in the Charity shop, it also gave him ideas for his fashion. He could also buy up the old old stock and transform it into something new. So two and two makes four, and don’t shut that door, because they liked the air to flow through the Charity shop. Trevor needed a model, and Garry was roped in. I should also say people thought Gerry and Trevor were an odd couple, or father and son, and that’s how it begun.
Gerry could pose, he was a very good old poser, too much Later with Jools Holland ensured that. He even started to wear black eyeliner so he’d look better in the snaps and videos for Trevor’s Book of Clothes. And yes Trevor was a great designer too, and with Gerry he was a pacemaker, but the Fashion crew at Uni were a great big family so Gerry felt so happy there. He appeared in more and students Books of Clothes.
Things went swimmingly and he even met Miss Himmingly, who wore juicy red lipstick and fishnet tights and a beret, the beret rotated in different colours of the rainbow. But otherwise she was Oh La La French, with a pencil tight skirt and a red leather jacket. That was her look and she didn’t give a hoot what other people thought, she was Miss Oh La La, in fact that’s what everybody called her, through her dark sunglasses.
Gerry’s life had blossomed, he was as happy as Larry, maybe even as happy as Larry Grayson, now he never had a grey day, just a gay “son”, so it was Fashion week and he was asked to join the catwalk. This meant lots of quick changes, but Miss Himmingly said it would go swimmingly, she’d stand behind the curtains and tear off his clothes to help him get ready. Almost like a scene from White Chicks. So that’s what she did, he walked the walk, and she tore the clothes off his back. But in the excitement and confusion, he lost his own clothes. So Miss Himmingly said he could wear he French mac and she’d give his a drive home in her 2CV. So that’s what they did.
On the 13th floor, and it was a Friday, Gerry let Miss Oh La La in, and he gave her back her mac. Now if you spend an evening ripping the clothes off a man it can be very arousing. So Miss Oh La La suggested as she had ripped his clothes off repeatedly in the name of Fashion, then he should do the same. Gerry thought it as a bit of a joke, but he complied with her wishes, until she was naked before him. The she removed his long johns. The urge was out, she had known him as a model, now she’s know him as a man. Was it wrong, on Friday 13th to give away to gay abandon. Oh La La Miss Himmingly, she wore sunglasses to hide her heartbreak from a past love, now she’d throw them away and always be happy and gay. You see, Garry may have a pacemaker, but he knew all about rhythm, too much Jools Holland and Later no doubt.
Miss Himmingly asked, do you think I’m a tart? NO, said Gerry the Urge will out, and now it’s Time for both of us. Besides our kids can all have little berets and I could grow a pencil moustache. Oh La La, and the 13th became the 14th and the 15th. For three days they were at it, until Gill from StatsMR who lived next door, banged on the door and threw a bucket of ice cold water on them, steam rose.
And that’s how Gerry and his pacemaker, became a pacemaker and got a wife, yes she was 30 years younger, but Love is Love. The Charity shop closed down, but Miss Himmingly took over the lease and sold her Fashion students’ clothes in the store. They did design a nursing bra for her, in kinky red latex, they were Fashion students after all, and actually that design was a big hit. So that’s a true love story, and you never know when Love will comes acalling, you an shut that door now, it’s a bit chilly.
Finding a Wife for my Son ©
By Michael Casey
Now as you all know Esther is a friend of Mrs Murphy, a dear friend now, if you remember they met by accident. Mrs Murphy’s daughter in law’s dad was at Rotary thing and an astronaut came to give a speech and help raise money. He mentioned space blankets and Mr Kemp wondered where he could get one for his daughter’s Irish mother in law. The astronaut had laughed, but when he heard about Mrs Murphy praying so much and catching a chill his radar had come on. So on leaving he went back to Mr Kemp and shook his hand, he palmed him a name card and on the back he had written, tell Mrs Murphy to call this number. The number was Esther’s, she was a woman who lacked nothing, her son was a space zillionaire, making satellites and so forth. Esther collected friends, true real friends who she could share gossip with, who weren’t brown nosing to get close to son. So astronauts and everybody were unofficially friend hunters. If you have all the money in the world, friends, true friends were pearls of great price. So Mrs Murphy had rung the number thinking it was a discount store or something, Esther had played along, as she brought up a satellite feed and told Mrs Murphy she has a few slates missing, on the back of her back chimney. This later led to Esther and Tiny arriving for the miracle birth of triplets, which in turn led to Malta, but you can find those stories, as well as well as When the Sergeant Major kissed the General, which only happened because Esther has found not one but two coding geniuses, while she was on the way to Malta after the miraculous triplet birth. Simple really, maybe this writer is destined for Korea, as it all sounds like Kdrama, but I digress.
Esther’s son was a maths wiz, and Esther herself loved poker, and still does, but to find the seed money for her son’s first idea Esther had played poker and beaten everybody including the local Mafia bosses. Being beaten by a little Jewish lady was a shame, so they kept inviting her back, and she kept beating them, but Mafia never know when to call it a day. Esther has looked at the statue of the Madonna in the back room where they played cards, and said to herself, listen Mary as one Jew to another, you help me and I’ll help you.
Esther never lost a game to the Mafia, so she soon had enough seed money for her teenage son’s first idea. Her son became a millionaire, and after that he didn’t need anybody else, as money begats money. Esther was true to her promise, so Saint Jude’s got an anonymous benefactor, appeal after appeal was answered. As for the Mafia, they begged her to continue playing poker, so she did, it was a bit of fun after all. Until they all got busted, and went to Sing Sing, they thought their families would suffer, but Esther sent them each a postcard. A friend in need is a friend in deed, love Esther and Saint Jude. You can guess the rest.
So the years past, and her son went from millionaire to billionaire, always so busy, he never had time for a wife. Italian girls were nice, Esther knew many, thanks to her poker playing, and connections with Saint Jude’s. She knew lots of Jews too, down the Temple they all wanted to meet her son, but none seemed good enough. When there was a girl who could be daughter in law material Esther had them followed by satellite and on foot by ghosts. There would be no gold diggers trapping her son. There were several really nice girls, and she was about to introduce them to her son, but there always was a but. One was about to be mugged, but the ghost intervened and broke bones of all 4 of them. I should explain, special forces were the level of ghost Esther used. A bit like, James Bond, or Jason Bourne, or Rambo and Terminator, they were Esther’s boys. So on this occasion it was James Bond who intervened, and then the lady feel for him instantly, so he ended up marrying her. And yes History does repeat itself, so her ghosts got the girl, rather than her own son. But the Ghosts and their wives loved Esther the more.
Esther was at a Bar mitzvah for one of the Ghosts’ children and she had dragged her son along, the Temple had been double booked, but Fr. Michael had offered Saint Jude’s church hall, so there the Bar mitzvah was held. Her son was playing on his phone while Esther buzzed around like a bee, hearing all the news from her Ghosts’ families. As she buzzed around, Esther sighed, my family gets bigger, but not my own flesh and blood family. Esther sighed, she saw the statue of the Madonna in a corner. Maybe I’ve not done enough good works, Mary as one Jew to another, if only I could find a good wife for my son I could die happy, did you used to nag your son the same way?
Now God works in mysterious ways, at that very moment a serving girl, had fallen over Esther’s son’s stretched out legs. Crockery everywhere, her son’s phone smashed to the floor. Everybody looked up, Fr. Michael was going to intervene, but a hand held him back, Esther knew, she just knew, as any Jewish mother knows. Her son helped the serving girl up, he apologized. Sorry, what’s your name? Mary, of course it was Mary. Esther looked the statue and winked, little did she know, they’d meet again in Malta.
It was thunder, Esther had searched high and low for a suitable wife for her son, then one had fallen for him, or fallen over his feet. Mary was perfect in every way, no need for satellites or ghosts. Esther wrote a cheque for a million dollars and put it in the poor box under the statue of Mary. She’s post one for 5 million to the Temple too, her son was the 6 million dollar man after all, what with all his technology.
Now I could go on with the courting and so on, but what people do in private it’s up to them, though the ghosts and their families did go on multiple holidays, as Esther wanted to make sure they used protection. As for Esther she went to Vegas, she’s fleece them, as her charity knew no bounds, she just had to keep on making money to give it all away.
Music Power ©
By Michael Casey
I was going to talk about Ariana Grande but I thought she might not understand the British sense of humour. As you know Taylor Swift does a bit of high dusting for me, she is so very tall after all. Then last night Ariana’s concert was on tv so I thought, as Ariana is the bee’s knees, and likes jumping about, maybe she could help Taylor out. So swing low, dust high, the perfect combination. I mean Ariana has such very long hair, so as she practices her routines she could sweep my floor with her hair, and her nice hairdresser could get any chewing gum out later. My own daughter once got bangles or something stuck in her hair, so my lawyer sister-in-law had to use chop sticks to untangle her hair, this was after we landed at my brother’s house for Christmas dinner, if I look I may even have a photo of it somewhere. We are a Shanghai/Birmingham family after all, so we had plenty of chopsticks, and I don’t mean on our old piano either. Anyway that was the idea, but Arians might not approve, so I won’t bother.
Taylor was just down the chip shop getting salt shaken at her, and not for a tap dancing routine in front of the frier. The Friars do live next door in a church, they like chips too, that’s why they are so fat. No Taylor had her head turned, the boy, still spotty despite his years, the boy said I’d just do a bit of battering and dip your fish on both sides, before letting it bubble away, to get crispy and so very very tasty. Then when it’s ready I’ll whip it out and sprinkle salt ever so lightly all over it, then I’ll add a scoop or two of freshly minted chips, shaken not stirred. And just for you, a dollop of mayo too. You can see why Taylor swooned, he gave her a free bottle of Irn Bru too, oh so very Scottish, so Taylor skipped away happily up the hill to my door. All I could hear was the heavy breathing, I thought old Mrs Aktar from next door was having an asthma attack, or Juicy Lucy my neighbour on the other side was practicing mouth to mouth on Annie, no she’s not a Lesbian, Annie is the dummy they use to teach first aid. But no, it was Taylor not so Swifty bringing my dinner home, and I was very very hungry. She did have a sneaky saveloy on the side, and you think butter would not melt in her mouth. So that is the real reason she does my high dusting, just so she can be near the boy from the Chippy. Her head has been turned, and those marks on her back, from where she leant on the counter where the cooked roe are keep in the warmer. The things you do for LOVE, leaning on the chip frier, the boy and the deep fat frier. But it does mean I get cheaper lunches, as Taylor has a smile on face, vinegar down shirt, and a dash of mayo in her hair. Maybe she should ask Ariana can she borrow her hair dresser.
Now what has this got to do with anything? Well I’m going to talk more about Music, and Celine has had the Courage to sing for me, and I’ve thrown a fish, non-battered, at Seal so I’ll Carry On, and God is in for a treat, Dame Babs in Heaven, God help him, but God Helps those who Help themselves, and Self Help is right up God’s street, just past the Coronation pub. Taylor can explain that on her notice board, the boy from the chip show allows her to use his chalk, and put the price of his fish there on display.
Music has power, this Christmas we’ll think of mum stuffing the turkey for 13, the eight of us plus our 5 lodgers, and Celine’s song reminds us of our mum, it was playing the night she died, Because you Loved Me. And so she did, so emotions flow as we hear that song, especially at Christmas. My own favourite song is The Windmills of Your Mind, the Thomas Crown Affair theme song, and if you’d followed my writing that’s self-explanatory. Though Fr. Brain who decades later became Bishop Brain, used to call me Sancho Panza as I followed my very tall brother. And Don Quixote did tilt at windmills, so there is the circle.
Music revolves around our lives, Seal is singing If I Could, and if I could I’d be a Musician too, not the guy in the corner of the bar drinking and grooving from afar. Certain words and phrases have such power, Aux Armes Citoyens as the French sing, words are uplifting, and we’ve all seen Musicals galore where a theme is repeated and it beats your breast, and makes you tingle. This is the power of music, Politicians have music at rallies too, until they get a cease and desist notice from lawyers. Even Hitler had an association with music, but let’s leave him to burn in Hell.
Seal is still singing, Music takes you round and around, and it does I’m old enough to remember when records were just that, with groves in, you didn’t have CDs, I can actually remember when CDs appeared, it was on Tomorrow’s World, a science programme on the BBC. James Burke is still alive, he went on to do Space programs, but back then that’s how we heard about the Future via Tomorrow’s World. Now we stream everything, and down load to phones. We had a plastic white trannie and my eldest brother got a dedication on the radio, our dad heard it, this is 50 plus years ago. So Music moves us, it is a laxative that stops us from being sad, and makes us move and groove about the house. We have music everywhere, no need to carry the one tranny with us, we have smart speakers in nearly every room. So music follows us and lead us, it is are permanent plus one. We are so lucky, in the past it was a Long Way to Tipperary, soldiers sung as the went off to war. No Good Morning Vietnam for decades, no music on every channel.
Music does channel us, it channels our love our passions, especially the English Channel, or la Manche as the French call it. Which brings us back to fish and chips, the British haut cuisine as the French may mock, but weren’t French sauces invented to cover the taste of eating rats, in the 1870 siege of Paris in the Franco Prussian war? But I won’t duck these hard questions, which reminds me we are having Peking Duck tonight, Ratatouille one of Taylor’s friends provided the duck, from the bargain basement. As for Taylor she is scribbling away all over the tablecloth, before she has to go and visit the boy in the chip shop. He’ll just shake salt all over her, little wonder she’s glowing when she returns with a free kebab for me. It’s the only reason I keep her on, as my high duster. I’ve got the Music in Me, I let it take over, as I wipe kebab sauce from my chin. Do you think if I ask nicely, Ariana might assist with the cleaning, Taylor leaves a trail of salt everywhere. And Totoro our cat licks it up, leaving cat spit all over my floor. And Totoro will be on a hot tin roof again tonight, it’s all the salt in her system, it makes her want to dance the night away….
The Last Cheer for 2020 ©
By Michael Casey
Is he mad I can hear you all call
2020 was the worst year of all
Well for me too, as opposed to Me Too
It was a bad year, even without Covid 19
One sister died, though if ever you read
Shoplife, she is the Born Again shopworker, so she’ll live on
And my body has got weaker
In a few days time it’s 6 years since my unplanned
Quadruple Heart Bypass
The nurse, and just the nurse at my former GP Practice
She saved my life, as she insisted on sending me for tests
So when I went into hospital, I said have you checked my tests
70% 70% and 50% blocked, I’d gone in with major hip pains
My arthritis gone mad, and the family were in London
Meeting Shanghai relatives, so I was all home alone
The rest you all already know
So that’s why you’ve had six more years of my rubbish
Though Totoro our cat arrived too, as I had said they could
Have a dog if I died or a cat if ever I had a heart attack
Yes really, so be careful what you promise
But back to 2020 we’ve all had a rubbish year the world over
But what have we learnt or discovered?
Well folks still voted for Trump
Maybe because they wanted to stick with the Devil they knew
And avoid any ISMs
History will decide, and History is written by the winners
If we all just stayed home for 3 weeks, then Covid 19 would die
Instead we must all Mask, Wash Hands, and Stay Apart
I’ve been hiding up on our hill, and with my arthritis very distanced from all
So what is the Meaning of Life, and no not Monty Python
What is the thing you treasure
Is it free deliveries of all your stuff on the Internet
Is it Bubble Tea? Which is now Trendy.
Though being in a Shanghai/Birmingham household we were years ahead
Is it food galore?
My Muslim delivery drivers must think I’m Mulla
Wishing them As-Salaam-Alaikum as they deliver our stuff
In Birmingham delivery drivers and taxis are very Muslim
So they risk Covid as they drive and deliver
What else can I say about 2020
Yes the tv, was great, everybody binge watched and there were
Some really really great shows
I could list mine, but I also watch a ton of Korean shows, Kdrama
So I would say, have a look at Korean shows, you will not be disappointed
Also if you listen to Music constantly then invest in a Smart speaker or two
I could name the best, and you’d be surprized, but to each their ears alone
You can get Bluetooth headphones too, which can work off your phone
So technology is really good to keep us all sane in these maddening time
A cheap and cheerful android phone, can keep families alive
And yes Jeff Bezo has got busier, but one day he’ll deliver pizza to my house
That’ll put the fear of God into him, but Taylor Swift who dusts for me will
Be here, to take the pizza from him, so she may sing a ditty for him
What else, yes going to church became an Internet thing, so I’d review Mass
And send an email or two to priests, obvious Saint Judes is my favourite
Though I do travel all over the place for Mass
I don’t know do other Faiths do the same thing
But I’ll accept prayers from Anybody, as we all should
We all prayed for tv stars who were sick, I prayed for
Kate Garraway’s husband, because I saw a photo on the news
And they looked so much in love, I had never heard of them because
I do not watch daytime TV, it was a news item that invoked my prayers
So what else can I talk about, maybe Tinnitus does all the talking
My own has been terrible in the night, but I rediscovered the Rosary
So has the roar of the sea in my ears at night made my more prayerful
God, alone knows the answer to that
I think I always knew what real values were
I made provisions just in case Covid got me
The real things that matter really are so simple
The goodnight kiss from my small daughter before she goes to bed
That is priceless, so when Politicians roar and swear and lie to us
Just remember that soft gentle kiss
Even if she says dad you need a wash and shave
The simple love of a child, as she evolves into a woman
That is what I’ll remember most from 2020
And it is the only thing worth remembering
Soul 2021 ©
By Michael Casey
Well it’s 17.31 on 6th January, feast of the Epiphany, or when the Kings turned up late with nappy rash soother for baby Jesus. You can Google for yourselves the meanings of the Three gifts. I’ll see if I can put some ideas down in an hour, that’s how long it normally takes to write a new piece from a standing start, with just a blank space in my head. Though I hope all this reads like me sat on the sofa besides you just talking to you, that is my intention after all, talking to you. No Letter from America, more like a Postcard from Birmingham, the one in England. Harry and Megs, I’ve available to be the Roland Rat on your podcast, I am very cheap too, just ask Duncan and Sandy, or ask your dad Harry if you’re never heard of them, but I digress.
Now today is a great day, the Feast of the Epiphany, especially in Georgia, named after a mad king I believe. It made me so happy once I finally got out of bed. My church bells ring tone awoke me, and then the Tinnitus got me, some Belarusian competition, The Golden Phone, had woken me up to say I’d won 20,000 Euros. Obvious, a hoax and a scam, so I forwarded the call to Trump. Anyway Soul or Seoul if you are Korean, is the name of a fantastic Pixar film, 10/10 and I will watch it again. And Soul is the thing inside us, our heart, our love, our mind our ego, or our Id, though not ID. All you clever people can work it all out. And Biden did say he was fighting for the Soul of USA.
So a Soul is a big big thing, as big as Seoul, but within our head, or wherever it might be. Somebody once weighed a body to try and work out how many grams a Soul weighed. In The Good Detective the lead proves he has a soul, just watch it for yourselves. I’ve just stopped in mid-stream for to talk to my big daughter, so take 30 mins plus away, from my boast of writing a piece in a hour. We were talking about courses and the value v effort, and is it worth stressing for 95% + when you were getting 85% +. I said just do what makes you happy and quoted my own dad in his deep deep voice, “Michael, I have no Education, do what you like but do your best” and that’s all the advice I can give to anybody, not just my daughter. Do your best, and let the grades take care of themselves. My brothers went to Queens Oxford, and Downing Cambridge by the way. As you all know I’m just the dunce with 20 books to my name, which I share via my websites, so everybody can suffer everywhere.
