A quick thank you 14 mar 2018

Its nice to see my readers worldwide reading my stuff. I still wish I had a spot in the media, your country included. Imagine my stuff in Ukrainian and Russian, not just you translating for your friends, or using Mr Google. I hope you liked tonight's piece Ken Dodd, Steve Hawking and Me. I do have a love for the surreal, it is my favourite word in fact. I did have a couple of surreal things happen on Monday night into Tuesday am, but I won't tempt Fate by mentioning them. Though it does further explain why my reality is so left of field, or rather the comedy it inspires.

Spring is coming though Winter may have one final spit at us, so I hope it improves everybody's mood the world over.

Its nice to see Indonesia and Canada dropping by  for a read and a coffee, the North and the South and the East and the West of planet earth. Look out for the Light show in tonight's atmosphere due to sun spots or something. You may just see Steve Hawking flying into the sky following ET to that spaceship, I heard he does not believe, but if you read tonight's piece you know Einstein and God have a nice surprise read for him.

So with that I'll say Good Night and don't led the bedbugs bite. And enjoy me and my new haircut.

14 mar 2018

https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC

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

Sir Ken Dodd, Steve Hawking and Me

Sir Ken Dodd, Steven Hawking and Me ©

By Michael Casey

Well Ken Dodd died, I did ask you all to pray for him the other week but God decided to give George Burns a break from the Paradise Club, so Ken was called to the stage. The smoke from George Burn’s cigars was getting on Gabriel’s wings so George was ushered to one side. As for Steven Hawking, he’s just had the shock of his life, God does exist.

Einstein was there to greet him by blowing a raspberry, he was wearing a Told You So Tee shirt. I myself did look like Einstein when I was in hospital overnight, as I said to a doctor, The Einstein look without the Intelligence. I was also unshaven and bedraggled, but today after visiting my Pakistani barbers I now look like a 60s astronaut, my hair, not my age, though I am docking with that age this year.

My barber was happy he has had his religious batteries recharged after being on Pilgrimage, not the Haj but a smaller version, he did say the word but I’ve forgotten it. I was looking at his picture of Medina on his barber shop wall. So I mentioned I’d been on a Christian pilgrimage. Though if you go to Lourdes you also get food and alcohol and cafe life.

Now back to Ken and Steven in Paradise, will Steven Hawking get a suit just like John Travolta’s and start dancing all along the Yellow Brick road. Personally I think he will, he’ll be dancing till he drops, which is forever if you have reached Paradise. Drop splits and high kicks galore, he’ll kick his specs into orbit too. Though I think he’ll keep his own teeth and not favour the Trump sparkling white teeth.

You make me feel like dancing to the tune of the Old Grey Whistle Test. Limbo dancing too, because he is Free at Last, Free at Last. I’m sure he may even try Pole Dancing because he was a fan of Stringfellows after all. And it is Einstein’s Birthday today too.

Meanwhile Ken is giving his first 5 millennium show, which thankfully for the angels lasts but a blink of an eye. God does have a sense of humour after all, he even has all the Depeche Mode albums, well that’s a rumour I heard. Ken is given a haircut and American Pearly White teeth, as a lesson in humility, perfect teeth. But God does have a soft spot for Ken’s humour so he gives him A Big Bang stopwatch to time his act with. It is graduated in billion year markers, Ken is so touched he sings better than Andrea Bocelli for 3 million years, which is 10 hours on God’s time scale as God does like Ken.

So what am I talking about today, have you all cracked the code?It is as ever simple, I am a simple man, ok a simpleton, I’ve said it before you all say it. What I’m talking about is Freedom, freedom from pain, from old age and from prejudice too. Steven Hawkings is breakdancing with Einstein while God sniggers in the background. They both know nothing about Physics, its just a magic trick the Angles invented when they were not playing the harp.

