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.   

To Touch a Beating Heart from 2011

To Touch a Beating Heart  ©

By

Michael Casey

I was watching Jools Holland’s show and later on I watched Glee, its just finished in fact, Music has such an effect on me, I hope on everybody else too. Music DOES Touch a Beating Heart. Music is like a heart beat, it offers rhythm to our lives, it goes fast and it goes slow, and when it ends we are dead.

Obama is in Ireland and now on his way here, he will have no doubt heard some music just as the Queen did, I imagine that as he has tea with the Queen they’ll both remark on their Irish trips, and I’d guarantee that Music will be part of that conversation.

My dad discovered Elvis in his 60s, he watched all of Elvis’s movies over a Christmas break, my dad was impressed. Musicians do touch our beating hearts, their power is so great, within 2 seconds a piece of music can get to you. If I’m very lucky within 30seconds I’ve touched somebody with my words, but music is still at least 15 times faster. I am of course so very very jealous, I can hear music on the Phoenix Chinese TV station and even though I know no Mandarin the music and the Chinese words still can touch my beating heart. I am lucky that a window has been opened into another kind of music, I wasn’t expecting that when I found my Shanghai wife.

So what is it with Music,  when the first cave man made love and heard the beat of his mate’s heart, did it fill him with wonder and then did he copy the beat with bones banging on the skull of his enemy who’d he recently eaten?  Whatever the reason I am so so jealous, a beat a rhythm a song or just the roar of the sea or even of the wind itself, all of this is music.

I’d love to be able to write songs, I have produced a few good poems, and some say my writing is poetic, but really the way I write is the way I write, I’m not clever enough to analyse my style, it is what it is. I  am lucky though if I get a few good reports, but I’d rather touch a few beating hearts.

************

I was about to start writing a new piece with Touching in the title when I remembered this so I've put this on the site for you all to see. I may write a different piece on touching or I may write something totally different, just read whatever is on the site after this.

Hello Egypt and Turkey 6/mar/2018

Well its another day and before I hang out the washing in the back garden can I just
Welcome Egypt and Turkey to the readers club.
I'm slowly filling in the map of the world, so thanks to all of you.

It may just be that the cleaner in one county texted her cousin in another country and so all my readers are cleaners. But that's ok, I worked at Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC 2002 to 2005 so I'm one of you. Your intellect is not defined just by your work.Einstein was a clerk...

My dad was a Blacksmith and then a worker in a Steel Factory for 40 years, and he was no dunce.
One son went to Queens,Oxford another to Downing, Cambridge. (my brothers)
I've the "failure" with 15 books on Amazon and 30 years writing experience, with 20 years Radio listening Before I started to write.


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

I may write something new later on, I only need a hour usually. So come back later, and text a few family all over the world. Then maybe when it's all shaded in I can persuade Rupert Murdoch to back me. Or any other Media company. Or I just may be whistling in the wind.
here's an old piece to keep you going

Happy Dreams Sleep Tight Nighty Night©

By Michael Casey

It’s in the press today how a psyco psyco  psychologists can read us while we sleep, they are still guessing while we are awake so now they know us while we are asleep, know not in the Biblically sense that is.

Positive body language, negative body language, neutral body language, open posture, closed posture. Snappy answers to stupid questions, to name but one Mad Magazine book. All this the psychologists know while we are awake, while we are being interviewed for that high powered job. At my GCHQ and MI5/MI6 interviews I sat there and folded paper into aeroplanes and threw them this way then that, just as James Bond in Skyfall did. He was interviewed after me you know, I gave him a few tips, SHAVE, Gillette G3 is good, one blade lasts      6 months.   I passed of course and I will spy for GB, I will be 0099 on account of my enormous belly and a love of 99 ice creams.

I did have the sleep test too. I totally confused them. I start lying on my belly, then I switch  to my back, I crunch up, then I do star jumps while I sleep. Then I get all angry and swear in my sleep, Judy Dench M my arse, she just stole my best dress, it should have been me M for MICHAEL.  I then fall into a deep deep slumber, after 2 hours I rise up in bed and scream “Launch the Lifeboats”, before falling back down. I sleep soundly, moving backwards and forwards over my bed, all the shapes the psychologists think they can read, I move like the ebb and flow of the sea. Suddenly I raise my left leg and let loose a rasping roaring fart, which reverberates for 10 full seconds. Now that really gets the psychologists thinking, and I resume my slumbers.

So as I can now reveal, the psychologists have investigated my slumbers, they can come to no other conclusion. M is for Michael, Judi Dench sling your hook.