As I got distracted by my big daughter the flow of the piece will change, but I will say this, it’s good for your Soul to talk to your kids, and good for theirs too. Giving them things is not as important as giving Time and Talking, love is a hug, not a Play Station. Perhaps Love is being sung as I talk to you, and that reminds all of us, that Love is the best thing for a soul. A smile can save a life, just as a hug, when hugs are allowed again, post Covid, makes all the difference. A shared joke, no matter how obscene does make all the difference, how do you think Security people and shift workers survive. It’s the humour or the brotherhood or sisterhood that keeps people going in the dark of the night, I did do 14 years of nights after all. I did loads of Noon till 8pm shifts too, it made me more employable. Perhaps it’s my sense of humour that keeps me going now that a gang of conditions have hobbled my body, my sense of the ridiculous that keeps me smiling. Though pain attacks can be really really bad, and it would be very very easy to give, but no, I just bore you all about them instead. Make you all suffer, Ha.
Our soul is shaped by our Prayer, whatever Faith or none you may have. It is a great safety net when things are bad we remember what our mothers taught us, and we do learn our faith on our mothers’ lap. Some say God is Abba, not the band, but Daddy, so we have a childlike connection to our God. This means it is very close, for as we grow older we are more self-important, and forget daddy carrying us on his shoulders or in his arms. We should try and stay childlike in our closeness to our God.
18.47 now
The Birmingham K-Drama Story ©
By Michael Casey
Now Park worked in her dad’s store, she was Korean of course, every Korean is called Park. As every Indian is Singh, and Pakistani is Khan, and every English person is Smith, and yes Greeks earn a lot because they work so long and hard. Ok, I’m being simplistic, but I am a Simple Man, or is it simpleton? Park worked hard, she did have a Christian name and she was a Catholic, so her name was Mary, what else, just as every Irishman is Patrick.
Park, had friends, they were all daughters of all the take-aways, they met at Birmingham wholesale market buying onions in bulk. The “sisters” were always bulked up against the cold. So a nod from Park to Singh and Khan and a look at Smith. Their dads wanted to marry them off and expand the business by marrying into bigger families. But the “sisters” said they could not marry till their “sisters” were married first, so this ploy kept them all safe and single.
Now Slim Simon was one of their best customers, he’d turn up as regular as clockwork, after he’d been to a bar to see some music. Jazz, Folk, or Blues. No he didn’t travel everywhere, The Waterworks was Jazz, renamed to Bell and Pump for Folk, and Blue Notes for the Blues. It was stuck by the reservoir in a dodgy part of town, but Slim Simon was safe, because he was built like a safe, though he kept his cash in his socks just in case of muggers. Not that anybody dared try, he has a Judo badge on his lapel, and it’s not just a decoration. Slim Simon was always on a mat, he ran a Judo school, Black belt 4th Dan, and he wore braces too, to keep his trousers from sliding down his belly, he was a cuddly Winnie the Pooh, but deadlier.
So Mary would hear all about the music as she served the last customer, why you no married, she asked. Slim Simon explained, his wife had ran away with the double glazing salesman, so he took up Judo to manage his anger, and try not to think of Derek the salesman who was all front. Mary sighed, she’s a bitch, so that brought them closer. Singh her friend was getting pressurised to get married, so Khan and Mary suggested she pretended that Slim Simon was her boyfriend. Mary persuaded Slim Simon with the offer of more spring rolls, so the deed was done.
Slim Simon went to Singh’s place and played the part, and Singh would stroke his big strong hands over the cash register. Her parents were disgusted at first, but he seemed like a nice boy, so if she was happy they were happy. Now Slim Simon said to his best student, Pal, that he was saving a Indian girl, so Pal said could he come and take a look. So after a Jazz night Pal was taken in toe to Singh’s place. Now Indian girls have the best eyes ever, just look and you will see. So when Pal saw Singh he sighed. And then when she smiled at he could not be denied. You see Pal was an Optician with 14 shops in the family. Later Singh confided, Pal is the one for me.
But her parents were convinced Slim Simon would be the one for the family. So a plan was hatched. Mary and Khan would hide their identities and arrive at Singh’s and slap Slim Simon’s face hard. He’d be a cad, and a lowlife, not good enough for an Indian wife. Then Pal would arrive and save the day. Pal was a mere Black belt, no Dans yet. So he’s stage fight Slim Simon, and save the day. Then he’d reveal he was an Optician, and it would be love at first sight.
So Slim Simon was swooning over the cash register at Singh, then first Mary Park arrived and slapped his right cheek, and just like in the Bible, he turned the other cheek only for Khan to arrive and slap that one even harder. Then on Q Pal would arrive to dispense with the bounder, never trust a white guy, yes stereotypical. So Pal and Slim Simon threw each other about, before Slim Simon was left in a rubbish bin, appropriate enough.
Singh’s family applauded, Pal was in, and Slim was out. And when they heard he had 14 Optician shops, they soon persuaded their daughter to see sense. As for Slim Simon, he crawled out of the way, and made a mental note to get Pal to take a grading, first Dan coming soon. And if I race to the conclusion, Singh and Pal’s first child just had to be called Dan. But for the moment Mary sneaked Slim Simon away in her car, Khan waved them good night as she jogged home chuckling.
Now Mary could see that Slim Simon was a great man, well he was literally, and yes he was divorced, but he didn’t marry in a church, so maybe an annulment and she’d have him as her man. Mary Parked her car and stroked his face, then kissed it better in slow motion for half an hour, it is a Kdrama in Birmingham after all. Slim Simon couldn’t visit Singh’s any more, he’d been thrown out the door, so he went to Park’s twice as much. He taught her a few throws and more, but he always caught her, before she hit the floor, again in slow motion, it is Kdrama in Birmingham like I said before.
Singh soon got engaged and the wedding would be quite a spectacle, so Mary took Slim Simon around to the shop to explain. So it was all a trick, yes they confessed. But now not one bride, but two, two for the price of one, like any take-away special, or the Abba song. But what of Khan? Well she fell for the Uber delivery driver, take me away take away. I did mention Smith at the market, what about him, he was Gay, but he loved dressing up for Weddings, so he was delighted to be invited, not once, or twice but thrice. Like three coins in a fountain, and if ever you’ve been to the Trevi Fountain, if you throw a coin you can make a wish. Smith did, and now at the 3rd time of asking, at the third wedding, he met the man for him, a contractor, a drainage contractor. So the pair of them were forever gushing and laughing like drains, you see True Love Conquers All.
But what of Mary Park? Yes, she married Slim Simon and had 4 kids and formed a Kpop band, Faith, Hope and Charity were their names, the 4th was an extra surprize, a boy they called Julian. Just as this writer’s mother always said name a boy after her, Julia becomes Julian if ever Mary had a boy child. Just like the song, by Boney M, Mary’s Boy Child, Julian.
Cup of tea Diner ©
By Michael Casey
Now as you may remember Grannie Smith saved a Seal, no she wasn’t a conservationist like Sir David Attenborough, the military kind of seal. So when she announced she was taking a trip to see Oklahoma in Oklahoma, Howard Keel was such a great singer in the film, a couple of real Seals said they’d tag along to make sure she’d be safe. She was very old by now. Grannie Smith was proud so they went along with her, but not by her side, just a knife throw away, she was still an independent lady.
Grannie Smith still enjoyed English tea, so she was pleased when she saw it advertised as a novelty in the Diner. So she climbed the steps gingerly and sat ready for her tea. Now obviously MayLi in the dinner got a kick out of serving English tea to an English lady, and yes as Grannie Smith grew even older she looked more and more like the Queen of England. MayLi looked on as Grannie Smith tasted her brew, but it wasn’t quiet right. Don’t worry we can fix it said Grannie Smith, so she went behind the counter and warmed the pot, and do what she did herself instinctively.
MayLi recorded everything on her iPhone, she didn’t want to miss a trick. And then the two of them sat down and had tea. Two Seal shadows stepped forward and shared the pot, pot of tea that is, nothing naughty. And it was perfect. Now MayLi put this on her social media, TicToc, Weibo and even Facebook. The next day there was a crowd 100 strong. You see in Oklahoma, it always is a beautiful morning, and to have the Queen of England too, it really was their cup of tea.
Grannie Smith went to the theatre to see Oklahoma in Oklahoma, and when she arrived the crowd hushed, the Queen of England was there to see the show. Afterwards she went to the diner, MayLi was speaking excitedly, one of the Seals had so much sex appeal, and she was still single and so was he. She had read it all in the tea leaves, something big was gonna happen. And the Seal was big, very big. Only she had read the leaves wrong. A developer had sent her a notice, he was going to build a sky scraper and the diner was in the way, that was the big thing, not the Seal.
So MayLi cried into her leaves, Grannie Smith said don’t worry, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and then one of the Seals farted. So they all laughed. They opened the door to let the breeze in, and who show breeze in through the door. Only 2 Englishmen not in New York, but in Oklahoma, they had seen the sign and wanted a cuppa. They sat and had tea, why the glum faces. MayLi showed the notice, it had a picture on it of the new building planned. The two Englishmen laughed and threw back their heads, at this point the Seals moved forward fast, they knew who they were. Were they English assassins after Grannie Smith. No they knew them, you see the Englishmen were Bona Architects from Pinner, Julian and Sandy. And in fact they had saved those two Seal’s lives.
They hadn’t recognised them for a moment but blow me timbers, Julian and Sandy were also mountain climbers, they had met up the Eiger, they had all saved each other as they were climbing up the mountain. Anything Clint Eastwood can do, we can do better. So in a moment old friends were so happy, only MayLi was not. Grannie Smith looked on, Julian and Sandy looked at the picture. You know we could knock up a building quick, and it would look so much better, and you know Jules, if we did it our way the diner could stay.
So borrowing MayLi’s lipstick, Julian and Sandy drew a picture of what they could build and better, and the diner would stay. Again MayLi filmed it, Grannie Smith spoke directly to the iPhone, it was like the real Queen’s Christmas broadcast. And here is Julian and Sandy’s counter proposal, literally drawn in lipstick, in war paint on the counter. And when Julian and Sandy spoke in such posh posh English how could the developer refuse. And yes it was a question not of Three coins in a Fountain, but Three Queens in a diner, with Seals applauding. Bona Architects from Pinner were Gay, and they could climb any mountain, you go ask the Seals if you don’t believe.
This design was again put online, it was a hit, a very big hit, Julian said to Sandy, it’s huge, very huge, you just look at the ratings. And what exactly was the design. It was a feather, like a Red Indian’s feather, with the diner at the base, in fact there would be 4 diners, so MayLi would have to expand, but she had her eyes on a Seal, so expand away she would. As for the construction workers, well they are Red Indians anyway, so they’d all flock, flock a lot, to come and build a feather.
Now it takes a while for drafts, ask any soldier, to be ready so Julian and Sandy drafted away. And protective glass was placed around the diner, as for Jules and Sandy they had new jumpers knitted. The jumpers they wore when they went climbing, but also the design of the building was woven on the front, on the back 1 for Julian and 2 for Sandy. This is my building, was on display, and 1 and 2 because it takes two to tango.
Once the steelwork was to begin, Julian and Sandy joined the Indians, they were mountain climbers after all, the Red Indians had misgivings. But when Julian and Sandy were way up high they danced and pranced like ballet dancers, with1 and 2 on their backs. The Red Indians were impressed, they may be English but the way they worked the iron, was so impressive. They did iron all their own clothes too, but that’s another matter. All this Joy, all this Sorrow, John Denver sung at 300 feet, the Red Indians did like a bit of music while they worked. But as the words All this Sorrow rung out, a Red Indian fell, and he would not have seen tomorrow. But Julian dived and grabbed him by the ankle, and Sandy dived too getting the other ankle. Their reactions were like lightning, just as they were on the Eiger, nobody dies, nobody dies. Besides as Julian said to Sandy afterwards when the excitement was over. I have special surprize for our Red Indians. You see he had Indian curry from a curry house owned by a stray Birmingham England man bused in from 40 miles away. Vindaloo will do, and pork scratchings, and a barrel of Banks bitter.
The Red Indians loved the Vindaloo, and MayLi gave them tea too. As for the curry house 40 miles away, he was swamped with Red Indians, Red Indians eating Indian too. When the building was finished Granny Smith opened it, along with the 3 new replica diners, all the way from China. Julia looked at Sandy and Sandy looked at Julian, they were wearing matching jumpers with the design on. Let’s lose our virginity, the Oklahoma crowd was confused. Then the pair of Bona Architects from Pinner sprinted towards the building, they were going to free climb it, why because it was there as any mountain climber will tell you.
Normally when they get to the top, well they, well they, but this was Oklahoma not Pinner, so waiting Seals strapped parachutes to them. Then they jumped and Julian and Sandy landed on the diner, they needed a cuppa after all their efforts, they are English after all.
Teaching You All That I Know ©
By
Michael Casey
Well first of all, I don’t know how to use Word, my copy seems to have gone funny, but I don’t exactly know how to fix it. So while you mock me I’ll teach you all that I know. It’ll take an hour maybe to write this, and 5 mins for you to read it. Though as I always say, I talk I don’t write, that’s why there is spit on the paper or rather the screen. So gather your friends around and then you can skip all those classes and get to my level, of stupidity. Yes I know what my level is, and Education does not stop when you leave school, even if it is Medical school, and yes I can hear the card at the back of the class say I’m a specimen.
Yes, I’m a self-taught writer, I’ll even go as far as to say it cannot be taught, not unless you are an American and you want to waste 4 years, and then are exactly the same as the other 200 Liberal Arts students, who just cannot write. See I’ve butchered you all before I even start. If you’ve Googled me, I did spend 20 years Listening to BBC Radio 4, the best speech radio station in the world. And this was before I picked up a pen, I did read by the yard too, and watch films galore. Being in a large family with lodgers making it larger too, helped the process. Environment does motive and makes you remember, not unless you are a dullard, if I quote Kim who runs the Korean takeaway, it’s his cousin Ku, who guards President Biden now by the way. Then it still took me a year to learn how to do it. I knew I was good enough when my 1988 play Shoplife was accepted for the stage, and yes it wasn’t finally produced. Would you invest £2,000,000 in today’s money in a new piece, or a Standard? So I’ve been writing for over 33 years now.
Which brings me to the first thing to “teach” you. The Five Ps as presenters call them. Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance. As simple and as easy as that. I was sent on a Presenting course just before Easter 1998. It took 2 days and my company paid, to help prepare me for the future, being made redundant. Here’s all I learnt. Just empty your pockets on a table. Then speak for 1 minute on whatever you pick up first. Simple easy. Now if you have a few friends around to mock you, and try it for themselves that is called a learning situation. Take turns, pick a different object and gieve it a try. You then expand to 2 minutes talk on whatever object has been removed from your pocket or anybody else’s pocket. Repeat with a lunch break and beer.Then 5 mins talk, you’ll give 15 minutes sniggering time to prepare.
The next day I had to talk for 15mins, which was optimum time if you remember what JFK was supposed to have said. Anything should be explainable in 15 mins. Ok, so you all get it? Me, when it was my 15 minutes of fame, I had everybody laughing, I did want to learn for comic reasons after all. I told everybody about my Paris misadventure, which involved food poisoning, and avec vous des asparin de bas prix, and I ended up with asparin tampone, which means in a tube, but my French was not up to it, so I was expection string.
So I had mastered Speaking, Presenting, Teaching. To prove it I then went on holiday to Pilsner Czech the home of lager. There I presented for 90 mins off the cuff, to 20 English students. So the training worked. When I got back to StatsMR I wrote it all up as my Czech Story, and the whole company realised Michael can Write. So there you go, as Jon the Hippy would say. By the way StatsMR did Market Research into alcohol sales, and I was born in the shadow of a brewery.
Later in my life I spent 3 years at Crown Plaza Nec a 4 star deluxe business hotel, I nuts have had 100,000 min conversations. So I polished my speaking skills and making people laugh, or stand up skills. Later still in my life I was an Esol English Teacher in an Islamic School. Did I mention Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary on my external assessment. So there you go. But the thing is if I can do it then so can you.
Now I’m going to teach you Logic next. Ok, if you are in a big family what is it like? Overwhelming? We let my small sister push Jean the cat out the way and eat kittycat. We opened the corner cupboard where the jumpers lived and put every single on her. She could put her arms down as she had too many jumpers on, she was 6 of 6 after all. She was bright red with10 jumpers on when mum came home from shopping and told us off. You’ll kill the child she screamed in her Kerry accent, though we could only hear it on the phone, that’s 20 years later when we actually had a phone. Though this misadventure did not stop us from folding the sister up and putting on a shelf in a wardrobe and clicking close the door, and struggling to open the door up again. I did something similar to Neil at work maybe 30 years later, the temptation was just too much, if I hide here then jump out. So I locked him in.
I’ve digressed but I’ve just taught you that if you REMEMBER then you have material for stories later on, maybe nearly 60 years later on. It just depends do you have a memory, or have you tried to blot out everything. I seem to have total recall for stories, anything that does not interest me justy won’t go in. Otherwise with my 42 years exposure to computers I should have been more than I was. So shall I finally give you that nougat or is it nugget, whichever is more palatable, this is all you need to know, save that £40,000 in University fees, and start a business instead.
Here it is, the 5 Ws Who What Where When Why. If you apply that to every situation, then you’ll be a Detective, or you’ve grown up in a big family, with your eyes wide open. If you take me, Michael Casey as an example, ok a very battered ,cheap and tacky, left over from the pound store example. Then you can ask Who is Michael Casey, What is Michael Casey, Where is Michael Casey, When is Michael Casey, and Why is Michael Casey. You have just Spocked me, and everything is revealed, a bit like opening a box of chocolates, or undressing me, either to whip me, or to cover me in ice cream and lick it off, prior to breeding with me.
Ok, did you just puke, just put your head between your legs and breath deeply, was that a shock? Have you screamed and locked yourself in the bathroom. Or are you laughing, and do you want to know me, but not biblically? I hope you are laughing, Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, is how you Google me, or Blacklist me. If you use the tools the 5Ps and the 5Ws, that will make your life a box of chocolates. Or maybe you want to undress me, please don’t whip me, not unless it’s whipped cream ice cream.
End of January 2021 Story ©
By Michael Casey
Well we’ve reached the end of January 2021, tomorrow is 31st, I’m fighting Tinnitus a lot recently. As I do it gives me ideas for a story, everything gives me an idea, they are endless. In the dark of the Tinnitus night, with the sea roaring in my ears I have loads of ideas. If Tinnitus were a servant I’d strangle him and push him in the canal, though if Tinnitus was Tinnita, a female, I might indulge in The Servant behaviour, which was a film with Dirk Bogarde, which I saw a long time ago. Or am I thinking of the Night Porter. Go Google. Or at least read his books, he was a great writer, no mistake about that.
So there you have one idea I could follow, instead I’m like a teacher pointing you in a direction, you have to do the spade work yourselves. Meanwhile my daughter has finished studying for the day so is watching Brave on tv, the Disney cartoon, I’ll go join her presently. I am very eclectic in all things. This might help you too should you ever want to write, or carry bags in a hotel, yes I’ve done both. Being nosey, and being interested in everything, might help too should you want to be a detective, or have children. Daddy you are my Google comes to mind, and yes my daughters used to say that to me when they were smaller. Now my job is to stay alive long enough to see then both graduate, and maybe even marry, and me become a granddad, as opposed to looking like a granddad, there is a difference. Besides I’m sure they’ll want money for something as long as I’m alive. And no, I don’t care what they do, so long as they are happy, and nobody tries to hurt them.
So where was I, in the kitchen looking for chewing gum, but all of it has gone, so I made do with a Royal Gala apple, they are great so buy some. I was offered the girls’ slops earlier, they had made carbonara if I got it right, slops are fine, so long as they are offered while still hot. This is your life as a dad, eating slops, so the bin doesn’t eat all my money. Though our binmen are on strike, so we have to make sure we squeeze everything into one bin, so it is better to have no slops, and leave space in the dustbin.
I did have an idea for a piece in the mode of CV and Linkedin Profile, a piece I wrote years ago, and it is 11 years on Wordpress now, a message told me so. The new piece might be called Two Faced, like in shops or hairdressers, or just regular Politicians. So you have, Hello Nice to See You, on the first line. Followed by I really hate the SOB, but she’s paying me. Then you go through a list, of Positive statements, followed by the Real Truth. Now I only need this idea, this title in my head then away I go. One hour to write, then 5 minutes for you all to read. Yes, that’s how it works.
