As I look back on my life

As I Look Back On My Life ©

By Michael Casey

Sounds like a piece by an old man ready for the Undertaker, though I am getting old now, though I still maintain I’m 20 in my head, even if these past 3 years my body has aged considerably, first with the arthritis and then with the  unplanned quadruple heart bypass, recovery seems to take forever. Anyway I thought I’d try and write a piece while I’m waiting for the computer tidy up to finish. I suppose Mark Twain thought the same thing though I don’t have his white suit, as portrayed in all the films on tv. And news of my death has been greatly exaggerated, though some nights the pain is so bad…

So as I look back what’s been the more memorable bits? Well my girls did say the other day I should write a memoire, my reply was that my book  300 and Not OUT had the funniest bits in, lots about them and our Shanghai mum. I choose not to write sad stuff, because I’ve seen too many sad things, hence my determination to stay a fool, well until Rupert Murdoch gives me a tape recorder and a few million quid, not that money is any use, I need a full body transplant, maybe like on Westworld, I saw the original film 30 or 40 years ago.

If I could live 30 more years that would be nice, but I’ve been honest with my girls. If I can stay relatively fit, and scream in pain in the night, long enough to see them both graduate they should be content with that, I’m not going to lie and say dad will live forever. The theory being they enjoy me while I’m here, and no it’s not emotional blackmail, though like all parents I’ll use all the tools in the toolbox.

So what’s been memorable, buying this house this home, after our dog peed on the for sale sign and I only then noticed it was for sale. That was memorable, well spotted dog, literally.  Having a breakfast club once I got the house, friends from working staggering here after the night shift and I made them a fry up, before sending them home to their own homes  to sleep the night shift off.

Watching Dawn every morning from our perch on Smallbrook Queensway, no we were not voyeurs, if you work the night shift it’s a privilege to see the day break each morning, that’s how I spent my 20s, watching Nature’s greatest girl rising each morning. I also was the company’s token Catholic or Christian if you want to be ecumenical, I used to use by lunch break to dash to Sunday Mass.

Going to the pub was my friends and the entire company’s religion, though I will say some of them were more Christian than your regular Christians, perfect company on any desert island. A huge thankyou to Barry and Steve and Dave and not forgetting Miss Dangly, it was a mad mad existence and I am so happy I had such a life for 21 years there at Stats. 

My 3 years at CPNEC was so special too, Roger and Jim were so kind to me as was Phil and all the girls in housekeeping. This is beginning to sound like  an Oscars speech, so maybe I should add right now thanks to my mum who said I was as good as anybody when I was 5.  And to dad who said do what you like but do your best.

All sorts of memories can fill the page, and fill a Life too, so as I head towards the final chapter, should I sing My Way now, should I stay in the past? No I still want to write 29 books and this will be part of book 11,that was the way my big daughter showed her love, by telling me to write 29 books, there were 29 dresses in the film after all, so if I keep on writing I keep on living, then she doesn’t lose me.

WikiLeaks and Me and The Election too

WikiLeaks and Me and The Election too ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve come away from watching RED for the 5^th plus time to write a piece about the USA Election, just a few weeks away. Last night was the posh dinner and today even more WikiLeaks came out.  The total irony about the Election is that it’s all about pants, Trump wanted to use Bill’s lack of pants as a weapon, then all the girls, 10 to date came out and spoke about Trump’s activities. Then all the leaks came out, which made things Pants for Hillary. Pants means rubbish here in England, was the game good? No it was pants.

A guy who is hiding in Russia who betrayed his own country gets to manipulate the voters in USA. It’s ironic that Hillary had all her email problems and now is being shafted by emails again. And Republicans are so eager to believe a traitor, assuming all the emails are true anyway.

My other point would be, we all say we hate Mrs Smith from down the road because she parks her car so badly and restricts the flow of traffic in your posh little drive. But we never say it to her face because she bakes the best cookies in the whole of Alabama, so we accept her bad parking for fear of losing her cookies, we all remember the bear in the Andy Williams show is it 50 years ago now. We will send emails and messages to each other saying she is a SOB the way she parks, so what would happen if WikiLeaks revealed that. There would be disharmony in your little community Mrs Smith would no longer share the cookies.

