Vanity isn't Fair

Vanity isn’t Fair ©

By Michael Casey

As I sit here talking to you I am squeezed into an old pair of suit trousers, they have lined legs so they last longer, when you bend  your knees don’t poke through the lining, that extra layer makes them last years long.  Ask your dad or granddad if you don’t believe me, you’ll have to shout because he’s dead 10 years, ha ha, everybody like to be a joker. So these trousers belong to a suit I had maybe 17 years ago, sadly lined legs don’t make me taller though 5feet 10 is tall enough.

We buy suits for interviews, nobody just wears a suit, not unless they are Beatles in the 60s, then it was trendy to wear a suit. I wore this suit for interviews post 1999 I think, when my big job ended and I was cast out into the real world, instead of the surreal world where I had worked for 21years as a computer operator.

We look into the mirror and see does our bum stick out and our legs short and stumpy, the answer is yes in both cases for me. Maybe I have some African genes so I am able to carry a baby on my back/bum otherwise my legs are very strong, I did play in the scrum at rugby and I have stood for decades in my working life. My Shanghai wife always  says I have  strong legs, this came in useful as veins were harvested for my quadruple heart bypass.

So as a good looking man, ok I’m lying, as a man, a George Clooney look alike, ok I look like Huw Edwards of the BBC, yes really, go google if you don’t believe me. So as I was saying before all you doubters started to laugh, I don’t look in the mirror all the time, I just comb the dandruff into a line and then I leave the house. As I walk down the road I may occasionally look at my reflection in the shop windows, and whisper encouragingly to myself, you look so hot, so very hot, then I spin around on my heels and do a John Travolta pose. Now am I being serious or am I joking, you will never know, though the Chinese take-way does have the best window for posing as its all black glass, apart from the menu in white on the inside.

Now are women as a breed more sensitive of their image, and do they look in the mirror or at their own reflections in shop windows more than men or less? Could be a feature in the Daily Mail, I must say I do enjoy Kevin and Andrew on Sky’s Press Preview, but I’ve side-tracked myself now, I must be careful or I’ll trip over Jeremy Corbyn sat on the floor obstructing my access to the toilet, he mustn’t do that with my Ckd.

So if a couple are walking down the street, concentrating on trucking right, what it means  I haven’t a clue , it was in a 10cc song years ago, anyway as they walk who admires themselves the most. And while we are talking about it why do men forever check to see if their zipper is fully up.

When you finish trucking and you meet your friends in the restaurant, ok at Burger King, why do you lie and say, you look wonderful, when in fact she looks like the dog’s dinner, but you are so happy she does, this makes you a winner. This old thing, you say as you twirl so she can admire your red dress, the one you got on eBay for £19.99, you lie and say it cost £100, but your husband  insisted on buying it for you, he didn’t know you used his card online.

You and your friend look around Burger King and slag off other women’s clothes, it’s your hobby for the last 30 years since you met in isolation at you old school. You were both put there for uniform violations you both wanted your school skirts to almost reach your navel.  After your spell in isolation you went the opposite way and became known as the nuns throughout the school, it was satire really but nobody noticed. 

So on it goes, people are really sensitive to some comment about their height, or weight, or in my case my hairy back, though I don’t care, it keeps me warm in winter. I also have very hairy eyebrows, as a child of 4 or 5 I cut them off when I found the family scissors. We just laughed and they grew back again. 

Years later when I was learning some French for Grammar school , I was 13 or so, I paced backforwards, that is backwards and forwards in English, as I learnt the French. I started plucking my eyebrows as I did so. In the end I had all my French but none of my eybrows. They were pluck away, they had almost all disappeared.

I’m not vain, but after my family stopped laughing they helped me alter my appearance, by painting eyebrows on me with mascara. I went to school and did the test, got 18/20, and nothing for my painted on eyebrows. 

Nobody noticed at school. However they 2^nd day my painted on eyebrows were spotted, though nobody dared taunt me, I was the biggest kid in the class. I told them it was Chemistry experiment that blew up in my face. This was a lie, and my priest will no doubt laugh and give zero penance, and tell all his friends, as it was not covered by the seal of the confessional. Later that week a man beckoned to me on my way to school, he gave me an old Chemistry set from his garage, yes even God was laughing at me.