I look out the window and get another idea, just by observing passers-by, just like in The Bicycle Removal Service, you can dig out that story on my Blogger. It’s quieter here at the new house, so not as many free ideas. I just need a title and the rest flows or follows, I’m just deciding which jug to pour from. You can try writing like that for yourself. You have to have ideas to start with, then you stitch them together. It did take my a year to learn to sew, and as I’ve said before 20 years of Quality Speech Radio, BBC Radio4 before that.
Now as I’m sat here I look like a scare crow, wearing an old Flasher Mac as a Smoking Jacket and a red scarf, since I cut my own hair off I feel the cold, so I’m layered up so I stay warm. Now the second I say that, I think I could write a piece about favourite tatty clothing, mind you nearly all of mine is like that. I’m not going anywhere, even without Covid 19. If the charity shop were open then the kids would throw everything away, what do you all think, you’ve seen the photos attached to my writing.
So these are some musings for the end of January, please God as all of us say, Let Covid 19 go away. With that I have to go watch Brave the Disney cartoon, you could all write about your favourite cartoons, that’s your homework. And if you hear any noise in the night, it’s me playing music, to drown Tinnitus with.
My Standard Reply ©
By Michael Casey
Hello Anon, DOUBLE EXCLAMATION MARKS, so this indicates you are
young and American and SALES.
I am right so far?
YES
BUT
NO MONEY
If you have done Research and are not just a random salesgirl, in both senses of the words, then you'll know
I have a ton of stuff. 33 years Writing, with 20 years of EARS, before that. No, I'm not 100, though on pain days
I look like Death Warmed Up. Yes, I've really had a Quadruple Heart Bypass now just over 6 years ago.
With the bonus of a "breast" now poking through my bypass scar, it's a hernia, 1% of bypass patients get them
So, I'm truly blessed, with Arthur my Arthritis for company. Not to mention Kidneys that should be cooked with
beans and lentils, whatever lentils are. Topped off with a side order of 3 years of Tinnitus.
Tinnitus is not a Roman slave by the way. So, I have a sea shore in my head 24/7 and it gets louder at night
This means I have Taylor Swift, Mylie Cyrus, Will Young and even a whole host of Soft Rock in my bed
every night, I'm SOOOO promiscuous . Their singing distracts me from Tinnitus, who is a noisy bugger, not literally.
Bet you wish you didn't bother sending me a circular, though emails are linear.
BUT YES
If you find me an Angel Investor
This is what could be done
Use my words to help teach English as a 2nd language, so 1/2 or USA for starters.
Because my Stories are Funny, and if you have done your research, 80 Countries read my rubbish
And on some days my book The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker
is read in TEN languages on the same day
So, my Words work everywhere, unlike Wordsworth, who is dead
Enough Said
It would be a Partnership, and I'd take my share
I have NO money, I do have two teenage daughters, so obviously I have no money
And one statistic, the average survival rate after Quadruple Heart Bypass, is 11 years
So, if I'm average, maybe 5 more years
Though as you read this, I hope you think he's far from average, a real SOB, but far from average
So, there you go, as Jon the Hippy used to say, if you reply I'll tell you who he is.
SO, in conclusion, and So is one of my favourite words, as well as a Peter Gabriel album
If you can find an Angel Investor, and not just a jester, though the Jester was a gay bar in Birmingham
Straight or Gay or Any which way, I'm happy with anybody, so long as they buy me a pint of Stella Artois
Then if your Angel Investor, or even your rich dad, am I right again, anyway
If they want to invest in Me, then please do reply.
Otherwise, you can print and laminate this and put it in the gents' toilet by the urinals
I know you're a lady, so get the janitor to do it.
Then google me again, for you can find 208 stories read by me.
As well as 2000 plus online, or 20 books in the car park of Amazon books
Just look for the really stupid photos, and if you are angry by now, then, that's what you are saying
Perhaps I should put this email online?
Why waste material
That's why Bernie had such silly mittens
Kittens rhythms next, so maybe I'll add a photo of my cat Totoro
I told my daughters they could have a dog if I died of a cat if I had a heart attack
A few weeks later I had an UNPLANNED Quadruple Heart Bypass
Ok, that's enough, you may be thinking what drugs am I on.
Just heart meds and pain killers, but not opioids because of my weak kidneys
The rest is PURE IMAGINATION
Well maybe not so pure, but Imagination
I'm attaching 2 books as a punishment
Bet you wish you did your homework
And your nights cold in Canada?
Maybe John Denver is your boyfriend...
Confused or Smiling
Michael Casey
p.s I just got out of bed, Totoro drinks Comfort instead of Milk, hence so white and fluffy
God's Rich Tapestry (c)
By Michael Casey
Well, I forced myself out of bed, I need more sleep but I thought I'd
try and get up. So here I am post toast and coffee, my normal
breakfast and I had an idea so this is what you are getting.
What use am I to you or anybody? Then I checked my readers list
today, over 10 countries reading my rubbish. So, do you all like to
use my rubbish as toilet paper? Print off a story then pick a stall and
away you go, and I thought only Donald Trump toilet paper was
popular. Though he'd probably added my email address to all kinds of
rubbish, Welsh in Welsh was a strange one I had yesterday. I can
remember Keith Jackson having an email from himself, 30 years ago
was it? That was before technology got really clever. So, what I get
now is even more annoying, and gets deleted unread. Hello to KJ by
the way, he must be 10 years older than me.
So where does this take us? Well, we all have our place in the
pecking order, obviously I was locked up in the computer room for
21 years at Stats, escaping and then marrying finally. Every person
has their place their worth, even if you didn't realise it till afterwards.
Why is it so quiet, where is that annoying person, Michael, I'll say it
before Mark H, says it and laughs at his own joke.
Where is Skid and his Marks, and so on and so forth. We all have a
value, even if we don't know it at the time. What use am I, I am an
Old Woman, is a story of mine, I can see Mark H, now pulling a
face as, he says yes that's Michael.
I hope I've surprized people from that old crew from long ago, but
never forgotten. A collection of people make a whole, any group of
people are a jigsaw, a mosaic, a tapestry. When the gossip goes, there
is a gap, gossip is the chattering cement that holds a society
together, a phrase from The Butcher, The Baker and The Undertaker.
Look around your street, your family, you friends, your team,
whatever game you play, or your knitting circle, or your prayer
group, even if the bar is your place of worship. Everybody has a
task, even if it is to lay out the chairs, or drop and bolt in the extra
place at the end of the pew in a church. Yes, churches used to be that
full, at Saint Patrick's we use to have extra drop seats down the
middle, I know because I got them ready while my brother always
got the altar servers list, which never changed.
Then there is the guy who miraculously survived something over
the road at Dudley Rd hospital, who runs the piety stall, little wonder
There are the unsung heroes, the cleaners in any place, I know as I
always used to work the late shift, so they were my friends. The
things they know, and the things they discover, such as half full
coffee cups in a bin. I could mention other discoveries in the middle
of the night, but I'll leave the dead rest.
The sandwich lady you fear, as she always needs a man to come and
fix a shelf for her, you'd starve without her. The crossings lady who
saved your life by knocking you over with her pole. Even the barber
whose "something for the weekend, sir?" also saved your life, and
health in many many ways, many many times. But not as many as
you boasted about. And when the barbers was closed, you took a
chance, so Chancy Gardinier was your first child, named after the
unexpected film and thereafterwards, no barber's something for the
weekend included.
Look around in any life, in any story, or History itself, which is all our lives. What do you see, this led to that, or just unknowingly. You married the cleaner, but she was really a rich heiress, I married a cleaner too, but she did have a degree, and the rest is History. Our lives, our loves, what we like, what we love, all of this is a tapestry. An accident, either of nature or of life itself, can lead to many many things. Your dad nearly died, you visited him for 3 straight years in the seniors home, and you married his nurse. Whatever happens in life, it forms us, it directs us, like a mudslide down a hill, it can be dangerous, it can be exciting, but it changes our internal landscape. So, look around and connect, little chats here, little looks and glances, read, watch, observe. Then your life will be heard, you’ll be the colourful bit in the tapestry, you might even be the centrepiece. You don’t need to battle in Hastings, nor an arrow in your eye, just look up, look around, look to the sky. Look at the birds flying, look at the patterns they weave in the sky. Then try to be a bird, and make your life heard, for a life is more than a twitter.
Taking your Mind off Things ©
By Michael Casey
As you all know me and George are in the same sewing circle, that’s me and George Clooney. He has my best thimble in his pocket, it’s his lucky charm, if you look carefully, you’ll see him use it in the next gangster film he’s in. A sequel called, Ocean’s 26, and you thought he was sleeping with the fishes, no he’s having a whale of a time, he’s a bit of a marine biologist, and that’s a metaphor. In the Ocean he uses the thimble, to count all the stolen money with, as the electronic money counter is bust. Which sets up a sequence where he counts $100K ever so fast, rather like Spike Milligan as the postman beating the sorting machine, though I doubt any of you will know that film, Ocean’s 26 I’m talking about, everybody knows Spike Milligan, you ask his butler Prince, or Charlie as everybody calls him down the Windsor pub.
But, where was I, now that I’ve warmed up the toilet seat for you, it’s a specialist occupation, I began when Carry on at Screaming was filmed, but that’s History. Yes, I remember now, Taking your Mind of Things, I’ve inserted the title again, just so you won’t forget it, repetition aids memory, you ask any kids beaten by the teacher in the 1960s for not know their times tables. My own buttocks quiver every time I’m doing multiplication, or maybe that’s another metaphor, but I am very good at multiplication, maybe it’s my alluring Clooney like looks, Ok I really look like Hew Edwards the news reader, though I look far far younger. So, what has all this got to do with the price of lettuce? If you are not paying attention I’ll slap the back of your legs with a wet lettuce, and I may leave the snail on, and you never know where it will slither to.
Ok, the theme today is taking your mind off things, so can you remember what you were doing a few minutes ago? Have I distracted you, or am I so bad you have lost the will to live? I can hear all the heckles, and an echo from the past also just hit me, that’s the trouble with words they bring memories too, I’ve just awakened a ghost.
But I want to share something today. If you have a busy busy life, then mundane things, such as my writing, I’ll get in the jibe first, do relax. Mental chewing gum, or mental chocolate, does help to relax, then you can go back to your important job refreshed and relaxed. I was fiddling the other day, repairing my Rosary beads to be exact, first repaired with a ring of steel, a circle you have your keys on. Then I found some old plastic covered wire that I bent into shape, to relink my prayers. This repair was better, and is almost unseen, as prayers should be. Enough philosophy.
The point is though that occupational therapy as some might call it, does work, it distracts, so your mind has a rest from one thing, as you are absorbed by another. I suppose that’s what Play Time was originally invented for, make the kids run and jump about while the teachers have a coffee and cake. Mothers used to bribe teachers in the old days. Ted Heath the former British PM was a sailor, when you are in a force 10 in the Irish Sea, you’re not wasting your time on who is stabbing you in the back in Parliament. Your mind, heart and soul is dancing with the waves, Politics is forgotten.
I could give you more examples, but you have your own. You know Jack who is a reporter, but works in the soup kitchen on his day off, just to remind him to be humble, as his mother used to remind him, he’d never be as famous as Bob Hope. Bob Hope was the local rat catcher, who lived with Dorothy Lamore the girl with the big big smile. So, things distract us, we have our guilty pleasures, such as watching Kdramas with the sound so high, that flocks of geese take a detour. Anything that is a distraction is good, because we are not machines, we have to switch off and rest. We need oiling and resting, like a machine being serviced so that it can perform even better. Though oiling and resting does sound suspiciously like another metaphor.
I hope I’ve taken your mind off things, so you can get back to what you were doing before, and if you’re mind has gone a blank then I’ve really proved my point, yet another metaphor maybe. Because you are rested, and this writer has earnt his pay. Nothing.
No News Today ©
By Michael Casey
Hey Mark, you’re on the bus, pay your fare.
Hey Mark, you’re at the Cinema, go get a ticket.
Hey Mark, you have to pay for Groceries.
Hey Mark, you have to pay for your Netflix, your Amazon.
Hey Mark, you have to pay for How to Become President lessons
a new tutorial service with the Donald.
So, don’t you think you should pay something to read the papers?
Or are you a Queen, like in the Queen’s Gambit which you paid to see on Netflix, where the girl “borrowed” a Chess magazine.
Fake Reality is all we’ve got, because of Spam a Lot, Politicians
Now your Camelot, or is it Hamalot ambitions
One day you can be President
But Le President is a French soft cheese, as today is Bernadette’s feast in France
So instead of sharing Spiritual Water, what are you spreading?
Misinformation and Lies.
The Truth is Out There, as Mulder always said
So, shine a light, light a fire
Or is Truth a Liar
Well after 4 years of Trump, maybe we know the answer to that
So, Hey Mark, is MONEY all you are after?
The LOVE of Money is the root of all Evil
Do some good, share News, Give access to real News
Let people see what the world can be.
Don’t allow just a False Reality.
You can afford to Pay for a News Service
Be in Service of All Mankind, which sounds like somebody’s Motto
If you Believe, then you will Share
Let the People Know See and Judge
Or is it too much Money for Nothing?
We’ve seen 4 years of Pain and Ignorance
Do no Evil, do no Bad
Which is an Oath no doubt taken by your own wife
Harmless words, that should be Heard
But what of you?
You still want to be President, so long as it does not cut Profits
It’s Time to Grow up Mark
Don’t deny the Truth and Hide it under a Bucket
Truth and News is for all Societies, it’s not empty Pieties
So put your Money where your Mouth is
Free News, on Facebook, which is well worth paying for
Or do you want to help keep the poor ignorant
So, they still vote for the status quo, out of ignorance
Ignorance is not Bliss, it just holds back Society
As one light at a time goes out
Until all that is left if Mob Rule and Tyranny
Or are more and more zeros on a bank statement
Worth the price of your Soul.
News saves lives, so spread it and share it
And Pay for It.
It is the chattering cement of Society.
Which is a line of mine, but I’m sharing it.
Enough, it’s time for roast potatoes, I am Kerry Irish
In my blood.
I hope you listen, or am I too much of a hot potato
TEXAS SNOW
Texas Snow
Global Warming means hot weather
BUT you also get weird weather
Like down in Texas
So, WAKE UP Politicians
4 years wasted
Yes, you can flog the Donkey or is it Elephant
But in the end after a Shares Boom
You get the bang, all the animals die
This is so simple that a Simpleton could understand it
Yet for 4 years USA was in Official Denial
Then the Press was attacked
So, everything has been Poisoned
Covid will be beaten eventually
But When Common Sense is ignored
It takes longer
And now with Texas Snow, the Holiday is OVER
USA and Mankind must act immediately
Or they'll be no DOW
Just Devil's Own Weather
So, grow up Politicians, act now
It is a National Security Risk, as was you know who
If you don't fix Climate Change
There will be no Texas, no USA, and No world
How about a 10% redirection of Military Spending
Forget a Wall, as Weather goes through Everything
Kick start Save the USA today.
With Green Invention
If you don't start today, there will be NO tomorrow
When Story and Music Collide (c)
By Michael Casey
Now as usual I did not know I'd be writing this, but I was listening to Clapton, and one track brought forth a memory. Then I had a thought if ever I finish Tears for a Butcher, the sequel to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, then they'll be a Prayer Scene, and if ever it came to be filmed then Clapton would be in the Pulpit playing as Life Saving prayers are said. And it probably won't be finished, another 600 pages of Old Forge and Singing Anvil, so you'll be spared, but you do know about my dream of a speed typist etc.
Now I'm going to STOP for a Kdrama right now, but I'll come back and finish writing this, so remember the title and meet me back here in 9 hours time, Midnight UK time and it'll be ready. I could have had a poncy title for the story but long words are hard to spell, and simpletons like me, might not understand what I'm on about.
Why are A level questions all poncified, as I'm discovering with my small daughter
studying beside me. Enough I have 2 new Kdramas in my sights. I love the comedy and tears in the stories.
to be finished later, now for lamb chops
Ok, it's tomorrow 14:20 Saturday
I did not return like MacArthur, but I'm here now
So the piece will run differently, as a new driver is in the seat. That's what it is like when if I resume instead of doing everything in the flow. I've just reminded myself too, In Tears for a Butcher one of the stories concerns Ike's driver and another hoard of whisky found. I'll have fun and games with that story if ever I finish it and the sequel. I did want Shep Smith to feature in the story too, as he is on holiday in UK, in Old Forge and Singing Anvil and happens to be in the bar when the new hoard appears, along with Ike's driver. But that's for the Future.
You see as I write I nearly always have background music, especially now with Tinnitus in the ascendancy, which means very often I type a word and the exact same word is sung simultaneously as I type. I also think just how neat, as you folks speak, if I had this music playing when the movie or tv show of my words is made. Ok. I'm deluded, but you have to dream and hope, otherwise you are dead as wood. Hence yesterday, if you can remember that far back, I do tend to distract. So yesterday I was thinking about the power of prayer. You spend most nights awake as you battle Tinnitus, your mind does wonder everywhere, the good, the bad, the ugly thoughts everywhere. Then sleep comes, well for 2 hours anyway.
Ok so you can see my life, and are glad you are not me. But to the point, music is so much better than words, so Taylor Swift et al will always be better than me. And taller too, which is good when she comes around to do the cleaning and high dusting at my house, but that's another story, haven't you caught up yet?
So in Tears for a Butcher at the Finale, maybe 500 pages in Big Sid will be shot while being a Raging Bull, and saving many lives, but shot three times at point blank range. So Mrs Murphy whose life was saved, and her grandchild's, and her daughter in law not to mention an unborn 2nd grandchild and the Post Office staff, well how is she going to react.
While Big Sid is on the operating table at Dudley Road hospital, because it was the closest, and a team of Texas surgeons happened to be in Birmingham for a conference, the lead surgeon is still wearing his cowboy boots and hat as he operates. Mrs Murphy is over the road in Saint Patricks. This was my own local church by the way.
So, do you think Mrs Murphy will allow the Devil get his way? Ok, so obviously there will be music, and that's where Clapton comes in. He's be playing as she's praying, he'll be playing as Texas does its best for Big Sid the Butcher. Blood and Prayer everywhere. Now what Clapton would play, how would I know, I'm just a boring writer, Clapton will be playing God. For Music is God's breath. Just a little challenge for Eric if ever my story gets written, and then made into a film.
How would you play God, Eric. What notes would you be, Tears in Heaven, and Mrs Murphy gone past madness, it was all my fault, it was all my fault racing through her mind. Over and over again. Only music can speak those words, only bolts of lightning, as the rain comes down as the rain comes down, on Saint Patricks and on Texas's best operating in Dudley Rd Hospital.
Now that's the scene. Mrs Murphy always sits in the 2nd bench on the left by the radiator. But not now, but not today. She storms to the altar rail, as if receiving Communion. But the Pain, the Despair, the Guilt is too much.,
Jesus, she screams. She sighs, she screams Jesus again.
The Press are at the church door. The butcher's dog is clawing at Jesus' feet on the cross outside the church door. The dog is pining.
Jesus, screams Mrs Murphy again from her spot in front of the altar.