In the big wide world secrets are secrets for a reason, you don’t share them for fearing to upset one party of another. You have to organise things so as not to upset people, you have to show one face so as not to lose face as the Chinese say, my wife is from Shanghai by the way. We are all Rubic cubes, and we are a mix of this and that, we unscramble the cube to produce order. Now if internal emails which have been hacked come to the fore what does it do? It just scrambles the cube again, and yes people are two faced and argue and bicker, but I would say this is normal in any family.

Mom can I go out tonight, who are you going out with, ok so long as you are back by 11pm, and wear a Tshirt under that skimpy blouse, and make sure you avoid Liam, he’s a sick SOB, and bring some milk from the late night shop when you come home. These are similar conversations held every day the world over, and the child may bitch and moan about her mum, but she will bring home the milk.

If her private emails were broadcast there would be a rift in the family, it’s like diaries used to be in previous ages nowadays it’s our emails. 

Which ARE all scanned by the way, I get Undertakers, and Health emails, as well as pain relief emails offering me services. You need to have a decent subject line before I open one and michaelgcasey@hotmail.com is the only email I use, so any offers for my writing need to go there. I’m taking a chance now as I could get millions of hate emails, ok 3, one from Snowden and one from Trump and another from Hillary.

So if we think about WikiLeaks what is the purpose behind it? It’s to help Trump become President, who would be weaker than Hillary despite her faults, personally I’d vote for Bloomberg but he is not running, and I live in Birmingham England not Alabama so I have no vote anyway. Some things are secret for a reason, and if we go back to watching RED, some very strong things have to be done to protect a country.  Hillary watched Bin Laden being executed live, while Trump was doing a beauty show.

WikiLeaks  seeks to influence the Election by showing one sides inner workings, the sad reality is that this time around in USA 66% of  all the voters don’t really like either of them. Today we had a major hack event in USA major companies had DOS attacks, it should be a wake-up call to USA, it should also wake up the entire population, THINK FOR YOURSELVES.  

 And protect your computers before the whole country goes  dark, just like in another Bruce Willis film.

I have to go take a leak now.

No More Pain

No More Pain ©

By Michael Casey

Mary J Blige was just singing on Magic Chilled, and part of the song said No More Pain, she’s being followed by Will Young, in a way they are both singing about the same thing, Pain. This makes me smile as this  morning I was screaming in pain, lying down gives me pain thanks to my scar tissue and my Arthur/arthritis. Relax I won’t bore you all too much with this. The next song is we were born sick, take me to church.

I was wondering what to write about tonight, and the radio presented the answer to me, or is God the straight man feeding me the line and I turn it into a comic line, just like double acts, such as Abbot and Costello. We all have sad days, and there are friends at work or in our neighbourhood who lift our spirits. Some say they are just useless, worthless people, but in fact they are the glue that binds society together.

If you forgive yet another Trump joke, who would we be laughing at now if we didn’t have Donald to laugh at, so he could end up with the Congressional Medal of Honour spelt with just an O  too, because he gave us all such great entertainment, I speak as an avid news watcher with 50 years experience. And as he said he’ll still get to Pennsylvania Avenue, he just opened a new hotel there in the old Post Office building.

So Heaven Help Hillary if she wins and wants to post any clothes to her grandchild in New York. They’ll just disappear, or do losing Presidential candidates join the Post Office, so should we watch out for Mr Trump wearing shorts. Though in Men in Black 3, one of the Men in Black worked in the Post Office, before coming out and saving the world. So Donald Trump will save the world from aliens, but that’s all in the Future.

But I digress, I must have learnt that from the Donald Trump school of speech giving. I hope I have amused you all, especially those of you at the London Embassy, as you report back to Obama what the rest of the world is thinking about.

I heard that John Kerry will be asked to remain as Foreign Secretary, but his shorthand is not very good. He also is thinking of joining Team Sky and doing the Tour de France, but his secret service detail insist they are not shaving their legs for anybody, not even if Rupert Murdoch throws in the new Q Sky tv thingy. 

So it looks like that John Kerry, who is the best President America never had, in my opinion, he will in fact go back to his job sealing the lids on baked bean tins  in his wife’s old bean factory. Even though there may be issues with Global Warming due to the number of children who eat too many baked beans, even though it is a form of central heating for kids.