We should all laugh and dance and fight for fun and life throughout our lives. We should never let people say you cannot. You are ugly with bad teeth and hair or marooned in a wheelchair. We can all do our best even if only baby steps are all we can manage. We have the right to be whoever we want to be, look at the stars and not at our feet Hawking said. Though if he had time for Oscar Wilde he would have said I may be in the gutter but I am looking at the stars.

Never let people look down at you, you are and always will be as good as anybody, as my mum would and did say. Break those chains of ignorance and spite that can occur, just because you are different. If I can become a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham then anything is possible. Everybody has a talent, even if it just making tea, or just the sympathy. So go out and dance and amaze people.

As for me I’m hoping the Guardian gives me Miss Hanson’s column now that she is in Heaven too, if I show them the size of my back list their eyes will water. And I can go on for hours just as Ken Dodd did, and I don’t mean the singing. So I have high hopes as the song goes, and if I say my prayers tonight perhaps Steven Hawking will ask as his free wish for a new arrival in Heaven, that Michael Casey get’s his column.

Though he might suggest it is stuck up my Black Hole till it disappears. Though I could pole dance from the column, and maybe that would impress him. Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer and Pole Dancer in shades from Birmingham .

Hope does always spring Eternal.         

Renewal or Let Me Try Again

Renewal Or Let Me Try Again ©

By

Michael Casey

Renewal is a good thing, it makes things better, as good as new even. As Barry White sings , you are the answer to all my dreams, because we can try again. That bunch of flowers, stolen from the nearby cemetery begins a renewal in your relationship, your girl was going to leave you, now she’ll stay. Luckily the card from the flowers, We’ll miss you Darling Granddad, falls off as you hand them to her and you kick it under the sofa. So the pair of you snog on the sofa as granddad looks on in spirit from under the self same sofa.

A teenage daughter may think that a bathroom is a water sports arena, thus sparking a few family disputes. But when you have diarrhoea because of small daughter’s cooking, all will be forgiven just so long as you can get you bum sat on that throne. And when the teenage daughter throws more Andrex through the half opened door, then all is forgiven. And when you are in there so long that you could murder a pint of Stella Artois and that is rolled through the bathroom door by the small daughter, then you have a family united in love. United by a dad sat on his smelly throne, a can of Stella Artois in his hand surrounded by bathroom destruction, with his pants round his ankles.

These are just two examples of renewal of love. When your sister tells you she doesn’t think your poems don’t stink, and that it’s alright to wear flowery shirts that too denotes a family on the mend. Though if big sister knew you had read all her diaries, and were going to use them as source material for an epic 12 poem calendar of immaturity then she might just castrate you instead. The usual sibling slanging match.

Family is the thing that saves us, despite all the heartaches it can bring, because we are made to match and to fit into one another. Pain can come, when mum’s false teeth are left on the sofa and Sarah her son’s new girl sits on them and gets a love bit right on her bum. No more short skirts of bikinis for her for months. She was so angry she threw them on the fire. Only Rex the family dog jumped and caught them and swallowed them. Sarah was so full of remorse she offered to walk the dog for a week with a poohper skooper, so she could catch mum’s teeth when they finally exited the dog. But these events bonded Sarah to your family, she wasn’t a stuck up B____ after all. She even bought some Jeyes Fluid to wash the false teeth in, before mum put them back in her mouth. Mum’s bark was never as big as her bite after that.

I’m sure you all have your own family stories, even if they are not as true as the examples I’ve given. We are are made of of collections of families, of love and hate and argument. But we’ll kill anybody who mocks our own Adams Family and its values. You have to renew and remake your family as it grows and  strides forward, ok, maybe you just stagger to the next pub or Bingo Hall, or May Ball if you are posh.

And why am I talking to you about this tonight? Well while I spent a night in hospital again last night, with my pain problem I did have time to think and I realised, as annoying as a wet bathroom floor is the most important thing is the Love that binds us. I did pretend to be Gene Kelly and dance Singing in the Rain in the bathroom, and I could hear my mother’s words, get out of the way or I’ll hit you with the mop.  