Doreen a black nurse from over the road enters
and kneels to left of Mrs Murphy
Asha an Indian nurse enters and kneels to the right beside Mrs Murphy
Jesus
Mary
Joseph
And Saint Patrick the porters scream too
The journalists can feel it
Now it begins
The engine of prayer revs up. Like Lewis Hamilton on the grid
Jesus, Mary, Joseph, an Saint Patrick over and over again
The the Rosary begins at warp factor 9, no time to build up speed
Just slap it down warp factor 9
And on Clapton plays, as people play and surgeons earn their pay
And on Clapton play, and on Clapton plays
With almighty God himself throwing down thunderbolts
I'll stop there I have yet to write the tale, I have yet to find that speed typist
So all you'll know is what's on the page today
But I hope you can imagine how it will feel, and Music is feeling
And if I write it right and Clapton does in fact play
Then God will push Eric out of the way and pick up the guitar himself
And that is when Story and Music Collide
20/Feb/2021 3pm
Just the Way you Are ©
By Michael Casey
What have Barry White and God got in common? They love us just the way we are. During my Tinnitus time, my mind wanders and between prayer and profanity, staying awake all night is no joke. Though if you remember your Bible, the disciples fell asleep, I am so jealous of them. Strangely right now the hiss seems to have lessened, as if the tide has gone out. My left ear always goes deaf too, every time I shower, if it were my left foot it would not matter, but hearing does.
So, as I look in the mirror of my imagination, what do I see, a George Clooney look alike, or the Elephant Man? Well sniff, and don’t scratch, and make your mind up. Though a workman did just barge into the toilet, so he’ll be making his own mind up. A twirking Michael Casey, with a bum bigger than Beyonce’s or am I just an Elephant Man? Sniff and don’t tell, thankfully this is not cinema.
Which brings us back to my hairy back, my stained left shoulder, with a mass of hair on it. During the Mass God sees all, and as I said before he Loves Us, just the way we are. Even if we stop talking and slap on the Movelot, on that very same shoulder, because we are about to curse in pain. And yes I’ve just done that, curse my pain, and Tinnitus is torture in the night, so that brings lots of things. But when Barry White sings, that can be a cure for everything. I’ve just turned him on, not literally, he’s a MAN, a very big MAN, but Ladies and Angels too, he’s in Heaven singing.
And God doesn’t want me blocking the view of the Stage, so despite my pleading, God wants me to stay, here in Birmingham while Barry sets the stars Rocking, while I’m like a blind man lost my way. So will the Tinnitus disappear fully and properly, will I get a big Grace, who knows but Big Grace is the dinner lady with all the moves, who always dances in red shoes. Not as graceful as a ballet dancer, but when she twirls as she dishes out the food a cheer goes up, big Grace knows God’s love. And when she sings, people stop eating their dinner in the school canteen, a voice of an Angel.
So that’s her and that’s me. We are all different as Joan in the Print room used to say, and God loves us any which way. So never be hard on yourself if you feel the mirror doesn’t match the way you want to be. Reality is what it is, yes we can tweak and we can twirl, but just be kind to yourself, try yes, but don’t let trying lead to crying. God can’t help himself, he loves us just the way we are. Move over Clapton, God’s on guitar.
Almost a Poem (c)
By Michael Casey
Well me and Tinnitus are going through a strange period, not staying awake all night till exhaustion and sleep arrive. But chunks of sleep and not being awake till they arrive. Though 3am where were you? I was having toast and Ovaltine, a snack and a hot drink seems to being sleep to me.
Sometimes Totoro our cat arrives, to be let out to plague the countryside, or just to chill with the nearby foxes, but not Gumiho, so I let the cat out and away she leaps. Setting off lights and movement sensors all over the neighbourhood. That's how I know when she wants to come in when she's out late drinking with the foxes. The lights light up everywhere, so me in my Tinnitus time put on a dressing gown and go downstairs to let her in.
Last night I had a poem come to me, 1% of my output is poetry of sorts, so 20 out of 2000 pieces maybe. When I get a poem it tends to be very good, yes in my opinion, but most people almost always agree too. I really should record any stray ideas and snatches, then I'd have more material to annoy you with. But I'm no Stevie Wonder, though I do have my share of Inner Visions, he has recording equipment by his bed. Me I just want to sleep, I do have aa old phone directing a smart speaker through the night. And yes Sting has been added to the night shift, so Taylor Swift can get a rest, and be fresh in the morning to do the High Dusting in my study. As you know her lad works in the chip shop down the hill, and that's how I kill two birds with one stone.
So there I was thinking, and with Tinnitus your brain can go into overdrive as you fight to sleep, that's why it is so debilitating, not to mention my other weaknesses. I got a theme about Land and Peace and Faith and Geography. History is Geography, and, you Cannot beat Geography. Something for all armies to think about, as well as with Faith you can Move Mountains. If you know that then you can achieve something, with Love.
I had a few lines and said to myself, that's good as I was half asleep and half awake and half in pain, Tinnitus is part of the Sine Curve of pain that I endure for 8 years now, first starting with Arthur my arthritis. When it hits it is deeper and longer, my pain. The night time Tinnitus seems to be worse too. But I want to talk about the Words, I had a line here and there so I promised myself I'd put it together in the morning, like flatpack furniture. Only I lost the allen key, or rather I lost the words by the time I was finally ready to arise. I still awake every 2 hours, so by the time I'd had my 8 hours, after Tinnitus time, the allen key to attach the words together had gone. Maybe I need a Gumiho I could dictate to in the night, but that is just a fantasy in all senses of the word and my imagination .
You have to have words and dreams and Gumiho fantasies even, because without them the pain would be far to much to bear, and no I'm not joking, I wish I were. Today my small daughter tells me our study clock is famous, as it chimes through the online lessons, and her French teacher calls it charming, though this dad is no Prince. The Geography class recognise the chimes too, meanwhile Jesus he Knows Me is playing on my speaker, Music the Genesis for everything. And yes Jesus does know me, and Saint Jude’s too, for when you are awake in the night, the conversation ebbs and flows like as does the Music of My Night, Andrew where is your Webber? Music is a cobweb catching thoughts in the night, dreams, hopes, and fantasies, as well as curses and pain, bouncing and rippling everywhere.
So that's all I have for today, maybe the Poem will arrive, they are gifts, they arrive and my train of thought marshals them in the station. I do not control the Poetry timetable, they are free spirits like Totoro our cat. The other writing is fast and furious, maybe my subconscious is telling me to squeeze out all I have, my only gift for my two teenage daughters. Then the page will flutter and fall down like falling leaves and my tree of words will be bare, and I'll turn to mush like fallen Autumn leaves on the wood's floor.
So enjoy me while I'm still here, as I constantly tell my daughters, I've had 6 years of extra time. But if you are a Gumiho, you'll have to wag your 9 tails to catch me, and would I be worth it? 20 years more if a Gumiho did her magic, though that's just more Music in the Night, I really must push the piano out of my bed.
Less is More ©
By
Michael Casey
Ok, as promised here’s a new piece for you. I’ve had a catch up with Vincenzo and it really should get International awards. 10/10 at least. So Less is More, what am I talking about. Not how I nag people, well maybe or maybe not. As you know I’m nosey so I watch people, hence decades of memories. And I’ve read and studied and I’ve even been writing for a long long time.
I once worked in a call centre, doesn’t everybody. And a girl there said to one of my fellow workers “you’re just a scruffy Indian”, only later did he reveal to her that he was in fact working 7 days a week, which is stereotypical Indian, or Korean. He was earning extra money to pay for Teacher Training at University for his wife. His real job, his 9 to 5 job? He, the “scruffy Indian” as she called him, he taught surgeons how to use lasers in operations. Yes really. I won’t reveal his name. But he was a very nice man.
Which makes me wonder the scars I have up both legs to my naughty bits and right down my chest, were they blade or laser? Anyway I’ve had 6 years extra time so far, and that’s why Still Alive 2015 had that title. So I’m rambling, do you want me to cut to the chase, or shall I put it in a podcast. I could record this later so you can hear it on Spotify later, https://anchor.fm/michael-casey1 to HEAR my Podcast.
Carrying on, do you just want bullet points, and a vacuous list, like you find in features pages? Yes, I’m very critical of the quality of stuff that litters the internet, Miaow. Here’s a few tips for you. First, make a list. Then you’ll buy less at the supermarket, or buy less online so you avoid impulse purchases. Ditto with your day, five minutes planning while you pooh on the toilet in the morning, will make all the difference to your day, and you will feel less bloated too. If only Trump twittered less during his toilet time he would have been less irritable, and so much more organised. Getting the Country to fight amongst itself is not organisation.
Look in the mirror before you go out, because appearances matter, to some. And you don’t want your dress stuck in the back of your panties, or your flies open. Simple things that can change your life. Yes, simple things matter. Like smiling, being Happy is a choice, even if you are not one of the 7 Dwarfs. I had the AA motto, How I can make this Day count, on my mantlepiece for years. No, I was not a drunk, I found it in a newspaper and cut it out, maybe 35 years ago. The point being, I read something and I agreed with it. So, I took it as my own. You have to smile, or people will say you are a misery guts, we had a guy work with us in the hotel, that was what we thought of him, misery. If only he smiled instead.
So, perception, and self-perception do matter. If only Michael Jackson did look in that mirror and change. How you look does affect how you feel. Yes, I know you all think I look like an illiterate tramp, but I want you to judge the words, and I detest those perfect vacuous influencer selfies, just before they fall off the cliff while taking selfies. Again I do like to surprize people, I had a doctor talk down to me at a conference, so I waited, he was talking about hotel economics, then I said my piece, adding My Brother did Economics at Cambridge, his reply, I can tell. So he noticed I had a brain then, so never talk down to anybody, just in case they bite your bum. Though in complaint letters, give them 3 strikes, then email the CEO and put Formal Complaint in the letter, every CEO has an email, and then really really dump on them. The board looks at lists of Formal Complaints and it influences their MONEY, so I’ve taught you something else as well. Be polite, but know when to be a Bastard too, your life is too short to be wasted by lazy ignorant badly trained people, Double Miaow.
I could go on, but One Direction are taking me down the Trader, the pub in Old Forge and Singing Anvil, they are celebrating their new joint venture, in car washing. I’m going to teach them how to twerk as they wash cars. So to recap, make a list, but be ready to change it. Don’t waste your time on time wasters, remember Kennedy and 15 mins for a meeting is enough. This is what I want, XYZ, and if they won’t do it walk away. Arguing the toss may make you pennies but in the long run, you’ll just get wrinkles, have you noticed I have no wrinkles, because I am penniless and don’t chase money. Ok, it’s because I fat, I won’t lie, I am heavier than Tyson Fury by the way, and 10 inches shorter. That’s why he never argues with me, he’s too busy having kids, so God Bless him anyway.
So everyday follow your list, and as you soak in the bath, look at your accomplishments, and if you have a big enough bath, let your partner look at your accomplishments, as you follow your true One Direction. You and I.
What makes and good story?
By
Michael Casey
Well actually, it’s the way it’s told. Ask Frank Carson the late great Northern Ireland comedian, who was so funny Roger nearly crashed the van, as he was crying with laughter, as he took Frank back to the airport. So, that’s the standard, let’s call it The FC standard. Now as I talk to you, you’ll not cry with laughter, though you may just cry. I hope that the putting it together makes it more interesting, and as I reveal things it gets more entertaining. Yes, I’m a Stripper on the page, hoping you’ll get more and more interested and entertained so a hairy man full of scars with an enormous birthmark on his left shoulder is your thing, not to mention the Winnie the Pooh belly. Some of you are, well you are, perfect for me, if that’s what gets you going. But in generality what kind of woman you do anything for love like that. But I digress.
You now have this horrible image in your mind, and that’s what stories do. They put images in your mind, in the Windmills of your Mind. Which is my favourite song by the way, and didn’t Fr. Brain later Bishop Brain used to say I was Sancho Panza as I always trailed after my much taller brother over 50 years ago. Yes really. So again you have another mental picture in your mind, and that’s what I hope I do, Cartoons made with Words, hence the name of my backup site for my words. And Don Camillo as you all know was written to fill a space on the page, and even the Pope was given a copy of those stories. I was reading Don Camillo prior to my heart bypass 6 years ago, and the Italian heart professor was impressed when I told him what I was reading. See, humble me impressing an Italian heart professor at the QE.
You can impress with your words too, but stories are for builders, a layer here a layer there, and then decoration, like a cake too. Too fancy and people will be sick, too bland and people will spit it out, or even be sick of it. Remember too a book can be great as a film, but not so good as the book itself. Because in a film things are rearranged and changed, so a novelist will have to accept changes, and if he does not like them, he can have his name removed from the credits. Then for film audiences there are Telegraph moments, and film buffs can ruin a film by pointing them out. Such as I always wear shades in front of my screen to prevent eye strain, then later on in a film the shades would reappear and save the day somehow.
The pace of a story makes it what it is, too fast and it’s like a bad boyfriend, too slow and your parents arrive. Now what am I talking about, I don’t know it’s all in your imagination, On y soit qui mal y pense, and so on. So, you’re smiling now, why? Come on, tell me, why? So choice of words can make or break a story. I’d rather be gentle myself, and make the laughs last, just take you by the hand and lead you up the garden path. And yes there are several meanings to that last sentence, it’s up to you. That’s the joy of Radio, as I hope you hear all these stories as you read them aloud to grannie and all the others in the old people’s home. They like a good story old people, and if you find Old People’s Home on my back list, or even spotify, you’ll have a really good laugh. It’s in the second chapter of Tears for a Butcher, my unfinished sequel to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, and you all know I’d like to dictate it, otherwise you’ll all be spared another 600 page comic novel.
Keeping people reading and turning pages is another thing a story should do, but you know what, if they just drop knickers every 20 pages, or a murder every 40 page then that’s just boring. Though some novelists have had a lifetime of words just by doing that. With me I hope you get laughter and more, and bastards get shown the door, in the best possible taste, with humour. You are the judges, I just please myself, and hope you all like it. I don’t plan it like a Delia Smith recipe, I am like a blindfolded chef who mixes it all up, and presents it naked on the plate, which might remind you of another tv chef. My words are chosen and flow, and the hope is that you all says he’s on LSD, I am on IMAGINATION in reality. The reality I present on the page should amuse and make you ask who is Michael Casey?
Now have I explained What makes a good story? Probably not, but it is a story in itself? And getting the stories from in ourselves is what it is all about. Words on a page, cartoons made with words shared with love and laugher. Now this Sancho Panza has to mount his donkey and head for Korea, and Vincenzo is waiting for me there, to help carry away bars of gold.
Not Worth my Spit ©
By Michael Casey
Not Worth my Spit is a Chinese expression, it means it’s a waste of time talking to somebody, it’s not worth your spit. You may have had dodgy companies give you grief, and you go around in circles, a bit like Diplomatic dealings. Hey North Korea, Trump really was right, you’d make a great travel destination, so set your people free, and in one generation you’ll be Top of the Pops, and be singing happily. If Germany could rebuild after the Hitler nightmare, what can North Korea do? Even better and greater.
There are 5 of my books on my Wordpress in Korean, Kim, so have a laugh and read and then think, I want to live happily ever after, me and my people. I am worth your spit, so have a download and read happily. Now getting back to my theme, Not Worth my Spit. Kids bicker and say, he did this she did that, he should say sorry for scratching my Barbie dolls face, her behaviour is a disgrace. She should say sorry first, no he did the worse thing, his apology should be the first thing. So, mom, slaps both of them, a draw is declared, and all toys are locked in the cupboard under the stairs. Then they both hate mum, at last unity, mum is the worst, they can agree on that. So much for Diplomacy.
Circles of friends and circles of deceit, I’ll do this for you if you do that for me, so much for monkeys picking fleas off each other, a bit like Politics and Union deals. Where is Humanity, we leave that in Church on a Sunday, the rest of the week, we are weak Humanity, bargaining and cheating, and badmouthing each other, and for what? So, we can sell cheap copies of this and that and claim it’s worth 4 times it’s weight in Gold. And what about the Customers, they are there just there to be fooled, and abused, nobody is going to pay to send our rubbish back to us, to get a false refund. So, we gain more money but lose our soul, and as for integrity, we can buy some cheap online, it’s a new rave fake perfume our cousins sell. And on it goes.
Now is all this worth my spit, your spit, or anybody’s spit. No, not really, but if by reading this you are more cautious before you buy, then I’m worth your spit. But then again, if I’m not then you can spit on me.
Johnny No Friends ©
By Michael Casey
Peter had no friends, in fact he now was a stay at home person. Though everybody used to call him John or Johnny, because he was always in the toilet, rushing to it in fact. They even moved his desk to the corridor outside the toilet as a prank, so he thanked them and stayed there for 3 years. He did have relationships, but only with delivery drivers who dumped stuff by his desk. So he was a Concierge without actually being a concierge. But he was happy enough because he was near the toilet, he could dump like an Elephant, and smell just as bad. Bad diet and a touch of CKD does that to you.
As the years rolled by he knew more and more about the delivery drivers, as he had a giant thermos on his desk ready to dispense a warming drink. So by the end of the 3rd year he had more Christmas cards than the entire offer, but luckily he was a dab hand with a Prit stick so he dabbed them and stuck them to the walls. It looked better than Santa’s Grotto or any church. Everybody took photos and a photographic magazine even awarded a prize. Johnny and his Cards the caption read in the magazine, with Johnny’s email below. Though nobody knew his name was Peter in reality.
Then Johhny’s bladder got so bad, he’d have to wear nappies or have a funnel and a tube from his desk to the toilet. So, Johnny spent his last penny and had to leave. The company were generous, he could have sued the arse off them for the 3 years in the corridor, the company secretary said, who was a bit leaky himself, so obviously he was on Peter’s side. So Johhny got a nice pension, and a framed digital photo of the Christmas Santa’s Grotto, and a very nice tablet which was waterproof so he could use it in the toilet, just as Trump does.
So now Johnny had no friends, but he still had his tablet, well several, as the doctors kept on trying this and that in an attempt to fix him, so he had bottles of tablets, as well as the digital tablet. Johnny got used to his new life, and he had friends on the Internet too, while he continued dashing to the loo. One day out of the blue he had an email from LindyLoo555@gmailpooh.com
He was going to delete it in anger, but decided to answer. Lindy Loo was her real name, she was American in Kansas were the mail servers were, and she did have two red shoes which she clicked and she did like ballet too. Out spilled everything, she’d seen the Santa photo in a photographic magazine while she was at the dentists having her teeth fixed.
So Johhny No Friends had found one true friend, which is all you need, and yes she loved the Beatles too, she played them constantly on her Amazon Prime subscription. Now email is a lovely thing, it is a letter that can be read over and over again, you can print them off too and put them in a scrap book too. After a few months, Peter and she called him Peter too, it was so much better than being called Johnny, because he used always to be in the John, so Peter asked for a photo. So LindyLoo555@gmailpooh.com sent him a photo, she was tall and big, with horrid teeth and the stereo typical black glasses that Koreans, or American born Koreans wear. But she did have hair to kill for. So obviously Peter fell in love with her instantaneously. Because he knew the real her, and she knew the knew him, so the feeling was mutual.
Though LindyLoo555@gmailpooh.com had lied, because she’d been hurt before, so sent a picture of her best friend from next door. So the friendship continued, and LindyLoo555@gmailpooh.com decided she wanted to come and visit Peter in Old Forge and Singing Anvil, so a quaintly named place after all. So Peter said he knew somebody he ran an AirB&B so he could get her discount, it was the bloke next door. Peter had wondered why he was always carrying large supplies of toilet paper, and did he have some disorder? But his neighbour laughed and said it was for his apartments. So Peter helped let in all the supplies when delivery drivers came, so he was offered discount if ever, if ever he needed an apartment. So that was that, and this was now.
LindyLoo555@gmailpooh.com said that was great, as she licked her dinner plate, that was her one bad habit, licking her plate like Oliver Twist, as she read his email on her iPhone12. They’d know each other for 18 months now all told, and so they weren’t being bold. She’d fly in from Kansas and land at Birmingham BHX, and Peter would be there to greet her, old Michael the taxi driver would be ready and he’d drive steady. Now when LindyLoo555@gmailpooh.com arrived Michael was in for a surprize, for the girl that landed was not like the photo, in fact how could she be. It was her best friend from next door, the Kansas girl was no witch, though she did wear red shoes. Michael drove her to the apartment where Peter was waiting, he told Michael he must have picked up the wrong girl, but it was the right girl, the perfectly right girl. You see Lindy Loo looked like a Kpop star, but prettier if that is even possible. Peter was shocked but she knew everything about him, and asked was he disappointed, and she’d leave immediately if he felt she’s abused his friendship. You see she felt it best to see if he wanted her for who she really was, and in emails he saw her as she really was. Apart from the photo deception, you see a girl has to know that she’s wanted for herself, not just her looks.