Where was I, I am about to watch the Press Preview on Sky, so I have to  finish, but I hope I have distracted you enough  so that you forget your pain. Whatever your pain is, a teacher, a boyfriend, an exam, or a fat silver haired writer from Birmingham who makes you cry before you go out on stage and say everything is rigged, should I remind you of the song about the Scottish Donald? 

Family Decision

Family Decision ©

By Michael Casey

We have been going through a process for several months now, and as you can already guess we have not made a decision. If it’s a bloke he makes his mind up quite quickly. How much money does he have in his pocket, or in his bank account, and if there’s enough he’ll buy what he needs. Me, I only have a few quid in my pocket at any one time, any less and I’d be Royalty. Royalty never carries any cash, even though Grannies/Mommies image is on all the coinage, just so they never forget who they love, and who is the Boss. So I can be an impulse buyer and buy what I want, be it a loaf of bread or a pair of Clarks shoes. But what if it is something more expensive?

Well if my have my card in my pocket I’ll spend money, so I leave my card safely at home, otherwise I’d be bankrupt. That’s no doubt how the Royals grew their fortune. Same as when I’m on holiday I’ll spend money easily, but once back home from holidays, I hide my card. Luckily our dogs have good noses and can find it again, I wrap it in a smelly sock to help them.

Now back to decisions, if it’s just me then I’m very quick. But once you have a wife and then daughters things take longer and longer to decide. Years ago picking our first car was  easy, I picked a Skoda, I’d done all the research and that’s what I could afford. But then your wife says she prefers X or Y or Z, so you spend time investigating X then Y then Z, before you know what, she agrees with me that the Skoda would be perfect after all. I suppose this is marriage the world over. My dad’s death meant we had a bit of extra money so we upgraded the model of the Skoda, having a bit of comfort as my dad used to say.

Daughters bring more joys to a family, and longer decision making times. You can’t just buy a thing you have to buy a pretty thing, a nice and pretty thing that must be PINK, well for a few years anyway. I have 2 daughters and a female cat, so I am outnumbered 4 to 1, little wonder I become a gay dad, this means I have to learn about Fashion and Colour Coordination. So when I buy something the Female perspective has to be taken into account, so any packaging that is pink or just pretty wins hands down. We eat Warburtons bread not just because it’s very nice, but because my girls like the pretty Orange wrapper it comes in.

Many decisions in a family are simple and obvious but you have to share decision making, whether or not you want to. As somebody once told me, it may have been Elaine Palin the poet, you are living with 3 girls you haven’t got a chance. Though I like to think that I am the dad, a cross dressing dad, but I still wear trousers occasionally.

So my word is Law, let’s stop right here. See I even put a full stop, or period for any American readers. I’m not one of these old fashioned dads I treat my girls like adults, probably from when they were 7 and could finish the Times Crossword in under 6 minutes.  Now some of my statements are comic devices, apart from the cross dressing, as I’m always angry when I get dressed as I am a nudist, the little old ladies in the seniors home down the road have a telescope you know.

As I was saying before you all side-tracked  me,  decisions just take so much longer when you are in a family. As a lad it’s around the chippy for a kebab and chips, then you have a Shanghai wife who can cook so she demands vegetables, so you ask what are vegetables? Then children come along and you force them to eat their vegetables, sweet or is it bitter revenge for what their mother did to you.

Every item in life is shared and laughed at in a family, where did daddy steal Eddie Izzard’s dresses from, and hasn’t daddy learnt that pink and sage do not go together. 

I could go on but this chair is really hard and I don’t want to get a splinter in my bum again. Last time my girls laughed so much they peed on the floor, they blamed Totoro the cat for it too. The sight of me lying on the settee with my bum in the air while my wife used a needle to get the splinter out was just too much for them. Thank God it didn’t end up on Facebook, hopefully nobody would have recognised my behind, it would have been the end for me otherwise.

  

Thanks to my readers world wide, including hackers and scammers, just please don't send me any rubbish, I just don't have the energy to waste, see photo above. 

just follow link and buy some books thanks,

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0 

p.s. when I reach 1,000,000 WORDS WRITTEN they'll be an omnibus book for 15quid or so, a bargain so watch out for that, and don't forget to say your prayers at night, and pray for my health.