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

My shoulder is playing up so no new story today so here's a repeat

My arthritis is being a right SOB in my LEFT shoulder, I do have an Orth appointment in a few weeks. You got 2 new stories was it yesterday, so no new story today, though there are 100 on the site if you just keep on diving like Doreen did in Finding Nemo

My shoulder is playing up so no new story today so here's a repeat.
put wrong shoulder down, is that  word blindness or pain?

Drawing a Picture with Words (c)   from 2011

By

Michael Casey

A picture is worth 1000 words, and its true. A photo will show more detail and instantly convey so much more that a paragraph or more or even an entire article. I have lots of photos of me covered in ice cream like a big kid, or Panzi which is my Chinese nickname, Fat Fat Boy. So a photo shows I'm just a big kid, even if the teachers ask am I the granddad when I pick up my kids from school. In fact I'm the dad is my reply. Photos convey happiness, that’s family photos. News photographers will capture sadness and pain and suffering, and the occasional piece of joy. Years back I was surgically attached to a basic snap camera and I was there to capture all the drunken activities of the people I worked with. When you have your own kids you take lots of snaps and invest in a digital camera so that you can email photos to Shanghai or where ever the mother in law is best kept. Absence does make the heart grow fonder, is what they say.

Drawing is a different medium, it changes things, it can soften or exaggerate, it can bring things down to earth, it can deflate politicians. Its like a close up that pulls back, then it reveals that the politician is hiding something, even if it reveals the politician is sitting on the toilet with his pants down and he is wearing ladies underwear, just like Pinnochio in Shrek. I wish I could draw but I cannot. I can give 1000 ideas to a cartoonist but I just cannot draw. My wife is very very good and my girls probably inherit their drawing skills from her. I try and draw pictures with words, but I am aware I need a minute or two to paint my picture,whereas a cartoonist can do something in seconds. So I'm jealous of artists, I'm also jealous of songwriters who get to the punchline so much faster than me. However when I do get a poem right, then I get a result fast. Perhaps I should not talk in terms of competition, the biggest competition is with ourselves. One of the best compliments I ever got about my writing was that I lead up the path and put a picture in somebody's mind.  God Bless Gill.

Well https://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC   is my path, will you follow it?

my Blogger Profile is at the end so keep on going down past my silly photos

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About me

Gender	MALE
Industry	Arts
Occupation	Humour Writer of 1,251,000+ Words spread over 30 years like butter, ok I'm just a housewife really, who writes while the breadwinner and kids are at work and school
Location	Birmingham in England, https://www.amazon.com/MichaelCasey/e/B00571G0YC, United Kingdom
Links	Audio Clip, Wishlist
Introduction	I'm from Birmingham England, Don't confuse me with the Monk, or the Dublin guy or even the USA guy, all of the SAME name. They are NOT me, I did get 21,000 Polish readers in 3 weeks just by word of mouth when I put a Translation on my site. So join them and read my stuff. Prose is so pretentious, I write stuff. Good stuff, judging by the reader numbers. I STILL HAVE TO BE Discovered or Disinfected one or the other, As I am not on Anti-Social Media. List of my 15Books, written by me, Michael Casey The fat silver haired writer in shades. from Birmingham. 1.The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker 2.Shoplife 3.Essays and Plays 4.Blogs 2011 5.300 and Not OUT 6.Shorts 2013 7.More Shorts 2014 8.Quick Stories 9.Still Alive 2015 10.Undiscovered Words 2016 11.Still Smiling 2017 12.Altogether Now 13.New Horizons 14.14 Up 15.15 Down *********** I've gone past 1,251,000 words now 10 Feb 2018 please buy a book as I have 2 teenage daughters and the bill for the shower is massive. my sites are these:- The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, Michael Casey from Birmingham England, michaelgcasey cartoons made with words
Interests	Writing, watching films on tv with my girls. I'm from Birmingham England, Don't confuse me with the Monk, or the Dublin guy or even the USA guy, all of the same name. I am clean shaven. They are NOT me, I write Humour. I have written 1, 251, 000+ that's OVER ONE MILLION WORDS now https://michaelgcaseyfrombirminghamengland.wordpress.com/ it can translate just click on square in top right corner ******** List of my 15Books, written by me, Michael Casey The fat silver haired writer in shades. 1.The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker 2.Shoplife 3.Essays and Plays 4.Blogs 2011 5.300 and Not OUT 6.Shorts 2013 7.More Shorts 2014 8.Quick Stories 9.Still Alive 2015 10.Undiscovered Words 2016 11.Still Smiling 2017 12.Altogether Now 13.New Horizons 14.14 Up 15.15 Down my sites are these:- The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, Michael Casey from Birmingham England, michaelgcasey cartoons made with words
Favourite Films	Its a Wonderful Life, RED & Red2, Hot Fuzz, Star Trek films, The Quiet Man, and good Thrillers, Link is to 1950s Don Camillo film in English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLf6VQyJJkE
Favourite Music	Everything, I almost carried Eric Clapton's bag when I worked at a hotel 15+ years ago. CPNEC Bham. I did make him smile when I said my wife drove a Skoda. I like JMJarre. Annie Lennox, Clapton. Amazon has my books if you seek them out.
Favourite Books	Don Camillo, The Book Thief, The Daily Telegraph and most online newspapers, Even the Guardian. Amazon has my books if you hack through the jungle