Peter replied, it’s an ill wind that blows no good, and farted before dashing to the toilet. You see Lindy Loo’s dad was a Proctologist, so why should nature get in the way of friendship. She enjoyed a month visiting Old Forge and Singing Anvil, she also revealed she was actually a dentist. Peter felt ten feet tall, and Lindy Loo just knew, she’d break her broom, she’s never go back to Kansas. Besides her dad had worked out how to fix Peter, as he knew he’d be joining the Korean American family. A Break Wind family, was born, Lindy Loo always loved England, and now part of it in the shape of Peter would be all her very own. And yes they had four daughters and formed a Kpop band, you see Love is like the wind it knows no boundaries, and the Kpop band was called The Saint Patricks because that was the day they finally met.
The Sky is the Limit ©
By Michael Casey
Well, I’m listening to Sky, yes clouds make lots of rain, especially when it’s thundering. Or if you are as old as me, John Williams et al. So, what shall I talk about today? I haven’t decided yet, but Totoro the cat sneaked in, I keep her out of this room, “the study” as I want a refuge and a nice place, that no cat paws can reach. We’ve managed to stop her from clawing the living room sofas, but the kitchen chairs have claw marks galore, even though we invested in a cat scratcher by food bowl. But cats don’t care, do you think I’m a dog? I’m a cat and I’ll scratch that, and if you put me out I’ll Leap a Fence and pretend I live with the neighbours here there and everywhere, then I’ll come home when it’s time for bed. Just for the bedtime bowl of milk. I’m not a stupid dog, I’m Totoro the Ninja cat. It’s her 6th Birthday soon, I said the girls could have a pet, a dog if I died or a cat if I had a heart attack. Weeks after that joke, the joke was on me an unplanned quadruple heart bypass. So be careful what you say, of you’ll end up with a cat scratching your furniture. But I digress.
So, I’m talking about pets then? No, but cats do grab your attention, even if it is by clawing at your bedroom door to be let out at 5am. Or setting off the motion sensor lights at 2am, then refusing to come in, because there’s something she can spy from up on high on the garden fence. So, as you shiver with the back door open for her, she just shows you her backside and continues stalking whatever was over the fence, as she wears a fur coat.
I just went to the kitchen for another hit drink and Totoro is outside the door giving me her big eyes, wanting to come in. Like a guard dog, but positioned next to the radiator, she is a cat after all, and cat’s have heat sensors in them, they find the warmest place to go. We have 2 metre tall cupboards in the kitchen, but to the cat it’s a challenge, a small Everest to climb, and besides hot air rises so she have a climb just because it’s there. Cats are nosey too and they always enjoy a view. A neighbour may build a high fence, but for a cat that’s just a challenge, so quicker than any Marine she’ll have a look and stand upright like a meerkat just to prove, any cat can look at any queen. And should you leave a door ajar, or a window open, then say hello pussy.
All in all cats love challenges, and they are company and make a house a home. Though my friends Lech, Boris and Gregorgi prefer wolf like dogs, because they can pull a sledge when Winter comes. Now is there a point to all of this? Man’s best friend is a dog, though I would have had to die before my girls got a dog. The point is this, The Sky is the Limit. Cats never give up, they look here and there and leap fences, they put their noses into everything like a Search Engine. Even yandex.ru can find me, and they have, so I wrote to them today to encourage them to share what they found. The Russian translation of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker and 2000 other stories for free until Russian Media get in on the act and share Lech, Boris and Gregorgi with the masses. Their offices ae near The Tolstoy museum, so I’d be in good company. In essence I’ve been a cat, sniffing around and climbing trees, checking back, or is it Checkoff and wasn’t he a Russian in Star Trek where the sky is the limit.
Reading Books ©
By Michael Casey
Ok, I’m full of snot and I should be lying down, but instead I’ll do a bit of writing like a clown. I just spotted the Russians are Coming, as the highest one day figure appeared. I did actually have dream and sat bolt upright in bed, and said “the Russians are Coming” then I went back to sleep, this was maybe 50 years ago when 3 or 4 of us brothers shared the same bedroom in the old family house. I mentioned the Russian search engine yesterday and I did email them, I’m shameless I’ll try and “Corrupt” anybody with my writing. I hope Google don’t get the hump, or my viewing figures might slump, just like my belly.
Though the Russians may not like two of my stories, The Spaceman and the Archangel story, though I think it’s great. Then the other story they might not like is I’m setting up a Band, where Putin, Trump, The Pope and The British PM become an Abba Tribute band. Apart from those two I hope the Russians love Stories too, wasn’t that a Sting or Billy Joel song. 2000 stories, perfect for cartoons and learning English with the son of a Kerry Blacksmith, that’s me.
Now that’s just the preamble, while I scramble my eggs. And rubbish rhythms are just a joke, while I stir the yolks. Reads like Lemony Snicket, and does he play cricket, Theresa May or may not, she’s in the band, as she was the PM when I wrote the story, but she’s still a Tory. Ok, I’ll cut the doggerel, or you’ll drown me at sea, Fisher, and do Germans bite, too much radio4 when I grew up, 20 years of that, before I took to the pen, and if I were a sheep you’d dip me in sheep dip, and leave me or corralled, I’m high enough already, just with Imagination. Then 33 years or writing, to make you all cross. 53 years in all, and I look so good looking, ok, shut it , frankly just shut it. Larry close that door there’s a draft right up my Spaghetti Junction. Now the past few sentences were for the pseuds-clever, who clog up radio4, so nobody else gets a chance, I am a Podcast now you know https://open.spotify.com/show/1wSSIExkhsR97u1jqj0iiR
Now where was I, just going around in circles, and they say you should have a circle in stories, I suppose it’s better than being far fetch like s))* from China. Which was an expression of my mother’s gone almost 25 years now, what it means is Beyond Belief, like me marrying a Shanghai girl. That kind of unbelievable, nothing bad about China, I don’t want 1,400,000 angry emails in my Junk mail, no pun intended. Chinese’s people might say “he’s from Birmingham” just as John Cleese used to say “ he’s from Barcelona” ok, enough said. By the way did I tell you , one of my brothers went to the same Cambridge college and John Cleese, where Michael was Winner, but nobody has filmed anything of mine yet. Maybe the Russians will be coming to film all 2000 of mine, who knows, just putin a good word for me.
Now, what did I read when I was younger, well Fear is the Key by Alistair MacLean, is why I read. I was afraid of Mr Gallagher so I started reading to avoid his wrath, and that changed my life in the mid 1960s. I did read everything Alistair MacLean wrote too, staying up till 2am to finish one off, freezing in the downstairs living room before going to bed, central heating ws unheard of then. I read all the History on the bookshelf by my desk in classroom of Class One at primary school. For a time I was left to read alone at a big desk downstairs because I was so far ahead of the class, and no not social isolation. The Outline of History by H.G. Wells was one of the books I read. I still have it, I was given it as a leaving present from Primary School, and yes I really was Head Boy, or locker-upper to make sure nobody did damage in dinner times.
So all in all I read by the yard for a decade or two, then radio4 with plays and clever people speaking nicely, before Reginal accents were introduced, instead of BBC English. That’s probably why I speak the way I do, but I did have a Kerry mother whose strong accent we only noticed on the phone, when we eventually got a phone. As for dad he worked in The District Iron and Steel Brasshouse Lane Smethwick, in the heat of hell for 40 years, with Welshmen, so some though dad was Welsh, though he too was a Kerryman, Hello Dear How Are You, was what he used to say. Which proves how we all acquire our accents, over in the corner my small daughter is doing her French A Level homework, so that is full of accents too, or is it three.
So, on it goes reading, reading, reading, and when you get bigger it’s newspapers, so somebody introduced me to the Telegraph, then I started reading online newspapers too. The Guardian to balance the Telegraph and now a bit of Daily Mail too, though stars flashing their bits is boring, and I’d demand a double page spread, though a good double mattress would be more useful. Words are stories and they lead us everywhere, especially up the garden path, where Gill with a G is waiting to remind you Michael is Awful, but I do like him.
Chocolate and Salmon and Italian Beer ©
By Michael Casey
Well, I had a lazy time in bed listening to my smart speaker, then I got up feeling happy, I resisted the temptation to say Happy, because he is one of the seven dwarfs, and you would have gone all the shop with the potential ramifications. See I’ve confused you already, though if you’re a smiling Quack you may have had a field day too. But I like to amuse myself and you too. As for the chocolate mint ice cream cone and salmon with tomatoes on seeded bread and Italian beer, that was my lunch, the Italian beer being a late arrival to the house, but Moretti was welcomed, I think my friend Vincenzo in Korea must have sent it.
So now you know what’s in my belly but what about my head, nothing you are all saying in unison. You may be right, but that does not stop me from writing, though some of you may wish I did. You are all so cruel, Vincenzo stop playing with your lighter, they are scared enough by my writing already. Here I have saved the last straw for you, drink slowly and don’t spill the other can Moretti over your fancy suit. Better still give it to me, and I’ll stop an accident before it happens, you can go back to playing with your lighter now.
So, what am I talking about, I’ve caught up with the plot now, so shall I share it with you? Atmosphere. That’s what. In the morning there an atmosphere in my bedroom, so I opened the window and let the fresh air in. No, the atmosphere was created by the music, I have it on low all night as I fight the Tinnitus, and then I switch it off depending on my state of restfulness and exhaustion. So, by the time I was ready to get up I decided Justin Timberlake would be nice, yes girls I know he always is as far as you are concerned. So, I told him to be careful with his bubble gum while I has a couple of hours of music, though I did manage to kick the smart speaker onto the floor, luckily it was not damaged.
I listened to the new stuff too that the app puts on after Justin, and that was nice as well, so you can imagine a lazy Sunday morning atmosphere, though today is Wednesday, 24th March 2021 for all you students of my words.
Atmosphere is created by location and music and food, but never eat in bed as the crumbs get everywhere and as I am so hairy they would stick just about everywhere, no need for imagination. If you have a nice atmosphere you can achieve more or reveal more, nothing to do about undressing your lover and being in bed. As I started in bed, what I am talking about is that you are happier, you are in your comfort zone, so you are in a more relaxed frame of mind. Shops and Restaurants all think about these things as it can encourage all to spend more money, and that’s what they want, yes they enjoy being of service and those who work in service industries do. Everything is examined and analysed, no not back to you and your lover in bed, Marketing is all about making people comfortable and relaxed so the clamp is relaxed on the wallets and money transfers to the seller.
Conversation and Confession is easier too in a more relaxed environment, so take your priest down the pub and tell him it was you who scratched his car in the church car park. And see what kind of penance he gives you, 15 pints of Stella Artois and a packet of cheese and onion crisps, is what my priest usually charges, he’s not call Don Camillo for nothing. And yes Don Camillo deliberately parks his car so it will be scratched, how else is he going to gather the beer and crisps for the Children’s Home Fete, priests are devious. 600 pints of Stella and 14 boxes of crisps was what he needed, and he doubled it. How? He got the Police Inspector to swear there was damage, so everybody coughed up, he did of course threaten to blackmail the Police Inspector over the stolen bike from 30 years ago. We have no statute of limitations here in England. You can read more in Chapter 7, And for your Penance, from my comic novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.
I think I’ve given you enough atmosphere now, as beef braising in the kitchen is wafting through the house, so I’m thinking of my belly again. And should you pour Brandy on Beef, would it be just what the doctor ordered, I don’t know, I’m neither a doctor nor a chef, I’m a writer creating his own atmosphere, I think I’ll dash to the bathroom now.
The Confidence Booster ©
By Michael Casey
Sue was a timid girl, she wouldn’t say excuse me to anybody, just mutter silently to herself. So, she’d take forever to get through the queue in the canteen, so she always got the slops. Now Doreen on the counter who doled out the dinners noticed this and felt sorry for her. Poor little white girl so pale, she needed to eat more food and then she could study harder at the school library. So, Doreen decided she’d look after this little chick, it was her duty as a God fearing women, and Pastor John always said we should love one another. So, Doreen smiled to herself, thy Lord’s Will be done, Amen to that. Now how could she help Sue, she was just a dinner lady. Yes, she was just a dinner lady, but she had a voice, and she knew how to use it.
You, yes you, I’m looking at you, she sung make way for Sue, or you’ll never know what I’ll do. Now Doreen was in a Pentecostal choir and she knew how to sing, bring her up to the table and I’ll feed her, we ain’t got five loaves and two fishes but some very nice dishes. And on Doreen sung, as Sue passed through the queue, nobody complained, for this was like Adele singing, but obviously better, Doreen was a very big church lady after all. Amen, amen to that. So, Sue got served first, the last shall be first and the first shall be last, Doreen said Amen to that. It became a thing, Doreen big black and very beautiful sung, and Sue skipped through the dinner queue.
Now having a warming dinner in your belly is good if you want to study, and Sue was far happier and her confidence grew. Doreen smiled, she had almost adopted the child, but that was not enough. The school, the Benes School was a place of great learning, but Doreen thought it only right she did a but of social engineering, ok , friend making, any matchmaking they could do for themselves after that. So, Gloria her friend on the cleaning crew went on a mission, scout out a nice boy who’d help Sue with her studying. So obviously Gloria picked the Librarian, because he’d know where all the best books were. Yes, he was a little older, and much taller, but he seemed nice, his bin was never overflowing, and he did say please and thank you to the Cleaning Crew. So that was that.
Gloria was tasked to get him to the dining hall, and that’s what she did, she said she needed a big strong man to help her carry things. So, Larry the Librarian was roped in, Gloria had lied, being a cleaner for many years meant she was so strong. Besides her man, Manuel was a judo martial arts teacher, so she had plenty of practice at throwing things about, but not many people knew that. Where was I, yes, Larry arrived at the dining hall. Sue was there already. Doreen looked and Gloria looked back, then they started.
Hey girl, do you want some of my cherry pie, sung Doreen. Gloria replied, you mean me girl. NO, not you you’ve eaten a pie too many, I mean Sue, my child, come here and have some cherry pie, on sung Doreen. Larry laughed as Doreen and Gloria sung back and forth a tale of pies with cherries on top. Sue noticed his laugh, and his sparkling eyes. Gloria was right, he was the right boy for Sue, and in the future he’d say I do. Doreen sparkled, she sung Amen to that. Larry was lead to the counter by Gloria, a pie thrust in his hand. Was this a High School Musical. No, this was Old Forge and Singing Anvil in England, the Benes schools for higher learning.
Gloria and Doreen found a spare pie and shared it, as the canteen audience applauded, the staff were great here, and the teachers weren’t not so bad either. Now I could go on, but Gloria and Doreen have to go to church it is a Sunday after all, Palm Sunday. So prepare we the way of the Lord, and your own confidence will grow.
THERE MAY BE OVERLAP AS I CHANGED WORDPROCESSOR
In bed with Lenny Bruce and Obama too (c)
By
Michael Casey
Morning all
Well Tinnitus was pain yesterday
I’m in the land of the living now
I dug out an old keyboard but it feels right
smooth island keys
ask any writer or data inputter
a keyboard makes a big difference
its a bit like stroking the legs of a lover
I’ll leave that thought with you
NOW
I did think of Lenny Bruce while I was in bed too
Strange bedfellows
I even had an idea that made me smile
I could write the most graphic and profane piece ever
Though I leave blanks for you all
you have to crayon in the words for yourselves
I could also record or auto record the piece
But it would get banned without even being read/heard
The BBC actually banned a piece of mine from a website
Yes Really
Why
Because the tag line said”and send me 10 dollars”
So I was accused of Soliciting Money
MORONS
Read Internet story, I think that was the title
It’s somewhere on my 4 sites
This is the Main one, and WordPress has the most Translations on
The other 2 are backups
I’m enjoying this keyboard, the feel is so smooth
Not as much fun as stroking a lover
But I’ll leave that to your imagination again, and again and again
I’m glad I switched keyboards this is so good
I’m having a When Harry met Sally moment
Pink is singing behind me too on the smart speaker
She is such a great singer For Now is the song
SO Lenny Bruce was inked with me, him and his spiders
I thought of an entire riff, so go BLANK BLANK yourself
I laughed aloud in my Tinnitus bed
And Tinnitus hissed back like Muttley
So I may write that up, or maybe not
That’s the strange thing with Writers’ Minds, or maybe it’s just me
Pete But whatever his name is got in on a story yesterday
I was just saying but, when But whatever his name is sprung to mind
Him and his bicycle, so I just followed the chain of thought
That’s why he ended up in drag at a Cabinet meeting
Blame Dr Jill climbing the Hill with a pail of water
I’m like the Donald, but without the drugs, he should be taking
I could go off on another riff, but why give him any more publicity
Which brings me to OBAMA, in Chicago
Now it’s Easter, time of forgiveness and loving thy neighbour
No, I don’t mean stroking legs and pretending it’s a keyboard either
What I’m on, on about, is what is the Easter message
It’s Hope and Love and should be bigger than Christmas
though folks think Christianity is Christmas
The theologians amongst you can discuss that
If you are not playing with your keyboards
So what does Pierre mean?
Pierre means Rock in French
So Saint Peter was the Rock the church was founded on
Simple
Now is a church, a faith, a collection of beautiful buildings
and Art and Priests and Buildings going back 2000 years?
Or is it a collection of rocks?
Yes, its a collection of Pierres, people
A church is a people
Not a mega church where the “priest” is a millionaire
and flaunts it, but slams the door shut when a natural disaster happens
The church, any church is a collection of Pierres
So OBAMA, I’m talking to you, there is money in the kitty
Private money for your library
So here’s an idea
Rather than put rocks on rocks for a Library
Have a collection of Pierres instead
Have the Rhodes scholars for 2021 onwards
Don’t waste time defining Rhodes etc
Let there be the Obama Scholarships
Post Covid the world needs Pierres not rocks
So, I’ll give/tell you what Lenny Bruce would say
BLANK BLANK BLANK BLANK
Help kids get an education, start a business
Use the money in the kitty for that
Is it $400,000,000 dollars?
Build Minds not Buildings
You are Obama and on this rock, build minds and businesses first
Because of You is playing on the smart speaker
So Smart Speaker, that’s you Obama, let people say, Because of YOU
They got some education, they started a business
This is a mustard seed I’m sending you
We had the “Trump University”
Now you can do something for real, that will really make a difference
Build Minds, leave rocks for later, if at all
A building may last 100 years, but an idea?
You are Pierre
Now do something, or will Lenny Bruce have to reveal
that you BLANK BLANK BLANK
is that physically possible?
I am impressed.
Now impress Chicago for real
Michael Casey
the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England
p.s. if you bump into Pete But whatever his name is, tell him Birmingham is
NOT in Alabama, he’s such a card, now play with the deck I’ve giving you.
Art and Design (c)
By
Michael Casey
I was having a snack and I hadn’t though of what to talk about today, the usual state of affairs, when I caught my own reflection, as I was reflecting on what to write about. Obviously I though who is that tasty looking man in the window, as tasty as my snack, then I realised it was me, such over arching modest. You’ve all just choked and spat your sandwich out all over your screen, or Big Brenda from accounts has just done a maneuver to save you from choking, so tonight she is doing more maneuvers under the duvet. So thank me for choking you, now you have found your future wife.
So what was I going to write about, you don’t care Brenda will always be there for you, so much for appreciating the Writer. Yes, I was going to talk about Art and Design, it says so at the top of the screen, while you and Brenda and being obscene, but in the best possible way. Now, where was I, I sound more and more like Frankie Howerd, yes, Art and Design. There is a way of making things nice, it’s called curves, or Women, as God designed them. So if you look around you what looks best. Yes curves. Curves in Design, look at your keyboard, not keys if you are bored, but keyboard, it’s curvy at the edges, even the keys are curved and smooth with a bit scooped out so your finger tips can slide in. All very simple, but the feel is so important. Nobody wants angular and rough, smooth and curvy is the way. Look at all the objects in your home, curves everywhere. If you have straight lines it is not Nature, man made objects were originally straight and boring mass produced, until Art and Design crept in.