So what is Vanity? It’s when we love our body and clothes too much. When the look rules all, when really it’s the soul that matters most. Some of the prettiest people I have met in my life are not the models male or female, but the characters who make you laugh, the guy who always has a story. The girl who’ll stay late to get the job done, they have true grit and they are really worth knowing. As for me I’m off to pluck my eyebrows, they have never been the same since grammar school, or am I just vain?

   

 my girls the wife and 2 daughters April 2013

Pain and Prayer

Pain and Prayer ©
By Michael Casey

Let my Pain be my Prayer
Let my Screams be the Chorus
Let my Pills be the Verse
Let my Winces be my Supplication
Let my Pain bitten lips be my Hope
Let Sleepless Eyes be my Testament
Let my Aching Limbs be my Mantra
Let the Ringing in my ears be my Peel of Prayer
Let the stabs of pain in my heart reach high heaven
Let the fog of pain in my brain be lifted by God’s Grace
Let me down from my cross because you have already been on yours.


**** sorry for reposting this but today is a pain day, and if Laborore es Orare then my poem is valid.

for those who don't know I had an unplanned quadruple heart bypass 18 months ago, plus I have the joys of Arthur my arthritis

From Joyce Grenfell to Family Traits

From Joyce Grenfell to Family Traits ©

By Michael Casey

First of all apologies to David, I said this story would be online by 4pm, but as its 3.55 and I’ve only just started he’ll have to forgive me. David is the church organist for the choir the girls are in, he and his wife are also the Godparents for the girls.  So think of Al Capone who can hit a high C but rides a bike to and from Aldi, and yes that’s where I just bumped into him. He was also a member of the Inland Revenue or IRS as they say in USA, and as we all know it was the IRS who finally put Al Capone away, hence the circle, the wheels on David’s bike.

Now where was I before David led me astray or is it ashtray, it must be astray as we are both non-smokers. So today I’m going to talk about Family Traits, the things that make us alike to our siblings and parents, assuming you were not adopted after being left on the doorstep at Aldi in a Moses basket, slowly drifting away in the puddles of water that gather in the ally leading to the car park.

When I talk to you or write these stories I am speaking to you all as I hope eventually my stories will be broadcast on radio, so once they are written  I post them on www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com and on https://butcherbakerundertaker.blogspot.co.uk/  then once I’ve done my security I shout to the girls who are watching Peppa Pig in the next room, do you want to hear the latest story.

They always say yes dad, because they want me to continue buying chocolate biscuits from Aldi for them. Then I read aloud the latest story, and it’s here that Joyce Grenfell comes in, because as I read a story back for the 1^st time I realise that Joyce Grenfell a dotty comedienne from 1950s and 1960s+  is reading the story, or rather the writing style is her performance style. No I have not copied her and as her material is not broadcast in decades it’s as if she has percolated inside me without me realising it. Now I want you all to go and google her and watch old black and white material on Utube, I only discovered it was there a couple of days ago when the idea for today presented itself.

Welcome back from your googling, which sounds like a real dirty word, something that a lady like me should not use, ever. See  that was Joyce Grenfell herself speaking not me, perhaps it explains why I like dressing up in women’s clothing, thank God David has never spotted me in the bargain basket in Aldi with my bum in the air as I root in the bottom of the basket.

There is a manner a way of talking that adds something to my words, to everybody’s words, the little touches that makes the difference. It’s the way I tell them as Frank Carson  used to say, he nearly died in Birmingham you know, Roger our driver at the hotel was taking Frank to the airport and Frank was cracking so many jokes that Roger nearly crashed the van he was crying with laughter.

So as I read back my stories the intonation has been influenced by Joyce Grenfell, directly and indirectly. We are all influenced by our surroundings, by the voices we hear and by the way in which words are used. I am talking to my girls and quiet often I’ll stop myself and say I sound like uncle X or uncle Y my brothers. How can this be? WE are all related that’s for sure, but sometimes out pops something even though you only see this relative at Christmas. It’s in the breed as my dad used to say.

So is it the rhythm of life itself, as I’ve shared a womb and we all share rooms or offices we share the same sounds and vibrations, just as we do in the womb itself. So we have a similar sense of humour and enjoy similar things, we are mass produced if you like, mass liking for this and for that. So family traits come about, those Caseys are all like this or all like that.

By coincidence the sound of the womb plays as Depeche Mode sing the next song in the background, music and football add to family and group traits, both have tremendous passion and influence, the heartbeat of life itself. With the heartbeat fading in the background of the Depeche Mode song I’ll finish for today, tomorrow they’ll be another story. What it’ll be about and which style it’ll be in I don’t know, but it will be different, as David might say Michael Casey is different, very different. What does he mean by that? Come back get off that bicycle, I want a word with you, where’s my Police Whistle as Joyce Grenfell might say.