And the Oscar for 2018 is

And the Oscar for 2018 is ©

By

Michael Casey

I didn’t know the Oscars are on tv tonight, it popped up as a news item,then I knew. But I didn’t get an invite so how should I know? What should I wear, I have nothing Black or White or Rainbow coloured. I do have red coloured chinos with a bright red jumper, I look like a shaved Santa as I said to my Polish neighbour this afternoon. Oh I forgot I have a bright red zip up anorak too to complete my ensemble.

I just won an Oscar myself, I was interrupted by my daughter wanting outdoor gear for a walk she’ll be doing as part of her Duke of Edinburgh Award. So I won an Oscar for parenting. I also broke the budget too, so I’ll have to make sure I get cheap deals in the supermarket to cover the deals. A low budget production for parenting, now that’s the Hope always, but it always feels like the Titanic. But at least my daughter will have waterproofs for her walk.

Where was I? On the red carpet wearing my protest colours, of toothpaste and coffee stains down the front on my winter woolies. I’m wearing my slippers too, I wear slippers around the house to save our carpets, so I’ll feel at home on the Oscar Red Carpet. I will try to shave and at least comb my silver locks. I will try and steal some Wayfarer Ray Bans from some of the stars, providing they have a big head. Yes I know they all have large egos but I have a wide face so I need bigger Ray Bans. Look at my book covers for details.

Creative Oscar for the best use of bad language is a good category that should have an Oscar on its own. Swearing when used creatively is very funny, and can also be very effective. In Apocalypse Now now a swear was written on a bomb, and in the story somebody was on a charge for writing the curse on a bomb. So which is more obscene, the bomb that kills or a written word on the bomb? Think about it. I can remember discussing this with Janine Bird many years ago, so hello to her if she reads this.

What other Oscars do I like. An Oscar to mothers for screaming at kids for being on the wifi all the time and not putting out the rubbish. I’m sure everybody all over the world could connect with that one. This would go hand in hand with the Oscar to kids who beg for the wifi not to be switched off. Imagine the drama and the utter intensity of it all. You could even break into a Bollywood dance routine, Please Please Please Keep the Wifi on. Then a cruel sadist, normally a dad switches off the wifi. Silence descends on the household, except for the sound of gentle sobbing, the kids are wifiless.

Slapstick I is good when its done well. Look at Charlie Chaplin, I did ask Robert Downey Jnr on Facebook years ago when was he doing Chaplin 2 but he was not impressed. Our paths have not crossed since then. He has since done Ironman, he really is a great actor, and thanks to Elton John he got back in the groove years ago. I was tempted to send Robert Downey Jnr a new message when Ironman came out. My father was a blacksmith you see, so I used to joke with my kids that my dad made Birmingham’s Iron Man statue up in his bedroom in the old people’s home, just to pass the time away.

To my point though, a great routine is really great whether Chaplin or Ironman does it, physical comedy that runs and runs. You could say Jackie Chan should qualify for such an award. An Oscar for it should be given, they gave awards for a silent film years ago, so why not Slapstick. I’m of an age where I saw the Marx Bros and Laurel and Hardy on tv as well as all the 60s stuff and up to the present, so my breath is very wide. Or would this be classed as too old fashioned, they can only have one silent film after all. I’d say classic comedy pieces last forever so why have an Oscar for it. By the way if I bump into Robert Downey Jnr having the bumps knocked out of his flying suit by my dad at the old people’s home I’ll have a word with him. Though my dad died over a decade ago, so it might just be a cobbler banging his suit on a last, instead of my dad. Or am I talking cobblers.

I can also remember misdirection in a routine, Who’s on First in Abbot and Costello when talking about baseball. Linguistic Acrobatics is the fancy name, well worth an Oscar two. I try it in a line or two when I’m talking to you, its fun for the writer and more fun for the actor when they get it right. In Stardust where DeNiro negotiates the price with that English comic you have a fine example of linguistic acrobatics, great film by the way.