Look at the old monitors in computer rooms, they were chunky and heavy, I can remember back to 1978 when I first started in a computer room, we had a rust coloured lump of cheddar with green writing, this was the super dupper fancy one. I can remember when I bought my own first flat panel monitor back in 2002 maybe, the staff taxi was a Jaguar so he could fit an old one I sold to him in his boot. Meanwhile I had a flat screen monitor which cost 4 times then what they do now. Writing being my vice, so I had a nice colour monitor. Meanwhile the jag driver had a lump of cheese monitor for his video game playing son.
And on it goes Art and Design. If you look back at those old photos what will you see? Badly shaped items, with extra large shoulders, both the people and the Fashionable clothes they wore. Then as time progressed the lapels got thinner and thinner till they disappeared. Go look at your Google photos is you don’t believe me, see you all looked so horrible, apart from your Gay cousin, and his friend Linda from the chip shop, who when she wasn’t battering fish dress to kill and thrill. Your cousin, was her pretend boyfriend to keep the sharks at bay, though once there was a fight and it wasn’t nice. Linda battered three boys, for saying Gays were, I won’t say, and neither did those three ever again.Linda was also martial arts trained. Her skills did impress this man with the child in his eyes, he was a roofer, he led her to the stairway to heaven, but it was alright he was martial arts trained too, and they were only going up to admire the view.
Anyway, looks sell, whether it is fish and chips, or dinner plates.We got some new plates today, fancy curvy white ones, so my frozen fish fingers will look even better on my plate. As a child growing up, ok I’m still a child, just inside a man’s body, a fat man’s body, well when we had new stuff the lodgers had the old stuff. And if it was furniture the lodgers had our old stuff, and the stuff from the lodgers rooms went on the bonfire. All of which would now be called Antiques, and Arthus Negus would be spinning in his grave if he knew what gems we burnt at the bottom of the garden.
If you compare what you have now to what you had as a child, the look and style is so much better now, though some will say the build quality is not as good, mdf instead of wood. Things are lighter and technology is smaller, what appeared on Star Trek 50 years ago, is now a reality. Then Retro appears, I had a real BUSH radio the new Retro look one is far far smaller and lighter, the old one had a battery almost the size of a tin of beans inside. The one I inherited from Frank Brown our lodger changed my life because I started listening to The World Tonight and Douglas Steward reporting followed by the book at bedtime, me my brother had the radio in our double bed in the middle so we could hear it without waking up dad in the room next door.
So some designs stay in your memory and the thought of their shape brings back memories and smiles. You can buy curvy plastic corners to prevent your kids from poking their eyes out on sharp corners, and yes I did kid proof my house when our kids came along. I’m teased for being like Mr Brown in Paddington,but just you wait and you’ll be the same. You can go through your photos and share memories, nowadays we’d refuse to buy anything that wasn’t a decent design, we don’t live behind the Berlin Wall after all. So now I have designs on my telly, I need to watch more Kdramas. Though I will say the Art and Designs in them will turn your head as well as all the Product Placements. I just wonder am I fashionable enough to be a Kdrama star, email your opinions...
Piping Hot (c)
By
Michael Casey
Well we got some new ovenware, so while my dinner is in the oven, I’ll talk about Piping Hot food. I’m that well planned as far as these stories go. So how do you like your food? Some like it Hot, which was the name of a film, but it could be a metaphor. It depends on you, speaking of hot, Are you Human is my new Kdrama, it was very hot there as the nightclub burnt down, and a robot saved the day. Very exciting with the usual song/music soundtrack. The robot got shinged but the girl thought he was HOT, me I just thought the girl was hot, and gently smoldered. She was a martial arts girl, so I won’t tell her to her face, I just wonder can she type too.
So food should be hot, there’s nothing worse than cold food, so I always tell my daughters to finish fast, so I can have hot slops, or make up their mind faster, so I get hotter slops. This is the life of a dad, you are just a dustbin, maybe that’s why flies follow me. A microwave is good to to reheat any slops before you eat them. Yes I know what we are all told but, a bit of left over pizza or chicken licking is always best when it is hot. Otherwise it just goes in the dustbin. And as your mother tells you,”its a sin to waste food”. Though I never waste food, you can tell by the size of my waist, I only buy what I like and eat what I like, so waste. Or is it because I’m greedy? Read 300 and Not OUT, as we’ve just past the 300th word, that’s the family stories, I even loaded it up again in Arabic, for all my Arabic speaking readers. You’ll no doubt find some food stories in it.
Now in the middle of the night it’s always good to have something hot and spicy, and I don’t just mean your girlfriend/boyfriend, before you all say it anyway. I used to have my sandwich break at 4am in my computer room days. I’d have ham and Red Leicester cheese sandwich, you run around a computer room for up to 12 hours you need energy food. The company had a cheap drinks machine, it may have even become free years later. In the daytime we’d go to the hole in the wall sandwich shop, so on days it was cold sandwiches, but on the night shift it was my hot Red Leicester and ham. Now a word of advice, too long in the microwave and the sandwich went all stiff and useless,like eating cardboard, so you had to time it right,so it’d stay nice.
You could skin a cat and eat it, Totoro just creept in and hid under my desk, with dangerous wires, so sparks and cat on fire maybe. Be careful of that darn cat, or they’d be pussy frying tonight. Everybody everywhere if you have an animal you have to watch it, cos they always sneak everywhere. So lids on food, or put stray food in a cupboard, or in the oven or in the microwave to hide. And if you have a dog and a baby, get rid of the dog, because too many babies have died, because the animal would not hurt a fly, but will kill a baby.
That safety message was brought to you by Totoro our cat, so blame her. Now back to food, when you call the kids to the table, switch off the wifi, there are Apps that do it from your phone, so switch off the wifi otherwise you’ll be eating alone. Your family should be eating together, whatever the weather. Mindfulness and so on, or as my mother would say, the dinner’s on the table, eat it now, or the cat gets it. Jean our old cat 50 years ago, did get the Xmas turkey once,so my mother cut out the bite mark, and we cooked it. Hot Xmas dinner for 13 and a dog and a cat, remember. Don’t forget to heat the plates too, even if you have to steal your sister’s hair drier.
Well it’s time for my dinner now. It was anyway, but the new ovenware is too slippy and I tripped over the cat. Yes, it broke and my dinner went all over the floor. So I’ll be having Red Leicester and ham again. As for Totoro, she’ll be eating my hot dinner from the floor, and the ovenware is no more. Be careful in kitchens, accidents do happen, the chefs at CPNEC did tell me off once, for getting in the way on a security patrol, 60 dishes could have fallen, and I would have been axed like a tree from the company. So wherever you are and whatever you are eating, just keep it hot and spicy, and you never know your boyfriend/girlfriend may repay you in kind. And take precautions, do lay the table first, and be careful of the water jug.
Writing as a Spectator Sport (c)
By
Michael Casey
Well a few minutes ago I said come back later and I may have something for you, it’s Friday 16th April 2021 by the way. I went to the kitchen for a mug of tea, I’ve had 2 coffees so now I switch to tea, well by the kettle I had an idea, they never stop, and this is what you are getting, a swallow or a lark, flying through my imagination. Though you may think it to be a cuckoo.
I may need to stop in a while as my arthritis is creeping through me, so I may need to stop, in fact I do as, I need fresh air, to release a fart. While I let the fresh air in and search for my pain killing gel, have a think of what I’ll tell, as Tinkerbell falls over because of the smell. That’s much better, I’ll close the window now, whether you want me to or not. So where was I? The idea for today is Writing as a Spectator Sport. I’m sat here all alone talking to you, and not having a clue which way the words will take me. Destination Unknown, or a Run on the Bus, like my dad in his retirement days 30 years ago. I let the words move me and take over, a bit like Abba and the Music. I do have an idea, like looking at the stars and joining the dots.
So the process is joining the dots, that’s the Plough and so on, the words, the idea is all there, it’s just a question of joining the dots, simple. How I connect them, and the order makes the difference, like Frank Carson the Comedian, it’s the Way I Tell Them, so with me it’s the way I write them. Anybody can write, but not everybody is a good writer. Some writing is just too dense, for example a very clever girl was looking at my site, I think it was her, as it was a link from an old site belonging to her. Though the Internet is strange it could be anybody. Let us assume it was the clever History girl, now she’ll know who it is but I won’t identify her any more.
So, please don’t hit me. Serious pieces are serious, but the style of writing is for Academics only. I’m not saying Dumb Down, but what is the purpose of Writing? To communicate, if the style is too complicated, then the message is lost, to the average Moron like me, I’ve said it before you do. I keep it simple, because I’m a Simpleton, and I don’t have the skills to write in any other way. I do have readers in 90 Countries all told, who like the telling of my Tales, in up to 10 different languages on the same day. She’s putting her tongue out at me now, maybe she didn’t see my message I left on her site, as there was no email. She’s picking up a dictionary now, hope she doesn’t throw it, this could turn into a Kdrama.
She missed, I ducked, ok. I just imagined the cause and effect of the last paragraph, off message it’s called. Trump was off, for 4 years, though sadly people are dying because the believed his lies. So I have an idea and I follow it. I go where the wind blows, and no I won’t open the window again, I’ll just change my diet. Which brings me to my Topic, and they are such nice chocolate bars, you eat one instead of reading my rubbish. I really am Ronnie Corbette and Joyce Grenfell’s bastard child, perhaps I’m a Gerald Wiley, what you all think I’m just a Gerald, you are all so cruel. But beware Gerald is the patron saint of pregnant women.
New paragraph, as I hate it when there is a sea of ink, it’s so depressing, so space out you words, let the page breath. I’ve had a trainee Doctor comment on my paragraphing, ok it was my nephew. Shall I get to the point, there is no point, I’m a pointless Writer who never wants to be a “Celebrity”. Ok, everything is Reality TV, which I tend to hate, as it’s obnoxious Z list hosts, with sprayed on tan people, with loud voices and even louder “personalities” . MIAOW. So why not have people watch writers write. Online or in the flesh, next to the watch paint dry channel. Obviously the watch paint dry channel, would get double the viewers, just like shopping channels.
So,I’d be sat in a chair, a comfy chair, near a toilet, with my computer on a desk. A side table for drinks and my friend a fisherman,who helps me breath. That’ll confuse Americans, ok, A fisherman’s friend is not some hairy bloke from a George Clooney film, whoever he is. A fisherman’s friend is a cough sweet. Sweet. Where would I be. In a bar, so you can drown your sorrows, not because my writing is bad, you are so cruel. There would be a link that sticks an image of my head and my screen onto the Big Screen that normally show the Football. Football is not some fancy dress game in padding, that thinks it’s bad Rugby, Football is Soccer, see I have to pander to the USA audience, because I’m just a big fat panda. The audience will always be with me, until I shake them off before I get to the train station, as Les Dawson would say, you can Google him, he was good. Used to play piano in a brothel, you’ll find the “truth” out there, just past Mulder.
So I’m up on a stage, music playing in headphones, so the audience can’t put me off, they can hear the music too. Writing is a solitary business, like having a pooh in the loo, yes just like the quality of my writing, you are all so cruel. So I sit and write and listen to music as I normally would do while the audience drinks and tries to guess which way the wind will blow me. Luckily I am sat near a toilet. Then away I go, the title appears. So he’s writing Writing as a Spectator Sport. Will it be any good, or will we be too drunk to care, which might give the appearance that he really is a good writer, the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham. As I’ve said before normally from a standing start it takes an hour to write a piece, assuming my arthritis doesn’t kick off. Though as this is a spectacle maybe a massage table at the ready, with some huge bloke bigger than the Rock ready to massage me, just in case. It could be a luscious lady, but I’d be accused of sexism, or any other ism. Frank Warren the boxing promoter would be the promoter. Though in truth the Rock look alike and the massage table are just a ruse to protect me should the audience become as ugly as I look.
The audience would comment, his opening was rubbish, what do you think Garry Lineker, he lacks “ball control” as I dash to the loo, before returning to my words. So I’d go on as usual, the crowd gently singing to the music I’ve chosen as I write. The audience in darkness as I’m in the spotlight, and if they could hear Eric Clapton right now they’d see where the improm slips in slides in, just as Eric is away on his guitar. Me, it’s an adjective on my keyboard being accompanied by a comma, that’ll lead people astray.
As I write the page moves higher and higher, and I forget what I’ve just written or is it like foreplay and the drunken audience want more. I write on a roll, so I have to keep on going or I’ll go off the boil, that’s why you should never interrupt a Writer, stay away from the spout as he’s writing or you’ll get burnt. For the audience they may be with me, or without me, or just mumbling a U2 song, as I’m on the edge of a sentence, will it be a throw in, or will the audience just throw up, as they head for the toilets.
And on it goes, why did he mention that, is he time wasting, where’s the Ref. Look he’s reaching for his left shoulder, he’s rubbed it a bit. He’s dropped his left hand, he’s typing one handedly, he’s just using his right hand to write with. Spontaneous applause in the audience. He’s stopped, can he go on, he’s loosen his belt to let his belly out, don’t look his hand is in his trousers, he’s pulled his shirt and 4 jumpers out. He stood up, Garry Linekar is speechless, the fat silver haired writer in shades is going to take his multiple tops off. Is he heading for the exit, is the piece abandoned. NO, the writer looks to the massage table, as he removes his top. Men laugh, look at that belly, he’s fatter than Lard from StatsMR, then the woman applaud, he’s Winnie the Pooh belly, and the hairy left shoulder, rush the stage. Sympathy, sympathy as the Rock throws me down on the massage table, just like a potter throwing down a piece of clay, though only my feet are made of clay. Was it me, or as it the Rock, I’m massaged, and the women in the audience applaud, sympathy, sympathy they’ve all got it for me, as Kenneth Williams might say. And he’d say Go Google up the Khyber Pass, and carry on, ask Jon Sopal of the BBC to explain if you cannot understand dear reader. I really do have to stop now for a squirt of Movelat painkiller gel.
Well I’m still in pain, and so are you, you are sooo cruel to me, but my small daughter is making a snack as I speak to you. So I may finish soon. Well the Rock whispers in my ear, are you better, I whisper back, play the audience. But I feel so objectified says the Rock, I bet that’s never happened to you, so enjoy it I whisper back. So the Rock throws me for 30 mins more, while the men get drunk at the bar, and Garry Linekar improvises with data. Frank Warren counts the money before putting on his beret and mac, he’ll cycle to the Post Office before it closes, with the take, looking rather like Frank Spencer.
Then the Rock in one smooth motion, lifts and throws me into the air and catches me again. The women in the audience scream, I think the Rock has got use to being objectified by now. I slip on my shirt and 4 jumper, a reverse strip tease, the women go wild, especially as I tuck it all into my trousers. Then I begin writing again, I have led them all up the garden path, past Gill with a G from StatsMR, she’s winked at me. Then I begin again, with a new paragraph, half the audience is wild, the other is just drunk. The bar taking are through the roof, and I could mention 2 companies I used to work for, who could do that.
I spin my tale, I drop a bit here, I drop a bit there, I continue, I stumble as I write, I mistype but a better word appears, does he have a 7th gear. But we are in the Inn of the 7th Happiness, so do we care, Really, Really, Really is that the echo of Jon Sopal coming from somewhere. I stroke back my ever so soft and gently silvery hair, spreading dandruff everywhere. The audience go wild, they are ladies hairdressers who wash for a living, when they are not watching reality tv. This is gold dust to them, Really, Really, Really, says another Jon, the gay hairdresser from Rowley Regis, a king with curlers.
So on I write, a line here, a line there, continuing and joining as I preen the story, a bit of colouring and a bit of lightening as I write like Grease Lightning. John Travolta may be bald in reality, but like my story he can dance, yes he can dance, with or without a U2 song playing, and carrying a tin of paint in the street. He’s going to mark out the car parking spaces, for the next time I appear. Writing as a Spectator Sport is HERE, Really, Really, Really, oh do shut up Jon, put some curlers in.
Shakespeare come out of the bog, I'm a cross gartered fool desperate to be let in (c)
By Michael Casey
Today is Shakespeare's Birthday, 23rd April
So he is quiffing ale like Falstaff
So his bladder is fit to but
So needs must, he is in the bog
No not an Irish bog, like found in Kerry and those parts
The kind of bog where farts are found
A toilet in any other words
Can you hear hear the Earthy Sounds
A hail of rain, and tempest galore
Merrily I say to thee, Shakespeare is past
He has had his Measure for Measure, and more
Litre pint glasses he adores, he is all for Europe
If he can fit more in his glass
And now it is all coming out his ass
And I don't mean a donkey
Though he brays like one
Especially if he is sat upon
But is takes up all the bench with a buxom wench
Where are we all to sit
So we all say, move up a bit
Then he has to go for a sh**
He says he won't dally while he dumps
The wench's breast look like mumps
So we say, take your time
It's no crime, as Falstaff moves in
His double chins as large as the maiden's breast
Though she is far from Maiden
She's been had, and Elizabeth said it first
When she was a walk on part, as Falstaff farts
So Shakespeare is in the bog and we cheer merrily
As the Inn Keeper to his credit will but the ale bill
on Shakespeare's account, because he is a right count
We did get a penny worth of bread for Falstaff
As he never drinks on an empty stomach
As we leer and tarry with the maiden
Shakespeare has inspiration and takes out his quill
As sat on the toilet, he writes a new Thriller
The Tempest, and judging from the noises off
It is the perfect title
As washed up on a sea of ale, Shakespeare writes his Tale
We are glad for him and call for more Strumpets
which are a bit like bread, recently invented and called
Crumpets, so now you know, because I told you so
Annie was at the gate, so I missed a line
she is very refined and paints
But back to the yard of ale, for more of the tale
Shakespeare would not come out
No matter how loud we shout
He just used his quill and wrote on the wall
Many a verse, as we converse with Strumpets
And hoping for a bit of crumpet
Will was in there with his quill
Not know he would be paying the bar bill
But as the wind blew, he knew with his quill
He had swallowed a bitter pill
If he was writing on paper, then scenes would be missing
As the ale and hapworth of bread
Had entered via his head
Now was dropping like lead down the hole in the ground
With such a mighty echoing sound
Yes, Will was all piss and thunder
That's why he webbed words together like a song
And could do no wrong on any stage
And now filled with rage for the lack of a page
He was the writing was on the wall
But he was having a ball
And so were we with Strumpets
Best paid by Will on his tabulations behind the bar
Though the Strumpets behinds, in front and behind the bar
Were England's Glory be far
For God and King Harry Parts One and Two
Were writ when he'd had quite a few
Strumpets and Ale, they were both for sale
And Will Shakespeare knew how to take the measure of both
He was a playwrite of note after all
And he was always after, before, after and during
He had to dip his quill, that's why Will was Will
He was no sheep in a pen, he was frolicking at will
And Will did grow up in the wool trade and wrote all his own stuff
Though Ernest the Wise innkeeper always said it was bracing air
Like at Morcambe that made the lines fizzle
Not the damp air and drizzle outside
So come inside for we have crumpet to go with the ale
Best served by our very own strumpets
And what of Me?
I am Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham
And it is I who is left to beat my carpet
For the bastard Will left the cat in
And she sha** on my rug, so now I have to beat it
To clean the mess off
Happy Birthday William Shakespeare
And hurry up out of the bog
So I can use it, and maybe I can steal a few lines
Off the Wall, as I dance the night away
Farting Happy Birthday
The Power of Laughter(c)
By Michael Casey
Well I've just watched episode 18 of Vincenzo, and I've laughed till it hurts, with my hernia through my bypass scar it really does hurt when I laugh. So I've taken 2 paracetamol and I'm gingerly rubbing my "breast" and it does look and feel like a breast. But at least it gave me the idea for today's talk. It'll kill me in the end, but to die laughing would be ok, though I need 7 more years till my small daughter over there in the corner gets her PhD. Yes I want more, Laughter and Years, but that's up to God not me. Which reminds me I need to pay our priest a visit, I have present for our own Don Camillo.