Lucky 13

Well I'm shattered but happy, our central heating is fixed. It was not the Baxi boiler, which is fine but the condenser outlet. Which is NOT covered by he insurance. So read the small print. And make sure you have a network of Plumbers/Builders/Electricians up your sleeve. Luckily we know such people.

So a major thank to our plumber. Just for information he says Baxi has broken down less than Worcester boilers from his experience.

I'll write something new later today.  but in the meantime  here's something from the vaults.

A Winter’s Day

By michaelgcasey

     

As I look from my window I see the blue blue sky. Birds dive and soar better than any circus acrobat, they are painting a picture with their wings. Tiny tiny whisps of white cloud remain, like left over candy floss on a childs face, like white whiskers on a very old woman’s face.

Curtains are pulled open and windows are  inched open too, daylight and fresh air to bedrooms shuttered down against a cold winters night. People stand  and yarn and scratch too as they struggle to wake up fully. Then one or two realise they don’t wear any pyjamas so they hurry away from their windows, their wives, their husbands, their lovers laughing at their stupidity. At least old Mrs Jones may have had a thrill.

The sounds of morning, of daylight rise. Slowly the sound of the milk float, the sounds of milk bottles clinking together as the milkman does his rounds, this way and that. The sound of of Mrs Murphy walking her dog, the dog panting in the cold winters air. He doesn’t have a sheepskin coat to keep him warm. He has his own fur coat but this winter is a cold one, so Goldie the dog could do with an extra coat too.

People dance down their door steps to  their car, nagging children to hurry up as

 its cold. Children write their name in the frost on their neighbours’ cars before being told off. John the neigbourhood jogger rushes past, the kids stick their tongue out at him, he does the same, they all laugh, only for John to miss his stride slip on an icy patch and fall to the ground hurting his elbow as he does so. Still laughing the kids get in the car and are taken off to see grandpa, John is rubbing his elbow and his bum as he gets ups gingerly.

The lads, we are so hard, appear from their homes to noisily attack the day, Sunday is for shouting, but not too loud, as they have headaches and hangovers, did they really chat up that ugly fat girl, but they gave her his brother’s mobile number and not his own. They stride off to the news agent for The News Of The World, just for the sports pages, their mums can read the scandal section and the horoscopes.

One or two black people wearing their Sunday best pass by on their way to church, a throwback to decades before when people still went to church and when people still wore their Sunday best. People used to dress up to go to the theatre too, but now, but now.

I reach for the kettle and have my first coffee of the day, coffee with milk and no sugar, the way English people have coffee, not the American way, just the soft English way. My kids want toast and peanut butter, or cheese on toast, so my 3 slices of toast become one slice of toast as I feed my girls. I nag them to put slippers and socks on, yes we have nice carpet but in the winter’s weather they are always getting colds, so I nag them, I nag them. My wife nags them in Chinese too, or Shanghai dialect. The phone rings, its Germany calling, or rather my wife’s best friend who’s calling from  Germany, the cackle or hens, of chickens clucking is the noise these 2 Shanghai girls make, as they talk in Shanghai, when are we coming back to Germany is the message. Cluck cluck cluck.

The sky has changed the blue has changed to grey, will the snow return, its been a snowy winter over here in Birmingham, some parts of the country have had the worse weather in 20years. The children have quietened down, my wife has relented and put a nature program on the tv for them. As for me I was going to try and write a poem but instead you see what’s before you. I’m half listening to Mike and The Mechanics a cd I’ve loaded to the computer, “give me the simple life” he sings, I suppose my life is a simple life too. But if we can see  the poetry in life then we enjoy the simple things which make up all are lives. All our lives are  poetry if only we take the time to watch and listen, while we’re making toast for the kids

p.s. This piece was from last Winter.

Day of pain

Well the pain monster came out to visit today, chest pain, stabbing pain below shoulder and above nipple on the left.  Feels like I'm being stabbed from the inside. And our central heating has given up the ghost. A new Baxi boiler only installed just over 4 years. So I'll let you know the verdict tomorrow when the engineer arrives. Its been serviced every year too. But they don't work weekends.

