Volcano April 2010

Some say that Volcano is Iceland's revenge on the UK, as it had to pay back billions when Iceland more or less went bankrupt. It had been selling very high interest bonds which in the end failed. England used anti-terrorist law to freeze and seize Iceland's assets. There is also the memory of the 1970s Cod Wars which were between Iceland and the UK.

The Volcano has made us all think about just what would life be like without planes. Just what it must have been like when people saw their first plane about 100years ago. Life has changed so much and the pace of life really does get faster. The photo below is where my mother was born in County Kerry Eire opposite Inch and the famous Dingle Peninsula. She lived in that "house" until she was 12, along with her mum and dad and 6 other siblings. Her brother Timothy died aged 7 of Rickets. I can remember my mother stood at the kitchen sink, crying as she shared this memory with me. 

The Volcano has stopped all of us in our tracks, for a few days we were back in the 19th Century. Though we still had our phones and our Internet. Back then merchant seamen were the only men who sailed the seven seas. My grandad, my mum's dad, who I never met was a merchant seaman. I muse did he ever get to Shanghai, from the West of Ireland to the East of China. Without planes my wife would never have travelled so far. Airplanes have stirred  the pot, I have a wife from Shanghai for starters, and the rest of my family is made up of different nationalities. Remember the old song "what the world needs now is a great American pot." You can Google it for the words and no doubt its on Utube somewhere.

The Volcano has emptied the skies, but filled our hearts. Filled our hearts with Hope and Longing, just when will our mum, dad, children, grannie be back with us where they belong.

In our house when the Internet was playing up, thats when we think when can we see grannie in Shanghai again, when can she sing songs with the kids over the Internet, when can we laugh and joke? Nowadays in our world air travel is just as important as that.

We only realize just how much we need a thing when we lose it, whether it be a plane in the sky or our water supply. In some Faiths they have a Retreat, which is when you retreat from this world and do without normal everyday things. A bit like a Pilgrimage. I've been on Pilgrimage 3 times in my life at different ages and it was fun. I went to Lourdes in southern France, you can literally  feel the electricity in the air. Then it was stepping out from my normal day to day life and having a dose of Faith. I should add that its not just all praying in Lourdes, there is fun too. I'll write about it in the future. Back to the Volcano, this event has made us all realize  just how much we all use/need planes. It can give us all a time for Peace

to get more connected with our inner self. A chance to get off the conveyer belt, to see the clear blue skies, literally. A  chance to breath,  to think, to ponder.

A Volcano is a big dirty thing that shakes, rattles and rolls us. A kind of rock music without the blue suede shoes. It reminds us just how little we are, we are like ants on this our beautiful Earth.

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc

How do YOU blog?

How do YOU blog? And perhaps more importantly, Why do you blog? I was thinking about my next blog here when I thought instead of writing about today's events I write about how I get to write about today's and any day's events. Me, I've started writing back in 1987, I kind of stumbled into it like I've done most things in my life. It did take my 1 year to learn, learn the hard way to write. I hope that I'm a better writer because of this. Little stories gave way into an attempt to write a book. Sat in front of the gas fire, on an old barn chair with the back cut off I perched a typewriter on a stool and away I went. I ended up with a 235 page novel which I then called "A Nation Of Shopkeepers", which was Napoleon's  contemptous phrase for the English. Until Wellington cut him down to size. A  few years later I decided I wanted more that just one typescript of my "masterpiece" so I bought an Atari 520 and started copytyping it all out, so then I'd have it on a computer and I could make multipul copies. I should add that the noivel doubled in size and I renamed it The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, I still have those multipul copies scattered around my house, just in case of fire or theft. 10 years ago when I met my Shanghai rose we had to invest in a proper computer and Internet so my wife could talk to her mum in Shanghai. As for me it was a chance to have a website so that my babies were safe in cyberspace. It also gave me a chance to blog. Now IF you compare one of my essays, attached to these blogs, then you can see there is a difference in style. I hope my blogs read as if its a bedtime story, your nan or grandpa is sitting in the chair beside you and he's recounting a funny story that makes you feel secure and happy and lets you drift off to sleep. For me its writing practice, if you don't practice then you forget how to do it. Its also a short form of writing that takes no more that an hour or much less, but it gives you a chance to "preach" to the rest of the world. You can also make friends. I used  to practice my writing on positive thoughts.com and there were lots of nice folks there, one post got 800 views. The  forum has now closed that's why I annoy people on this site instead. But back to my theme, why do we all blog, well its so we can all say "hey listen to me " , "I'm just as good as you", ultimately we  have our own tv/radio station via our blogs. Or perhaps I should say Newspaper, its a chance to share, to boast, to grow together even, to laugh together too. I must say there are some good jokes that do the rounds and I do like them, not to forget the poems and thoughts that are shared. I was once in a bar in County Kerry and the pub was owned by an Irish writer, his book  The Field was made into a film with Richard Harris. Hie neice told me that he wrote because it was "in him". What does that mean? I think I understand because the stories that are "in me" just have to come out. Even if you stop writing and its only as you are picking up litter around the 4star hotel car park that that ideas come back to you, then you can begin to understand what "in me" means. Just as musicians have the music in them, so words are in me and in you all as you blog here and now on this Multiply site. Do you wait for all the story to be ready in your head or do you just start with an idea and wait for the Muse to take you where it wants to go. I enjoy going with the flow, its like closing your eyes when youare on a long journey and when you open your eyes you have arrived at some place totally different, like crossing a border in the night. While I blog my big daughter sometimes sneaks downstairs so she can watch and read as I write something. Or when I finish a new blog I get her to have a read to see if it makes her laugh or whatever. All I can say is that to blog is to share, folks may never bother to open an attachment but at least for the course of the blog I have an audience, even if it could only be an audience of one, and that's my daughter. 