Thanks to France and Germany for reading my stories, if its Mr Aldi reading them in Germany don't forget my idea to teach English via humour in www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com 

Free Software

Free Software ©

By Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I do like a bit of free software, and no I’m not talking about ladies knickers either. I mean the programs that you can get off the Internet, the browsers and so forth. Some are faster than others and they have better defences from all the rubbish out there in Cyberland. An adblocker is so useful, as is the ability to click and make something your desktop background, in my case it’s a house from Rightmove.co.uk, I usually pick B17 with a radius of 1 mile, this is where I hope to live when my boat finally comes in, though in my case it’s the Titanic.

Word is like water for me being a writer, though some may choose another word beginning with W, yes Worker as Mr Corbyn would call me, what were you thinking of? I have  Word2010 we got it from a nice Northern Irish company, if anybody wants to give me the latest super duper version I will be very happy, though I did get Libre Office 5 off the Internet just in case of emergencies. You have to have another word package just in case your own package does not work.

You can also get photo viewing software off the Internet too such as Fuji MyFinePix Studio, if you have kids you will no doubt have 1000s of photos of their childhood. In the old days we all had bookshelves of photo albums, nowadays they are on a hard drive on the computer. Behind me up a corner on the bottom shelf of the book shelf are my own original photo albums, I even had dark hair they are so old, I was 20, really 20. I rescued them from a plastic sack under my bed to a place of honour at the bottom of the book shelf next to our Miele vacuum cleaner. We did have boring vacuums but they kept on breaking so in the end we upscaled to a Miele, though I am not allowed to use it as I am just a man.

   

With software you can have fun changing people’s faces and colours, nowadays on tablets you can do the same thing. See software is good, it makes you feel good about yourself, I am talking about the fact I wear women’s under-ware now, what I hear ½ of you exclaim, while the other ½ say I just threw that sentence in to see if you were listening. Maybe I was or maybe I wasn’t, cross dressing is fun after all, it makes my wife cross when I wear her clothes.

There is a bad side to everything, not just cross dressing, ask Eddie Izzard, I won’t speak to him myself. Where was I, I got lost on the page, perhaps I need some satnav to bring my sentence structures  back to where they should be, the point. Ok I’m back to the point now, if you download any rubbish you get a VIRUS, and that’s a right pain in the butt. You can lose everything, such as your mind, your work, your business.

So to start with an antivirus is a must, Avast, Avira, AVG are just three beginning with the letter A, Microsoft has its own one too. You can get free versions as well as full featured ones. 360Degrees  is a Chinese one, that’s super dooper but it has issues with some Microsoft programs, you can have fun trying the software and see if it does what you want it to.

As for browsers Firefox is nice but so in Safari and Opera, does anybody actually use IE or Edge. The thing about software is that it is monitoring you so that they can sell you stuff or advertise to you. Does that make Cortana the local gossip and spy, the little old lady at the back of the church who bitches about everybody as she queues for Confession. You have to make up your own mind on that.

 It’s the same with email, they don’t read it, but they scan inside it, just so they can advertise to you. Try sending a message with the subject line of Michael Casey Birmingham Comedy Writer On Amazon and put a few lines in the message content,  

 http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1     

then send it to a few friends.

Now this is two things, firstly you are spamming your friends telling them to buy my 10 books, that’s the joke within a joke. But it is also something which will be scanned by your email provider and within days you’ll get messages from them with some vague connection to me. I get messages about funerals, and life insurance, I don’t know which order they should really be in, all because they have scanned my emails.

So you get free email accounts that promise never to read your mail, but they all do, of course I would use Hillary Clinton’s server but there is no room on it, besides which as so many emails get lost, my local butcher may lose my order for a Christmas Turkey.

However the good part of free email is that you can store your words of wisdom on the cloud inside your email. So my books are in my email accounts, so if my PC gets hacked and some days it’s so slow I think it is being used as a BodNet, anyway my 10 books my 900,000Words plus are safe on the Cloud as a precaution.  I have to check the chicken in the oven I’ll be back.

Well my chicken is nearly cooked, 3quid  from Aldi, bird in a bag, just cook for 1hour 40, should feed 4 with loads left over. Free Software  is like the chicken it should feed your mind and provide amusing conversation while you consume it, you may argue over who has the leg and who pulls the wish bone. Most important of all scan it before you use any software, otherwise you’ll be stuffed like the chicken. Security is Everything.