It may be the chill in our  house that is aggravating my Arthritis. Don't know for sure, but it does hurt so much I've been screaming in pain.

Sadly I'e written a few pieces about pain, so as I won't write anything new today here's an old pain piece.

No it’s NOT Kinky Sex it’s just PAIN ©

By Michael Casey

Well its 3am and I’m screaming in pain, the neighbours think there is a Kinky Sex Club somewhere in the neighbourhood, but there is not, it’s just me screaming again, in pain. I wanted to use this title before but I held off, but now it seems so right. I’ve had a couple of pain killers and they are slowly beginning to work.

My dad was in the war and he never took pain killers, says one, or my child had this or that and she never complained. Well God Bless them, but I’ll remind you, there is no competition in pain, it just F**** hurts. So when your grannie or child or cat or dog IS in pain, do be a little supportive. Don’t say shut up, you are trying to watch the chart show on the myriad of rubbish music channels on Sky. Why are they so badly presented with really rubbishy graphics. Just give us the Music, Old Grey Whistle Test leads the way, or Jools Holland’s Later.

Veteran09 from the DT will no doubt offer his prayers, so thank you again, and a very Merry Xmas to you. Maybe the Queen will send you a Christmas card this year as you are so loyal, he is also very kind. Now the rest of you, how about adding pain relief to your Will, you could set up a pain relief centre here in Birmingham or sponsor somebody at the Medical School. I’m not a Brummie mad person, I’m just lazy, if you set up the centre here in Birmingham I’d just be a bus ride away from it, so I could jump the queue.

Pain Relief Centre does sound like a house of ill repute, you could have a competition to name the centre, and the best name wins the pot of money, hopefully here in Birmingham. Rich people DO leave money to good causes and they  frequently leave it in their own name. So could we have the Michael Casey Centre for Slapping on Movelat Gel, or the Michael Casey Slapping Centre for short. Though that does sound like a kinky sex club, though it is NOT. We have so much modern medicine but still pain persists. 

And by the way I have NO money, if any billionaire is reading this I’d love to have a nice big house, so think of me in your will. Assuming you have any money left after buying another football club.

So anybody out there reading this why not leave your money to this good cause, pain relief, and no I’m not suggesting a French Maid arrives to relieve pain either. I’m suggesting we study pain, and then kill it off. Obviously with my Shanghai connections maybe we could get a Chinese Dr to teach acupuncture here in Birmingham, as needles are far cheaper than pharmaceuticals.

Yes I’ve used humour in this piece, but I have grabbed your attention, you could call it the Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams Pain Centre, and have David Walliams as the visiting Professor, call it anything, just take the F****** pain away. It’s 3.35 now, time for a green tea and  hopefully the pain has ebbed before I go back to bed, alone, no French maid, yet……..  

Help I think I'm a Geek

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

Help I think I'm a Geek

Help I think I’m a Geek ©

By Michael Casey

Back in 1978 I listened to my brother and applied for a job in computers, I got that job, I stayed 21 years, market research into alcohol sales. Back then people were impressed when you said you worked in computers, 37 years ago, when I was still a teenager. It was a DEC PDP 1170 computer with a row of flashing lights and toggle switches, it was as  big as two wardrobes. There were even tape decks as big as dinner plates, not forgetting a cardreader, because you had to screw on the tapes I still to this day have a very strong twist action. This is perfect for opening and closing bottles of pop or salad cream. The other thing to remember is that we ran out of space, so we had to delete things to make sure the job wouldn’t crash. It was like Wallace and Grommet where they ran out of track and had to race as they hurtled through the living room.

Now in 2015 a home computer will have a terabyte or 1000 gig in plain English. If we had 10% of 1 gig at the time I’ll be amazed. I think when we updated the computers 15 years later we had 4 gig or something. So with this background you can understand my attitude to home computing.