Library Books

Over 40 years ago one Summer my brother needed to go to the library, so he took all of us in toe. The library is a fine old building from the Victorian age when it was thought you could educate the working class masses. You can google and  find out more for yourself, or maybe there is an old English history book in your own local library. Anyways we got to the library and it was shut, so my brother said "at least you've seen the library." It was a hot summer's day and we had all just walked 2 miles and it would be 2 miles back. I can remember there was a little sweet shop right next door, but I don't remember if we had any money for sweets onthat occasion. It was before the tower blocks were built at Spring Hill, this was around the time that old houses were demolished and the brand new idea of tower blocks was invented. It makes me  realise just how much the passage of time has passed. I'm like Bill Clintonnow in that speech he gave, "I have seen more Summers than I will see." I've reached part two of my life, the part that leads to the end. Personally I feel my Life has not yet begun, does this make me a child or am I in denial? I still have dreams and you all know what they all, they are attached to my blogs. Back to the library, we have one at the bottom of my street, so we're getting our girls to use it. No need to walk to the Victorian one, which still stands, and they even diverted a new road to save the old library and now its a listed building, and still opens occasionally. So instead we walk to the bottom of our street, and to the right is the library, I think it was built in the 30s. Inside I get my girls to browse and pick up as many books as they can. Nowadays you are allowed to borrow 12 books at a time, when I was using a library  it used to be four. I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes  books when I was 12 or so, I never became a detective, I was just hiding  from Mr Gallagher and his hit slipper, that started at the age of 8 and changed my life for the better. Corporal punishment hurts the butt but focuses the mind. Once hitten twice shy so to speak. I ended up as Head Boy too. And all because of not knowing my times tables, but I was never hit again, I made sure of that, There was the class library on the bookshelves besides me so I practically read everything, literally everything, mainly History. When I left Primary school I was given The Outline Of History by H.G.Wells by the headmaster. It sits on the bookshelf to my right, next to an enormous Chinese/English dictionary and a bigger English dictionary, and a little fairy next to a photo of my girls with just enough room for a clock, I do love a nice clock, and watch for that matter. Back to the library at the end of the road my girls browse and my smallest one chooses a few books with bears inside, anything remotely like Pooh Bear always interests her. She finally settles for 10 books and her big sister has five. Its still the Easter holidays so I want to keep their minds occupied. A bit of reading and then TV and cartoons, all things Roal Dahl on tv are always a bit hit. As we leave the library "Daddy when will your books be in the library." "Whenever I find a publisher." is my reply full of hope. We cross over the road so they can look at comics in the store, then its off home, later after they have done some reading there will be reward while we do some shopping. I can still  remember my mother teaching me to read by looking at the Phantom  cartoon in the local news paper, more than 45 years ago. Now my big daughter as I call her is on Library books and she's away, my little daughter who calls herself the qutest while her big sister is the prettiest she just needs a bit of encouragement and then she too will be flying. My little daughter says she wants to be a doctor, she has a plastic stethoscope already, so only time will tell. I tell both of them to try and remember everything so they can in turn tell their own kids. My big daughter wants to be a designer so if she's a designer and her sister is a doctor then I'd be so proud. Us, we the Parents are stepping stones for our children to stand on, our shoulders are there so they can stand on them, and books are food to feed their appetite.