So I’ve given you examples of how I see the Oscars should be. Can you ask Robert Downy Jnr. To fly over some left overs to me when the Oscar parties are over, I’ll get him discount with the cobblers for his suit tone up. I have to finish now its late and I need to sleep, but do have a great Oscar’s night whatever colour you wear, in the end we are all naked and the only performance that matters is how we treated the least of our brethren.

  

Welcoming Sweden and Everybody Else

Welcoming Sweden and Everybody Else ©

By

Michael Casey

I ventured out further up the road today, the ice and snow is too much for me nowadays so it as nice to take a trip up the road to the shops. My daughters demanded chocolate and Polish buns if I only went as far as the Polish shop at the corner, luckily I went to our posh supermarket instead. Their buns are very nice too, and chocolate for Mother’s Day was on offer a full week early. I also spotted a couple of still fresh sandwiches at 1/4 price, so obviously I got them for my dinner. Half price cappuccino was also available, so all in all a nice Sunday’s shopping, and a proper escape from the house after all the snow.

Now I’m chilling with John Denver and his Rocky Mountain collection, he was a big friend of mine 40 years ago, so I decided to free him from the cd box and let him sing. He is on my computer hard disc now along with 100 other CDs. A cd is a thing that welcomes us home, we hit play and kick off our shoes. We sling the dinner in the oven and relax on the sofa. That was my life in my computer room days. Mind you the MSG in processed ready meals, even if it was just breadcrumbs on kievs may have been bad for my heart, though I probably just inherited my heart from my dad, and the arthritis from my mum. Its nice to be a close family, but its better not to inherit the diseases. At lease my Ckd was not inherited, that’s all my own.

Now speaking of chilling I just spotted Sweden joining my reading club today, so hello to whoever they are. If you are a Nobel family member I’m not worth a Prize, and as my dad used to say is there any money attached to it? Otherwise it was rubbish in his opinion. Talk is cheap but money buys bread was his motto. Anyway hello Sweden, even if you are a lowly hotel cleaner having a look at the internet on the hotel’s front of house computer. I was hotel worker for 3 years.

No today’s title is Welcoming. What makes you feel welcome? Hotels and companies pay millions to Advertisers and Brand people and Designers to make us feel welcome. Why? Because if we feel welcome then we will come back.It is no good if people feel as if they were robbed or mugged almost if when they go somewhere they never want to return. Remember you’ll tell 10 people that Michael Casey was such a rubbish host and you’ll say all manner of bad things about him. But if Michael Casey was a great host, you’ll only tell 4 people.  Hotel’s know this, it is also common sense, that’s why they train you to be nice. They do also pick nice people to start with. Empathetic people. Nobel only discovered what people really thought of him when he read his own obituary, and then he changed. So Hotels are aware of this in advance.

In different cultures they must feed you well or they lose face. Arab cultures are noted for their hospitality, as are the Irish. I once heard that in one culture the host’s wife was offered as token of respect. You’ll have to Google that to see if that is an urban myth. If you reversed that idea I doubt if any guest female or male would accept me as an offering. It may explain why nobody comes visiting to our house, for fear of ending up in bed with me,as a token of hospitality. Or it could just be that our tea and biscuits are really rubbish. There is no Trip Adviser rating for our house, so I’ll never find out.

Moving on, in Sweden its their vegetables which make them famous, the swedes in Sweden are truly outstanding. Abba was a famous fruit and vegetable salesman, he used to sing cockles and muscles alive and alive o, but then his children grew up so they sung songs as they pushed the barrow around selling swedes in Stockholm. At Christmas stockings were filled with swedes for all the Swedes. My mother said if she go an orange then she was really happy, this was 1920s Kerry Ireland. So imagine that the Swedes followed then same path, but with swedes in a stocking.

The salesman’s children had an idea, so the girls wore the stockings, they were the Swedes in stockings as opposed to swedes in stockings. And the boys grew beards so they did not look like the girls too much. Then they pushed the barrow through the streets broad and narrow, singing  Swedes come and eat your swedes, we have various sizes just for your needs, Swedes come and eat your swedes. It was so catchy they should have won a prize, but not a Nobel prize.

Tragedy struck the wheel fell off the barrow, so they thought they would starve. They stopped to cry outside a pub, and lamented they’d met their Waterloo, while they nipped inside to use the loo, they had an idea. So seizing the stage, they sang for all they were worth. My, My we’ve been to the loo, we’ve lost our barrow, no more swedes for us, please let us sing for our supper.

And after a lot of practice, they became a band. The rest is a mystery to me, as I’ve never eaten swedes. So Sweden welcome to my world of words. John Denver is singing about Old Shanghai now, and my Shanghai wife has fallen silent now, I think she just ate her swedes.