I tidy up, I tidy up every time I finish on the computer, I delete History and any other files I can find, just in case I run out of space. So I still have 60gig plus, but it may as well be 60 bytes, I must tidy up. All because of 1978 in my computer room.  On the night shift I’d come in and the lads had left a trail of stuff for me to tidy up, lads can be like that, just like our own teenagers. So I always spent 20 mins tidying up after them, rather like our kitten Totoro who is running around behind me.

I know somebody who never, and I mean never did a disc cleanup. So their system went slower and slower over the years. I know somebody else who never used their company email account, when they left after 3 years it took an hour for the email to open, as there were thousands of emails waiting to be looked at. There was print room email account which he did look at, but the personal one, never.

I also know of another place where no backups were done and the company could have folded when disaster struck.  Modern companies are not that stupid, law firms save everything to a server, every email and document is numbered and filed away for posterity. So FIFA will have a lot to answer for, not unless the computers or server room are destroyed, though didn’t somebody say their computers were destroyed…..

Now everybody should have, must have an antivirus, AVG, Avast, Avira start the alphabet and ZoneAlarm finishes it, there is Norton in the middle. If you google FREE antivirus then you’ll get a load of results. Just read the reviews and then decide which is for you. In computer terms just like any marketing FREE does not mean FREE, its means FEE in one month’s time, but you can downgrade to a free version.

As they are free you could be tempted to have 2 or 3 on your PC or laptop, and guess what, your processor can be wadding through treacle. Trial and error helps. 360security is a Chinese antivirus, it also tidies up really well, though some will say too well. Again have a look for yourself.

Now when I came out of hospital after my surgery, my triple heart bypass I came home and switched on the computer and everything was gone. My books, my stories, my babies. It took 3 days to restore the computer, it had gone back to factory settings while I was away. I nearly cried, but as you can imagine I had backups.

The simplest thing to do is to use your email. Every time you send an email you copy it to a folder. So you email your mother-in-law after you send it you drag it to the DEVIL folder, or when you email your accountant you drag it to the BASTARD folder, when you email your Rabbi or Priest you drag it to the GOD folder, when you email your daughters you drag it to the DEBT folder. And so on, so that you instantly know what is in each folder. Now for the actual files you attach them to an email and then they are safe.

So you email michaelgcasey@hotmail.comattaching your stuff, once you have sent it you then put the message into a folder, such as FUNNY. What you also do is get a few email accounts, so that you can email your stuff to yourself on Hotmail, yahoo, gmail, gmx, aol and any other account. Now if your computer dies your files are safe, they are on servers all over the world. You can send your stuff to your family and friends with do not delete in subject line.

Of course you should go to Argos or Amazon or PCWorld and get a few USB sticks too. For a few quid your company, and I mean company is safe. I tell my daughter to do all this when she is doing her homework, so how much more important are your company files. You can also download your special stuff to another device you have in the home or at the office.

We all have 1000s of photos of our kids, as we all have digital camera and phones nowadays, so 10,000 photos taken over 10 years are worth protecting. My nephew said he had 5000 photos on his phone, can you believe that? You can pay for storage or you can just use the free storage on Hotmail and Gmail.  30 gig on Hotmail and 15gig on Gmail. And you can get multiple accounts.

Computers are fun, until they go wrong, and computer engineers are all mad, they don’t get the job unless they have a bizarre sense of humour, ditto for industrial printer engineers. I know this to be a fact, so trust me. However you can look after yourself if you are careful.

Get a couple of email accounts. Put everything in a folder after you have sent it. Back up your files to the Gdrive or Hotmail’s drive.  Always make 3 copies at least to usb sticks. Password is not a clever password, Drowssap is better but still not good. Add a few Upper case and numbers too. For example my inside leg is 35, my hair is brown, and I am French, so a good password could be 35BRUNfrancais.

Get an antivirus and use it, and don’t forget to tidy up not unless you want to be like Wallace and Grommet and the train track. My real password is fatBastard2015HeartAttack, but don’t tell anybody.