Me and my Radio

I remember my first radio,it was a small blue plastic tranny. I can remember when we heard the news on it that RFK had been asasinated. I remember the white plastic family tranny we had. I remember the old Bush radio with the saucer dial, that is now called retro. Having that radio given to us by Frank Brown a lodger of ours changed my life. We used to listed to the world tonight with Douglas Stewart reporting followed by the book at bed time.I can remember listening to The Ghost and Mrs Muir, only I fell asleep so my brother had to tell me what happened. I always had a radio beside me, it was my company when me brother left home, company while I did my homework and studied for my O Levels.Listen to Radio 4 constantly for 20 years.Perhaps hearing 3 plays a week for all those years, enjoying words, enjoying knowledge and news. When I heard about DAB I just had to have one,though they do eat batteries big time. I even bought an adapter so I can hear DAB through my HiFi. Real radio was my favourite until it disappeared, stations with Music and less prattle and talking over songs were my joy of DAB. I even bought a personal DAB radio as a Birthday present to myself 5 years ago. My Ferguson is still going strong, though my daughter has stolen it these Easter holidays and wants one of her own, even though she has a Blick DAB in her bedroom. Yes I am in love with radio, and if anybody wants to give me their DABs because their love affair is over then just send them along. AND if there are any fancy Pure personal dabs to be had I'd love them too, that way all my family could have one and I wouldn't have to hide my personal Dabs from my two girls. Radio can change a life and radio really is company, in some ways it has been a best friend to me, 40 years a friend and I hope 40 more years of friendship, though I'd rather hear my own plays on the radio. I can spot a radio 4 play at 100 yards now........

General Election in UK coming soon

I have a dream we had honest politicians

 I had a dream only our elected representatives run the country

 I had a dream people got selected because of worth

 Not selected because of earth, how many acres they own 

Not selected because of their dad knowing somebody else's dad

I had a dream that Class Warfare was in the dustbin of history

 I had a dream where people voted for the best man or woman 

NOT a parachuted in friend of a friend

 Not a woman because she was a woman

 But a candidate who was the best person for the job

 Not a media savy nobody who was sucking up to a somebody

 I had a dream that we the voters gave two fingers to the Political Class

 I had a dream that we voted in somebody just like us, 

Somebody just like our mum and dad or our uncle or our best mate

Just Somebody we could trust, somebody who would push the car in Winter, somebody who'd buy us a drink in the pub and not expect any in return.

I had a dream that we all looked in the mirror and voted for somebody just like us

Well that's my take on the Election Campaign here in England, you can read the newspapers on the internet www.telegraph.co.uk is what I'd recommend.

But there's lots of choice, bbc.co.uk/news  and skynews.com are good .

As for me a long time ago I wrote a comedy version of an election. Its chapter8 and chapter9 in my comedy book The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker I'll attach those 2 chapters so you can read it for yourself, and if you like it the entire book is attached too.

me in my best politician look, 

or do I look like a doorman?

Good Friday Service with added Shona Singing

A few years ago at Easter Sunday Mass we had Shona singing, I think I put that blog on this site somewhere. Today its Good Friday, and in our Catholic tradition this means the passion Of Christ and the kissing of the cross. Followed by communion. Kissing of the cross is about thanking Christ for his humility in dying for us on the cross. Our priest also said a few words, he's been reading a Jewish scholar's book about faith and God and sharing it with us. Some of what he said I could understand other bits I could not. Its Philosophy and that takes a lot of thinking about. Though what I did understand I did agree with. Everybody goes up to kiss the feet of christ, so there are hymns while this is done. The final hymn was in Shona, very very good with a drum beat and shakers shaking while they sung and swung as the sung. This music really touched me. After kissing of the cross there was communion and more hymns, the final hymn was a Shona one, again with drum beats and shakers. This really was a great Good Friday for me. Normally the Shona Mass is at 1pm on a Sunday but for me it was really great to have them with us this Good Friday. 400 people may have been squeezed in.

 

Olympic Folly I name it Spagetti UFO

The new folly for the Olympics is a great idea.

I THINK IT SHOULD BE CALLED SPAGETTI UFO 

cos thats what it looks like in the drawing in todays Telegraph. Do I get a prize for naming it. Spagetti UFO it rolls off the tongue.

www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

cheers from Birmingham the home of spagetti junction.

me and my girls 5 years ago, flu included