The sun is bright, but there is a chill in the air, I could tumble down the hill, to visit priest and church, but getting back up again would be a struggle, from day to day or hour to hour, I never know the state my body is in. Though I did shave, shower and S---, the 3rd S after all, I said that once to somebody they totally misunderstood, because nobody listens they just react, or maybe they just could not be bothered to listen to me. I always want a conversation, so never say How Are You to Me, because I always take it as a Literal invitation for Conversation not just vacuous Pleasantry.
So why does laughter have power? Because it is an equaliser, literally Equaliser. I learnt that at the hotel, I had the most Power there, though I was the very least of the brethren, because I could always make the guests laugh. Maybe 100,000 conversations over the 3 years there, some like Ami on the desk called it "my act" but it was not. There is too much servitude in hotels, I know it's meant to be like that, but some people just did not know how to treat staff, others did and do, but some should have felt my shoe up their backside. I'm far more "Mouthy" now I'm a retiring writer, but before with toddlers I had to put up with anything, like a rubbish boss hiding in the concierge room, pretending to sweep a broom.
I can laugh at it now, but 12 hours all day standing on marble with 3 hours travelling on top of it, I put up with a lot, until somebody wanted me to work till Midnight, so I decided to say Goodnite. Yes it was the best fun I had in any Job ever, but it was by far the hardest job ever. So that's the pinch of salt to take with all the other comments I've ever written. My kids always are more important than any job, and ultimately I raised them, which is/was good considering I could have died in bed, Jan 2015 unplanned quadruple heart bypass has given me 6 years more extra time, a neighbour down the road also with 2 daughters he died in bed. So I'm lucky.
Laughter makes you lucky, because people are glad to see you, he's good for a laugh. He always has a story, or he gets the drinks in, so God Bless him. That's why the criteria always is, they get the drinks in. So we don't care for education, or class, or if you boring about being gay or straight or any which way, so long as you get the drinks in. Can you laugh, and can you make others laugh. Pinsent Masons when I worked for them were class, everybody was nice, the HR people saw to that.
But I've sidetracked myself. A show on tv will make you laugh, or a Tom Sharp book, I was talking to the IT guy at Pinsents once and he had only just discovered Tom Sharp. Wilt, Porterhouse Blue, The Throwback were a few of the books, Porterhouse Blue was a great tv show too. I was visiting a friend doing his PhD when the books were introduced to me, 30 years plus ago. So laughs can be shared and discovered, you'll find them in a reading list, or Shakespeare if we mention him as it was his Birthday the other day. And believe it or not I did an Open University 3rd level course in Will 30 years ago or so, I was called his agent by my Tutor. I did a bit of History too, but gave it up as I was working loads of shifts on computers. The History PhD gave a lecture on WWII and said forget Normandy the War was won with blood in Mother Russia that won it. And for Americans considering this, 40,000,000 Russians died beating the Nazi scum. 400,000 American died too, and many many more from other nations. So imagine a crowd in a church. 100 people there, 1 would be from USA, the rest one be Russian, the sole American would be lost in the crowd. So, image that when you scream "Commie Bastards" at some Trump rally. A study of History would teach you so much more. And that could have made the Peace so much better.
Yes, I could have been a History teacher maybe, if my life took another turn. But you have to live with the way the Dealer deals the cards. And get up and start again, maybe repeatedly, as you follow the long and winding road. So my Writer incarnation which only began in 1987 is the best of me, 20 years of "study" by radio listening then 1 years of practice, before on Leap Years Day 1988 I'd say I qualified as Writer, when The Butcher The Baker The Undertaker, the paper version was first written. The expanded computer version was a few years later. So if anybody says my writing is rubbish, you'll hear this SOB, Son of a Blacksmith, call you (&&^&^&&.
I try to bring laughter, and just like in Vincenzo, ordinary, overlooked people can and do surprise you. That's maybe why I like it so much, and should you finally read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker as people in 90 countries do, in many many languages, you'll see why ordinary people like it, because they can see themselves in it. And that maybe is the secret, but Publishers would rather sell coffee table books of Kim K's arse, or is that because I'm just an even bigger fatter but tighter arse?
The Power of Laughter(c)
By Michael Casey
Well I've just watched episode 18 of Vincenzo, and I've laughed till it hurts, with my hernia through my bypass scar it really does hurt when I laugh. So I've taken 2 paracetamol and I'm gingerly rubbing my "breast" and it does look and feel like a breast. But at least it gave me the idea for today's talk. It'll kill me in the end, but to die laughing would be ok, though I need 7 more years till my small daughter over there in the corner gets her PhD. Yes I want more, Laughter and Years, but that's up to God not me. Which reminds me I need to pay our priest a visit, I have present for our own Don Camillo.
The sun is bright, but there is a chill in the air, I could tumble down the hill, to visit priest and church, but getting back up again would be a struggle, from day to day or hour to hour, I never know the state my body is in. Though I did shave, shower and S---, the 3rd S after all, I said that once to somebody they totally misunderstood, because nobody listens they just react, or maybe they just could not be bothered to listen to me. I always want a conversation, so never say How Are You to Me, because I always take it as a Literal invitation for Conversation not just vacuous Pleasantry.
So why does laughter have power? Because it is an equaliser, literally Equaliser. I learnt that at the hotel, I had the most Power there, though I was the very least of the brethren, because I could always make the guests laugh. Maybe 100,000 conversations over the 3 years there, some like Ami on the desk called it "my act" but it was not. There is too much servitude in hotels, I know it's meant to be like that, but some people just did not know how to treat staff, others did and do, but some should have felt my shoe up their backside. I'm far more "Mouthy" now I'm a retiring writer, but before with toddlers I had to put up with anything, like a rubbish boss hiding in the concierge room, pretending to sweep a broom.
I can laugh at it now, but 12 hours all day standing on marble with 3 hours travelling on top of it, I put up with a lot, until somebody wanted me to work till Midnight, so I decided to say Goodnite. Yes it was the best fun I had in any Job ever, but it was by far the hardest job ever. So that's the pinch of salt to take with all the other comments I've ever written. My kids always are more important than any job, and ultimately I raised them, which is/was good considering I could have died in bed, Jan 2015 unplanned quadruple heart bypass has given me 6 years more extra time, a neighbour down the road also with 2 daughters he died in bed. So I'm lucky.
Laughter makes you lucky, because people are glad to see you, he's good for a laugh. He always has a story, or he gets the drinks in, so God Bless him. That's why the criteria always is, they get the drinks in. So we don't care for education, or class, or if you boring about being gay or straight or any which way, so long as you get the drinks in. Can you laugh, and can you make others laugh. Pinsent Masons when I worked for them were class, everybody was nice, the HR people saw to that.
But I've sidetracked myself. A show on tv will make you laugh, or a Tom Sharp book, I was talking to the IT guy at Pinsents once and he had only just discovered Tom Sharp. Wilt, Porterhouse Blue, The Throwback were a few of the books, Porterhouse Blue was a great tv show too. I was visiting a friend doing his PhD when the books were introduced to me, 30 years plus ago. So laughs can be shared and discovered, you'll find them in a reading list, or Shakespeare if we mention him as it was his Birthday the other day. And believe it or not I did an Open University 3rd level course in Will 30 years ago or so, I was called his agent by my Tutor. I did a bit of History too, but gave it up as I was working loads of shifts on computers. The History PhD gave a lecture on WWII and said forget Normandy the War was won with blood in Mother Russia that won it. And for Americans considering this, 40,000,000 Russians died beating the Nazi scum. 400,000 American died too, and many many more from other nations. So imagine a crowd in a church. 100 people there, 1 would be from USA, the rest one be Russian, the sole American would be lost in the crowd. So, image that when you scream "Commie Bastards" at some Trump rally. A study of History would teach you so much more. And that could have made the Peace so much better.
Yes, I could have been a History teacher maybe, if my life took another turn. But you have to live with the way the Dealer deals the cards. And get up and start again, maybe repeatedly, as you follow the long and winding road. So my Writer incarnation which only began in 1987 is the best of me, 20 years of "study" by radio listening then 1 years of practice, before on Leap Years Day 1988 I'd say I qualified as Writer, when The Butcher The Baker The Undertaker, the paper version was first written. The expanded computer version was a few years later. So if anybody says my writing is rubbish, you'll hear this SOB, Son of a Blacksmith, call you (&&^&^&&.
I try to bring laughter, and just like in Vincenzo, ordinary, overlooked people can and do surprise you. That's maybe why I like it so much, and should you finally read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker as people in 90 countries do, in many many languages, you'll see why ordinary people like it, because they can see themselves in it. And that maybe is the secret, but Publishers would rather sell coffee table books of Kim K's arse, or is that because I'm just an even bigger fatter but tighter arse?
Morons at Work(c)
By Michael Casey
I just got up, I'll check my reader numbers then go back to bed for a final session of sleep
You try on Tinnitus for size
I spotted somebody was using a Plagiarism tracker on my Words
How many years have I been online, before landing here?
Maybe 20
When did I learn to read and start reading by the yard, 50 years and more
When did I graduate as a writer, 29th Feb 1988
So it more than pains me that SOBs think I steal stuff, so they take a look
I'm a read SOB, Son of a Blacksmith
So take it from me, I never steal
I have 4 sites now, and I post after I've written, and compile my books as I go along
TRY BUYING A BOOK
I also repost old stuff if I'm too tired or in too much pain to think
So on autopilot I'll post
If I post from a newspaper it's stated, or clearly marked
I don't care if you don't like the writing, my rubbish
But if you even think I'm a thief, I'd slap the backs of your legs with a wet lettuce
and yes that's a Larry Grayson line, but I cannot explain everything as I go along
I assume you have some level of intelligence
Otherwise you'd just be looking at snaps of Kim K's arse
Mine is much bigger and better and so much tighter
But you'd have to know me Biblically first to find out for sure
As for the writing, I have a brain, over 50years worth
So you can stay digging in the dirt, while I look up at the stars
or do I have to cross reference everything for you while you are
in Reading Jail?
Now in the news today we have a cabinet at war eventually
It's better top jaw jaw than war war
And a nation divided cannot stand
So Let's Beat Covid 19, instead of all the prattle
Hissy fits may sell newspapers, but don't help the population
Churchill said he'd do a deal with the devil to save England
People should learn from History
Instead of Twittering on vacuously
There is a time and tide for everything, ask Will down the pub
TODAY India needs our help
We are not an island, the world is not a vacuum,
though we are an object in the vacuum of space
If India dies we all. die
Who will buy, who will buy if the world dies
By being Charitable, be being Humane, we are helping ourselves
God Helps those who helps themselves too
But what of Putin's Russia, 140,000 troops posturing
They should be used to fight Covid 19
And China too
India is on your doorstep
As North Korea goosesteps
In Indian people are dying
Forget about losing face, save the human race
If the cat gets out of the bag, it's more than sad
Turn back time, or the crime of the century is more than a footnote
Who said what, where and why
Are they trying and prevented more dying
Comments in newspapers end up as chip wrappers
With vinegar splashed on them
So are you offering vinegar as Christ dies on the cross
Or are you doing something
Covid 19, has released the genie of hate and division in the world
Now is the time to set things right
Maybe even for prayer,
My last word was Calcutta
So save the Princess that is India
before everything is written in History books
or are you too busy checking for plagiarism
just go back to the first book
Addressing People (c)
By Michael Casey
Now I am a creature, yes you all reply, interrupting me
A creature of habit, and yes i look like a hairy Hobbit
But if you do things regularly then you won't be constipated
So get up at a regular time, and eat and drink etc
Regularly
Habits work, that's why Organisation works
Work, Rest and Play
and don't forget to Pray at bedtime
or any time, God is always waiting
Even at a bus stop or in a lift, or queueing at the checkout
God is everywhere after all
Now IF you are regular you life may
Seem boring but your life works
If you are wasting time, or not keeping track of time
Then you are always rushing about, like Putin
I had to put that joke in to see are you listening
He reads me too
Some joker sent me a message from Russia
So I asked when will Mother Russia start being a Man?
No not a transgender reference
BUT a sincere question, 140,000 men marching up to the top
of the hill and then down again
And as Francis said down the club, its obscene when Covid 19
Is all about, use armies to save lives, not scream and shout
Or maybe I'm a pacifist, or just pissed, in all senses of the word
Then in the papers I hear all this PC language
Kids must be called students
and boys and girls is stereotypical so must not be used
I cursed at the screen, and my words worth drifts out the open window
Education is about exposing people to knowledge that's why they go to college
If you are afraid of this or that, then they may just stay at home and stroke the cat
Hey you little bastards get in line or I'll give you a slap of the ruler
And you are all a bunch of bastards, only I your head teacher
Know who your dad's really are
My flat overlooks the supermarket carpark
And they are not testing car suspension at that time of night
And hey you Casey, one day you will hang
Which was really said to my own dad in 1920s/30s
But my own dad got "revenge" 4 teachers in the family
And his sons were at Queens Oxford, and Downing Cambridge
Not forgetting the Sancho Pancha in the family, me
2,000,000 words and 20 books on Amazon
But should the head teacher call them little bastards
Will they be scared forever
I got 4 of the best on my bum for not knowing the times tables
In 1966 maybe, and today I can recite my times tables still
What about the little bastards of today
Pauline knows her kids, and they know they'll get a slap
Or a look that could kill, cos she has eyes in the back of her head
And they eat more than jam and bread
Like when gran did when she was younger
Hey Bollocks you, watch my fence as you park your car
Your just a fat old bitch
Noises off, as Denny farts
Yes she's an old bitch, and definitely got eyes in the back of her head
The driver spun around
We're her little bastards, and you don't talk to Miss like that
30 little bastards, now grown kids
It's her Birthday so we her little bastards are having a party
So watch her fence, Or I'll arrest you, Denny was a copper now
22 stones and 6feet seven, Miss said he'd thank her
And so he did, that well aimed slap of the ruler
and being forced to read and learn. his times tables
Now he had a PhD from the Open University
But he preferred to walk the streets
A chance to meet people and to have a laugh
Nobody called him Sir, he was know as TT
Because he rode a motor bike
Or because Miss made him repeat his Times Tables
You can be fancy or call every Nancy
If you cannot remember just say hello Nancy
As nobody listens they will think you are saying
Nice to See You, well it worked for Bruce Forsythe
Talking is for communicating
You don't need to pretend to be posh
In the end we all wash our bollocks
Especially Michael Bollcocks Casey
or just call me Nancy if you pass in the street
You are on your Own (c)
By Michael Casey
You are on your Own, said God.
How many times did I tell you?
In the beginning I said the tree alone.
Then you gave the game away by dressing in fig leaves.
What did Cain do, yet I forgave you.
Your descendants numbered more than the stars.
You were never satisfied, you built a golden calf.
And even found the New World, where you worship Money.
Then you had wars, wars and even more wars.
Then 2 world wars back to back.
And blamed me for Man’s insanity.
You argue over how to talk to me.
Just talk to me I’m your best friend, I’m your Daddy.
No need for formality, just talk,
I’m always by the proverbial phone.
But you just ignore me.
Till things go bad, then you want Bank of God.
Till things go bad, then you want Dr. God
Till things go bad, then you want the Weather tamed.
Till this, till that, while you are all Insane.
I am just a fruit machine, that you demands delivers Everything.
Who made you anyway?
You are just made from my spit and clay.
Yet you think you are so Bright.
It was me that made Daylight, the Day and the Night.
Yet you pollute the night, so you forget the Stars.
The only stars are those selfie taking midgets in your tiny minds.
And what do you look at, their behinds.
You pollute this garden of Eden, that I made for you.
You carve the land, and pollute the sea.
Little wonder my whales stop singing to me.
At least the whales knew how to treat me.
But now, they are hunted and killed to near extinction.
All the animals I placed on this good earth are being.
Exploited and killed, just for thrills.
Or made into pills, and if that is not enough.
Why does mankind destroy their minds from inside.
Pills and drugs, exploitation by thugs, because of silly mugs.
Who have hardly moved on from cavemen with clubs.
Why oh Why did I bother, why did I create you?
I think I should not have bothered, you are all so selfish.
Perhaps I should start again, after you all die by your own hand.
Mankind, who don’t believe in any God, except Love of Money and Love of Selfies.
A quiet whisper interrupts God and his musings.
Our Father Who Art in Heaven, she begins.
Mary, I knew it would be you.
Hallowed by thy Name.
Mary, always leading the Prayers.
Thy Kingdom Come,Thy Will be Done.
Mary, they’d be dust without you.
On Earth, as it is upon Heaven.
Mary, you are so soft hearted, you Love Everyone.
All Nations, and All Peoples call you Blessed.
Give Us this Day, Our Daily Bread
Mary, you always intercede.
Even as they smoke weed, the world over.
And Forgive Us, all our Trespasses
You always know how to get around me.
As We Forgive those that Trespass against Us.
Mary, if only all those Leaders actually lead.
And Deliver Us from All Evil
Mary you, and your Rosary.
Will be the Death, of the Devil.
For Thine is The Kingdom and The Power and The Glory
Mary, most Clement, Mary most Kind
Maybe this time I’ll save them all.
Fill up all those Wine Jars, do as he says.
Forever and Ever Amen
I suppose I’ll have to save Ungrateful Mankind, AGAIN.
Mary, kissed her Rosary Beads, and bowed.
The sky was blue and the stars could be seen again.
Little did Mankind know, just how much Mary loves us so.
So Pray the Rosary, count your beads, of every Denomination.
Talk, Pray, Scream and Shout, just make a noise in God’s direction.
For there is only One World, One Direction, aiming for Perfection.
Or do you want to go to Hell, which is in the other direction.
Don’t you Dare email Me (c)
By
Michael Casey
Sounds like a Threat, Don’t you Dare email Me, what a jilted girlfriend or some kind of “Royalty” might use, or maybe just your Bank Manager. I’ve got your attention, as the UK starts to breakup, like some kind of boy band, when really they should stay together, and not be a “victim” like in some Taylor Swift song. I hope I haven’t upset her, or my high shelves will be forever covered in dust. It’s ok, she just emailed me, of course she’ll always be there for me, besides my house is near the chip shop where her lad works. And he can always kip in the dog’s basket if he’s a bit too battered.
So back to emails, and I am a bit of an email addict, ask anybody who’s received an email from me. It’s so easy, and if I had decent handwriting I’d be always asking Pop it In Pete our Postman to pop it in his box for me, as our house is last on his round, and the red letter box is on his way home. Pete is ever so accommodating. You can read about his colleague Pat in Chapter 7 of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, I just remembered just how much fun there was at the Fete for the Children’s Home. I won’t spoil it for you, there are Translations on my Wordpress, or my original English on Amazon books.
But back to emails, why do I get so many? Is it because my email address has been harvested, or because it’s on my website? I have the vain hope that Media will get in touch and discover me. Yet in reality the only people who want to touch me are those who think I am a soft touch. I will delete and mark as phishing all and any email scammers. So their email disappears and they don’t get more morons replying to them. I also get loads of stuff for various diseases, some of which I have. Arthritis, Tinnitus, Ckd, and I really did have a heart bypass, 6 years ago now. I even put my scar photos online, to prove just how divine I look. But people think I’m an exhibitionist, and ask do I want to join the cast of The Greatest Showman, and for just $100 I can join the cast, just keep my shirt art half mast and display my scar, and wear shorts to show the scars on my legs too.