88888

11/mar/2018

today I've not written anything new.Instead I've had stabbing pains to shoulder and heart and leg. Which sadly is the new norm for me. I don't just sit here smiling like a fool writing stuff, I did do one good deed passing on two old coats belolonging to my girls to the least of our brethren, so Hopefully their prayers will keep me going.

Being Moved

Being Moved ©

By

Michael Casey

Let me try again,I was about write sorry I mean talk to you about Moving then I spotted a piece from was it 6 or 7 years ago so I decided to write something else. This is it. Being Moved. What is the difference you may ask, let me get myself a coffee before I begin. Well I didn’t have enough water in the kettle so I’ll have a half a mug before I start. Then a full mug wen the kettle boils again. A kettle of water is such a simple thing, and when its hot it whistles. Then you have tea or coffee and hospitality and love begins.

At one point in the Casey home we had a giant silver kettle, it must have held a gallon. Enough to make the tea after dinner and then enough water to do the washing up as well. Nobody had central heating in them days with loads of hot water in the tap. The immersion heater was only used once a week for baths. So on a daily basis a large kettle was all that was needed. We tended to wash in the old Belfast sink in the kitchen and have a bath at the weekend,or so it seemed. Normal for everybody in the 60s and early 70s.

Mum use to make us go upstairs to see if dad was ok in the bath, it was a ritual, thinking about it now I’m smiling and moved because it reminds me of my dad, my best friend. We used to hang the bath towel on the upstairs banister too, so many innocent memories that move me.

I can remember the first time dad ever had a shower, we only had a bath at home, it was in 1995 in Ireland. We were on the Grand Tour, which was the final tour in fact. We were visiting all the Casey Clan in County Kerry, and it is a Clan, I have 40 first cousins alone. So we were in the rented cottage. Dad tried the shower once we explained the controls to him. For him it was the greatest invention ever. I can hear his voice saying just how great it was, a simple innocent pleasure a hot shower. It makes me smile now. I can remember him coming home from the steelworks everyday and soaking his feet, sometimes while he had his dinner and watched the news on tv as the kitchen was too cold. He really did work too hard for us. He is the standard I aim for with my own kids, to love my kids as much as I was loved by my own dad. I hope everybody the world over, rich and poor do the same.

We never said I love you to each other, we did not need to. The Parable of the Sower comes to mind, Faith and Love can be very shallow it has to be watered. Sometimes you need family love to protect yourself from the sorrows of the world. But that’s a long long story.

It’s connections that have the power over us, the power of love. Those sunglasses may be rubbish but your sister gave them to you so they are more valuable now, especially since she died, and you felt so guilty because you weren’t there to say goodbye. You wear them when you go onstage to perform to read your poetry, or to sing your songs.

Or just when your are 200metres high above the building site controlling the crane, thanks sister, I couldn’t work with the sun in my eyes without those shades. Then you drop them on the long climb down to the ground, so you are in tears. Your boss gives you his 500dollars designer pair, but you still feel so sad. But he knows the story so he rings a friend in the Caribbean, and gets him to find the exact same pair on Dugdale Street. They are shipped overnight to the building site. 10 dollar shades, cost 500dollars for the express shipping. The next day he hands you the shades, because you are worth it. You thought he was a SOB but now you are touched really touched. He tells you to keep his 500 dollar shades, what he does not tell you is that he got 3 extra pairs just in case you lose them. Crane drivers are like gods, and he knows he needs you. Then he can buy another Caribbean island for himself, once the project is built.

I know you all have things that remind you of your mum or sister, or your lover. Stupid things, nice things, horrible things, but they are things we all treasure because they touch us, because there is love attached to them. Stop right now, pick up a drink of your choice and salute your favourite thing, because really you will be saluting your favourite person. The love behind the thing. You may even be looking in a mirror, your husband bought that for you so you could try on all your favourite clothes which he bought for you. Or in my case at least I bought the mirror, a 1.5 metre square one. Perfect for Selfies, even if the husband is far from perfect.