Delusional Dreams

Delusional Dreams ©

By Michael Casey

Are dreams delusional or just an illusion or maybe a form of prayer or something to protect us through the Dark Nights of The Soul? Now if you have just done PPE at Cambridge  you may have had that question on one exam paper, and are you half thinking that I was the horrid examiner who set that question. 

Then we’d both be delusional, the very thought of me being a Cambridge Don, more like Don Camillo than Cambridge Don, though the question I would throw at you would be Why Oxford? And I’d ask for 15,000 words in answer to the question Why Oxford? If I were an Oxford Don I may ask you Why are Cambridge Students such drunks? For that I’d ask 30,000 words as there’s such a plethora of evidence to prove the case only 30,000 words would do it justice.

I hope the cat has been thrown amongst all the pigeons, though when me and Mary Beard were down the Trader in Old Forge and Singing Anvil she did let slip a few home truths, give her 2 pints of Irish Lemonade, the red one and a packet of cheese and onion crisps and her tongue is so loose. Though only folks with a degree in Latin can understand a word she says, the red lemonade makes her such a gossip, and there’s no stopping her.

She can give you 150,000 words on Why Oxford, though this scruffy guy with blonde hair did earhole us as we drank our drinks, I had my usual Stella Artois of course.  Somebody said the spy was Norris or whatever his name was, he was drinking shandy should I say no more. In the end he bought some pork scratchings for his pet Fox and was away, but he did stop to speak to Mary Beard, whatever he said made her blush and dance around the bar just like Joyce Grenfell in the original Saint Trinians film.

Now have we got to the point of today’s story? Maybe it’s just a dream, me aspiring to have clever friends, though my brothers did go to Oxford and Cambridge. My own seat of learning was Spring Hill Library and Hudson’s book store New Street Birmingham, as well as 20 years of BBC Radio 4, which is PSB if you are American. Though isn’t PSB something else in Russia, sorry FSB, I only bring it into the conversation because today my readership has extended into Russia, as well as China, and Saudi Arabia.

I don’t think Putin reads my stuff on my websites, though it could help with his English, perhaps he’s dreaming of retirement, Trump could have offered him a job as a pro player at his golf courses. It could be Putin’s dream being a golf pro. I played golf on holiday in Abergele Wales as a child, who knows one day me and Putin could play golf on one of Trump’s courses.

Dreams don’t have to be logical, they are hopes, they are not reality. A dream can be a target too, like dreaming of someday making money from your writing, while you shake the pram and make notes on the table of a café. It worked for Mrs Harry Potter didn’t it.

Planning Ahead

Planning Ahead ©

By Michael Casey

Planning ahead, or making a list is what we all should do, there is only so much you can keep in your head, so we put things down on paper or write in the sand if you are on a beach, or on a blackboard if you are a teacher, but best of all you can put it on your PC. I plan my stories in my head and then woosh I put them into Word, it’s a bit like the doors opening on the Metro and everybody spills out, or at Harrods Sale when everybody spills in, or Black Friday, whatever springs to your mind that’s how it is, a kind of explosion, like when you shake your Dr Pepper and then take the cork off, sticky ice cold drink everywhere. But you’re glad you have it on paper.

At the moment we are planning a few things, and we have a family discussion, what about his, what about that, and did you think of this and did you think about that. However on the other hand, what if this and what if that, and what will your friends say when they find out, will they help or will they say that they’d do anything for love but not that, never that, how could we expect them to support us if we did such a thing. They could not hold their head up high any more, they would be shamed by association, they could never go in the butchers and ask for two chops and a kidney, plus a few scraps for the cat.

Now what exactly are we planning? Are we going to go Vegan or vote for Corbyn or even for Trump? I cannot really tell you what the plan is as it’s so fluid, like my spilt coffee all over my printer yesterday, I had to mop it all up, and my plan has to be contained too, or the effect will be spoilt, like all good Theatre everything is in the timing, so you’ll just have to trust me I’m a writer, or trust me I’m a priest if that makes you more confident in me. See everything will be all right in the end, as my dad used to say When God Made Time He Made Plenty of It. Or as my mother used to say God is Good and With the Help Of God and Two Policemen everything will be ok. So trust my planning, if only I could find that piece of paper, did I use it to mop up my spilt coffee, no use crying over that.