And on it goes, do you want this, do you want that? And they assume I want the other, and I even get emails for that. Ukrainian, Russian and Eastern ladies, ready made to marry and have babies. Is Putin, trying to get rid of excess population? And how about making money on Bitcoin, and whatever else Musk was on about the other night. I’d say listen to BBC Radio Comedy and forget SNL, we’re funnier over here, though the USA Political Class are the funniest of them all. What other junk do I get? Oh yes, we have offers for your home. In USD, dollars, $$$, but I happen to live in UK,in Birmingham England. Sometimes I reply with a poem of a story in a foreign language, English. That was cruel, I send them Japanese translations. Well if they send rubbish in Hebrew or in Korean, of course I’ll send back some of my rubbish to them, in any language I can, just to annoy them. I even get Concealed Carry emails, I thought it was a corset, or girdle of some sort, it turns out its guns. And nobody has a gun in UK, nor even wants them. Concealed Carry my arse, if it were a bum lift, somebody might be interested,but not me. I am a large tight arse, maybe I should forward it to Kim or somebody.
So on it goes, emails galore just to annoy me. Tinnitus ones might be of interest, but I never open links, so all your emails just stink.
Which reminds me I need to order more toilet paper. I use it to blow my nose on, as well my own trumpet on. No doubt I’ll get emails for that too now. So don’t you dare email me. I have other things to do, like take pain killers. I even get emails for cannabis tablets, without the highs, just pain killers. Do you think I’ll accept anything over the Internet, if it’s not sold by my own Pharmacist or Prince his Prince look a like son, then I don’t want to know. So stop sending me emails advertising it. Now I must really go and have a s___.
Now Where Do I Begin (c)
By
Michael Casey
Well if you are Russian you may be breathing a sigh of relief, as your email box was full, so you did not get that speculative email. I was checking my readers, just as Miss Sutherland used to check our hands to see if they were clean, back at Primary school. She was the Deputy Head, I also remember she donated her body to science, this would be back in the 1960s. So, you can all say a prayer for her today. Tomorrow marks 25 years since my own mother died.
Well somebody had Nu Vot as a link or search word to me, so I googled cos that’s what I’m like and I stumbled over
Stas Mikhaylov That's it (Nu vot i vse) with English lyrics ...
Yes, totally random, but I am a good stumbler as Mark Harris once said, though he also said something else, so I replied with a short word. That’s enough, no 15 minutes of fame for him. Anyway, so I thought as I’d just seen RocketMan, I could provide a few lyrics and then with Stas Mikhaylov’s skill I’d crack the Russian market. Then of course should my books ever see the light of day Stas would be the Narrator, as I cannot abide Steven Fry, besides Fry does not speak Russian. You can see how my mind works now. The whole world has email, so I annoy the world. It keeps me off the streets. I do chime a chord occasionally, and get a nice reply from some kind people. If you are one of them, then thank you, you know who you are. You can tell who they are should you visit them. My email is laminated and hanging next to the Urinals in their house.
Anyway Stas Mikhaylov I’m talking to you. Find my Valentine Poem online, or Let My Tears Be My Words, or The Dead and The Living. Then should you think you could adapt them, then together we’ll invade Russia, or rather the Pop charts. I have loads of stuff, 3300 pieces on my Bloggers alone. Not all poetry, but all kinds of everything, which was a Dana song. Then there are my Lech, Boris and Gregorgi stories about the Polish/Ukrainian/Russian first cousins who live in Popaloffoff where the 3 countries make love on the map. These are comic heart-warming stories. You can find them on my Wordpress and Bloggers. Right now if Stas’ wife is reading this to him, he’s thinking, just who the Theresa May is this fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham. I DO NOT KNOW HIM, he’s as useful as Japanese vodka, which I’d only give to the cat. Russians only drink the good stuff, by the way Lech, Boris and Gregorgi make vodka in the woods behind me, but that’s another story. I have written 10 about the boys.
By now Stas is telling the Webmaster, make sure you bolt the door, and keep this fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England far away from my Babushka. The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker is already being read in Russia, under the bedclothes at night, by some misguided soul. As well as in 90 countries all over the world, thanks to Translations Galore over on my Wordpress. So, Stas Mikhaylov, could you be the voice, in Russian of Michael Casey. He’s on his knees now praying, Icon Our Lady of Valdimir save me. Who the Theresa May is Michael Casey?
I did actually once, 50 years ago wake up and sit bolt upright in bed screaming “The Russians are Coming” So now is it the time for the Russians to come to Birmingham. Bring some Eggs, the jewelled variety for our Museum to display. Andy Street our re-elected would be ever so happy, and exchange he’d give you some Cadbury Cream eggs, to eat.
So, if you are wondering where the stories come from, well now you know and have an example. The Spaceman and the Archangel is another story of mine that Russians might like, but really I’m lost in space, the space between my ears. But it is better to have an imagination, instead of just staring into space. Space should be filled, just as I fill a page. Conversation, and stories are a tradition everywhere. Some are very far fetched, like Trump, Putin and Pope Francis being in an Abba tribute band with Theresa May. And if Russians read that story then
They will know who the Theresa May is Michael Casey, its me, or Nu Vot.
Are you Human?
By
Michael Casey
Well, are you Human? It’s the name of the Kdrama I’m finishing off, where a female bodyguard falls in love with the man she is guarding. Only he is a Robot, but the robot has more humanity than the real person he standing in for. Ok, you either like Kdramas or you don’t, and yes I love them.
So, what makes us human? We cry, we are moved, we have empathy. Some Nationalities are said to have no empathy, or never cry. You can decide for yourselves if that is true or not, or are folks just stupid and shallow and vacuous. And again you can decide for yourselves which are witch, and am I just being a Devil’s Advocate to make you think. That’s what education is supposed to be about, learning the THINK. Not unless you are shallow and vacuous and are led by a Liar, again decide for yourselves who or how many leaders are like that. We had Hitler and Mussolini in the 20th Century, and others of their ilk. And what about today? Again decide for yourself. And should you allow the Oxygen of Publicity to aid and abet them. We play by the rules, they don’t, and they’ll abuse us to get what they want. Because we let them in the house. Read Animal Farm and 1984, and think about it all. It’s not so far away from Today’s reality. Those books used to be on a school reading list, 50 years ago, but do modern kids actually know about them.
Being Human is all about Humanity, it’s not about ME FIRST, it’s about thinking about our sisters and brothers. Sisters and Brothers doesn’t mean just the White Folk at our Mega Church, where millionaires rub shoulders and talk about percentages and net gains. It’s the others, on the wrong side of the tracks, at home in our own country and places far far away, where Shrek lives, or people we may just think are cartoons. Our land is not forever set in stone like a Lincoln Monument, it is movement it is Life. If we think this is it, it’s done and dusted, we just have to polish a monument, then you miss the point. All the spilt blood long ago is just History.
History moves, humans move. If we believe in Lies, what do we get? History repeating itself and Dictators ruling us again, you don’t give second chances to Liars and Dictators. They must be removed root and branch. And what would Jesus, who was brown and from the Middle East, say? Yes, he’s white and hates all his non-white neighbours, so yes he’s Ok. It’s just fake what they say about him.
At this moment in Time, all Humanity is at war with itself. The leaders should lead, and the place where leadership used to come from is divided and supports a Liar with Born Again Conviction. I’ll go far as to say, Faith itself has been corrupted, if you vote for a Liar and want to overturn Democracy itself, then your “faith” has been corrupted. I’ll stick with the poor Samaritans in the gutter myself, because all else seems to be tainted with The Love of Money. Or is somebody using Politics as a cash cow. Too many people turned a blind eye, because they were getting what they wanted. Now today we are seeing with this Election that a Cult is being set in stone like a Lincoln Monument. But Lincoln is no monument it is a movement By the People, For all the People. Not just a cash cow, for some.
Now that’s something for you all to think about, my 50 year love affair with Politics sneaked out. I’m just a pebble on a faraway shore, with no influence whatsoever. I don’t seek popularity or fame for myself. What makes us human is concern for each other, for we are all sisters and brothers, whatever our race, creed or colour. And my mother was born a spit away from a beach, Cromane Lower Kerry Eire, and she learnt all about Humanity just as Jesus taught on a beach in Galilee.
Tonight the lights are going out (c)
By Michael Casey
Tonight the lights are going out
Friend and families are leaving the stage
My parents generation are finally fading away
This week it's 25 years since my mother left us
25 years on, more and more of their friends are dying and gone
The families, the connections are going, fading into memories
The names that made up are community are disappearing
Old Mrs this, Mr Consequently, or the man that echoed goodbye three times
There are no more echoes, no more Mrs This or, the old guy with the stick
Because Time is catching up with them, and now they are all going going gone
A name is a memory, because of the welcome hello, or the sweets given
I remember the smiles 50 years ago as I collected the Tote money
Now those familiar names are nearly all gone
So once they all go, then I will reluctantly have to accept I am the older generation
For now, I pretend I am still that child of 50 years ago
Even though some even of my own age are already gone
But the parents are still here, so I can pretend I'm still that child
Even though my own children are of University age now
So I sigh, I remember all the names and all the families
That we saw at Sunday Mass, or I saw from the altar as I read the Bible lessons
for 5 years, and as an altar boy for maybe 8 years
The view from the altar, now I am sat at the back
Or watching on the Internet
The names of the five families or was it more
Are all now fading, then they will be no more
Life changes, time changes
But hopefully Faith is Eternal
So I hope, when it's my time to be carried out
And it could have been close already
But when finally when my time
Hopefully in many many years to come
That whenever it is
The friends the family of all the five families
Will be waiting for me at Heaven's Door
As I Knock, and I hope the doors open for me
Glory Be
Shopping List ©
By
Michael Casey
There might be a few mistakes in this as Tinnitus has been roaring like a storm since yesterday. It’s not fun, and whatever I try, between Prayer and Profanity has not kept it at bay nor lessened it, so I feel like…
Now as I sit here I have Ellie Goulding in my ears, with headphones on my head, I look like a Cyberman, maybe I’ll add a photo. I just noticed she is singing The Writer as I write, I’m sure Taylor Swift left her a note, or a message written in the dust on my ceiling. A spider did appear and crawl over my screen earlier, though spiders mean money, so I may try a lottery tonight. As Ellie Keeps on Dancing, but she is dancing with howling wolves of Tinnitus, and I’m 50 shades of S(*& as the din is too much, not of her, but of Tinnitus.
I’ve just taken a snap of me as a Cyberman so you can look at it, when I post this on my sites, Ellie’s singing Your Song now, I just hope you all don’t mind a badly shaved me with headphones on. Now, where was I? Yes, I was going to talk about Shopping List, and why, because I was going to trek down the hill to the shops, or rather to the Pharmacist to collect my 2 monthly supply of Meds, which as I am in UK are totally free now, because I’ve reached the age where they are free. Instead with Tinnitus roaring and April showers in May, I’ve decided to stay in, though I might sneak out for a Lottery and a visit to the Post Office, as the spider could have been a message. And Ellie is laughing at me, she’s just started It’s a little bit funny, she’s so cruel. Is Elton mocking me too?
Back to the plot. When you go shopping you have an idea of what you want, well apart from the impulse buys which are located near the checkout. So, we all buy chocolate and chewing gum and spare batteries for our toys. They should have chewing gum, and toothpaste too. And other things that could help in our passion, though that’d probably be in France. Or maybe you buy in bulk from Amazon. Though I’m side-tracking you all. Anyway you have a list and you work your way through the list, but supermarkets are clever and move things about, so to tempt you. Even shopping online as you are about to pay you get items thrown at you, to get more of your money in their pockets.
It is nice just strolling about, I used to do it religiously, but moving here, where I am the fool on the hill, the shops are even further away. So it’s rare for me to stroll around a supermarket, I have minions who do it for me. Ok, the Truth, I have a hernia through my bypass scar, and lifting and carrying hurts. Or if I do, do it then I’m in pain for days afterwards. I can move a sofa with my strong legs, but through the chest movements really hurt. But if you’ve been following me you know all this already, or have you not read my Blogger profile, or the About me on Wordpress? Makes me sound like an add on at the supermarket, just as you are checking out and slapping your children as you are on the phone as you ignore the checkout girl. Or is where you shop, so much posher?
Ok, so you are in the shop, with your shopping list, it’s quicker, or online is quicker still as Graham once said, as he saved his bread, by buying online instead. But back to me and you, as Graham practices his martial arts, he slices the extra bread he can afford to buy by saving his bread by buying online, with his fists of fury. That’s a trick sentence for all Esol students. But moving on again. How do you shop? I look for all the offers and buy those, because I am still poor, when you all finally buy books, then I might get some money, and buy honey. Governments complain about this and that and us the public getting fat. The truth is real people, real families need these offers, two for one offers on champagne, yes ban those for the elite in their “gites”, with their reserved this and that, while I get an offer for the cat.
Instant food is bad, add vegetables, sweetcorn, peas and tomatoes, plus some cranberry juice too, and stop the orange juice because it is so full of sugar. And this is what I’ve done in an effort to live a bit longer post quadruple heart bypass. And as if on cue Tototo our cat has sneaked into the study. I said the girls could have a dog if I died or a cat if I had a heart attack, so Totoro is 6 now. So, Totoro is a constant reminder of what happened to me, we even put her name on a nameplate with the house number on. So, if on your way home from shopping you dally, then you can find our old house because Totoro is on the wall by the front door. I write stuff that may be off the wall, but Totoro is stuck to the wall, and no don’t call the RSPCA or Prince Harry, not literally.
I’m going to stop now, as this imaginary shopping is too heavy for me to carry, and I used to carry a ton of stuff, of shopping and of paper and suitcases in my past lives. So, as you idle in the aisles looking for this and that, imagine Totoro our cat, and pick something healthier too. A colourful plate they call it, or otherwise you’ll be dead without a Cat Nameplate, to say you made it.
All Steamed Up ©
By
Michael Casey
Well it’s a Friday night so some of you will be all steamed up by now, steamed up means drunk/tipsy or having had too much to drink. See I expand the Esol vocabulary for any students out there reading me. In the corner besides me I can hear French rapping, it’s une confiserie patisserie all wrapped up, ready for later. In reality it’s my small daughter dipping into her French, Lupin is back on tv soon, do watch it the black lead actor is extraordinary, and I’m sure the ladies get steamed up watching him.
I could segway into Steamy Windows and Tina Turner, and I passed several steamed-up car windows in the dark of the field, on the way home on a Friday night, from the hotel to NEC train station when I worked there 20 years ago. But why have I pulled up on steamy windows? Well the whistle on our kettle has broken, and I just steamed up all the kitchen, if we had wall paper it would be rolling down like a lady’s stockings right now, which might be what still happens in the field on the way to the NEC train station.
Though whistling at ladies is not allowed any more, I used to get looks and many whistles on a Friday night, once a month as I dress in drag and go cruising down Broad street. I am a very big broad after all. With size ten dancing feet, in the street or anywhere else, who do you think taught Bowie and Jagger that dance? They never did return my flasher mac either, so I ran home naked like Lady Godiva, which is up the road from Brum in Coventry.
After all that explanation, should I put the kettle on and we can have a cuppa or a brew? Now I must confess I am a coffee drinker. Though I did give it up for a while after my heart bypass, but then I resumed, if you don’t have something nice in your life, then what is the point? You have to have rapport with your life. Which is the coffee I drink Kenco Rapport, instant with milk, which will make Americans puke at the very idea, that’s a strange way to drink coffee, I should be imprisoned for the very idea.
Back to the kettle, obvious growing up we had an enormous kettle, a gallon kettle, enough to make the tea and do the washing up after the dinner. There used to be a shop called Malcomb’s where all the pots and pans were sold, and obviously his children were percussionists, with that amount of metal it just had to be banged. So, my dad must have gone on an expedition to find a kettle big enough for the Caseys. Though back in Kerry at the family farm the fireplace was at least 10 feet wide, with a crane above the fire and a huge black kettle hanging there. You could actually sit in the fireplace on a chair next to the hanging kettle with the fire below. And I did indeed see my dad’s brother Danny sat right there. I believe Morris and his wife who run the farm now have boarded it all up.
Now does that story take the biscuit, speaking of which do you dunk your biscuits in your tea. There probably is a mathematical formula about the length of time a biscuit should be dunked. Then it’s soggy enough to eat, or if you dunk too long it drops off and floats in the tea, so you have to use your finger to scoop it all out, as you slurp. And memories of my brother doing exactly that come back to me. That’s how you put on weight, it’s all the biscuits with the tea. Though I gave up sugar in my coffee back in 1977, I know the date because I hit my head on the Kerry cow shed door in 1978, and my uncle Patrick said I’d grown 2 inches. Yes, that stone building that he and my mother were all born in became a cow shed. We never knew it was the original house till 1994 maybe, when Uncle Danny back from Boston, replied poking his finger in reply, that was the house. It had a well just a few feet away too, perfect for water for the pot.
Yes, a kettle is a fine thing, it brings family together, for tea and Madeira cake on a Sunday, and the cake would be gone by Monday, especially if I found it. Though for most of my life I’ve just drunk coffee, it’s been only a few years that I’ve added tea to my repertoire. And dad would come home from the steel works and wash his feet in the washing up bowl, and have his dinner sometimes in the living room on a chair, so he could watch the news and heckle the Politicians there, who could not organise a Tea Party, let alone run a country.
So a boiling kettle brings back many memories to me, something simple like me, it reminds of love and laughter, and a family watching tv together at the weekend. If a film was too touching, my dad would say he was getting a cold and blow his nose, as he excused himself saying he’d put the kettle on for the tea, for this is Family.
Never Discarded, Never Unloved 10th June 2021 (c)
By
Michael Casey
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
You were loved before you were even born
You were supported even when you thought you were all alone
Down on your luck, or flat on your back
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
Battered and Bleeding, your thoughts swimming against the tide
Ashamed and rushing for somewhere to hide
Rage and Anger boiling inside
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
Broken and on the scrapheap, only seeing defeat
Clothes torn and soiled, worse than any child
Tears falling like a waterfall to nowhere
You cower and hide under the stairs
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
You spiral ever downwards, despair like a comfy chair
You sit in it, you bury yourself in it
You wish you could fall down the back of the sofa
To hide your despair, being sat upon like a chair
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
You are down in the pit, the darkness everywhere
You are battered and broken, wanting to hide
There is no hope, there is no light, and worse
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
And on the circle, the big dipper goes
You are a passenger on a circus ride, your heart lost inside
You are not in charge, you are glued to despair
On and on you ride, an empty husk
Like a baby abandoned in a wicker basket
About to go over the waterfall
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
Then the love, from Prayers and Family
And from the scruffiest of nurses brings you back
You are in the pit, the very darkest bottom of it
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
It’s a long hard journey back
To trust again, to love again
You comb your hair again
You smile again, you’re not so timid any more
The wolf has been tamed, you are no longer
Hiding in your little red hiding hood
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
The sun appears, it pushed back your fears
Timid smiles, and little laughs crack the darkness
Of your face, the sunshine appears on your lips
You even dance and sway your hips
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
Slowly confidence, replaces apprehension
You learn to live again, to smile again
The clouds in your heart are blown gently away
The storm of sadness has been quelled
The dark glasses have been replaced with sunshine
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
So, on it goes, sometimes backwards a step
But now your mind and heart and soul
Is on the future, you have climbed out of the pit
And now as you walk away from it
It is being forgotten and filled in
Life and Laughter demolish it
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
So, remember you were always loved
Even if you could not see it
From before you were born you were loved
First by your mother, and even afterwards
When she was not there
Never Discarded, Never Unloved
You were always loved
Love is eternal, so from the first spark
Of Creation itself, there is the wealth of Love
And people still pray for you after you are gone
Love, laughter and memories carry on
All Creation carries on, one generation after another
We look forward to our Futures, never forgetting the past
We have climbed out of the bog, and through the fog
To form family and creation
For Love really does conquer all
We are all, no matter how bad or sad
Never Discarded, Never Unloved.
at least I had a wash and shave today, so no need to hold your nose
fresh photo of me after a freshen up 21st June 2021, as alluring as I get, so throw me in the water
