My Old Age

I'm called "grandpa" by the teachers when I pick up my kids from school. Because my hair is prematurely white. In a way its a joke, but I am over 40 years older than my kids. I was a late starter, but I do have a young wife, who looks even younger because she's  from the East, Shanghai to be exact. In the East they respect Old Age, so I'm all in favour of that. But as for having a good old age, I think I'll be dead, I won't last that long. I'll have to work to at least 66, and maybe 67. So I'll be worn out by the time it comes to retire. My dad was a blacksmith and then spent 40years in a steel works, The District Iron and Steel in Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. Has a ring to it don't you agree? He retired a year or two early when the works was closed down. He had ten golden years with my mum, then mum died, then he had 5 years in an old people's home, read Padre Pio and Me   www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com But he at least had those golden ten years.

My brother was made redundant and now at 60 he's retired. He can look forward to 20+years of relaxation and learning. Me I've got 14 years more to do, if there's any jobs left. If I could win that lottery, then I'd retire today and write more books. Or if I could get something produced/published then I'd be able to retire. The chances of that happening, probably zero, but strange things have happened, read Literary Criticism on my site. Perhaps the government should start a National Laughter Campaign to cheer us all up, Ken Dodd should be ringmaster. The thought of years of slavery is saddening, perhaps we could start a National Singing Campaign, a kind of whistle while you work, Arthur Askey  reincarnated to pass all those extra working years away. We could sing the Song of The Hewbrew Slaves, for that's what'll happen, retire at 95 IF we're still alive, in the year of 2010 If we're still alive

My favourite Sweets

My favourite sweets are, now let me stop before I continue. What are your favourite sweets, as you sit in front on the PC, a cup of coffee perched by your screen as you read this instead of doing those oh so interesting Excel reports for the boss. Can you remember back to when you were a child? Or have you never given up on sweets, or are you a parent? Well for me it was always a Cadbury's Crunch. My brother would sell his very soul for a Rolo, my youngest daughter loves them too, her delight is squashing them until these stick to our glass coffee table, which is also our Chinese eating table. If you look though the living room window you'll think you're looking at a restaurant or looking at China. Well you are, Shanghai to be exact, rice with everything. With a diet like that my girls are tall and thin. Thats why they enjoy sweets so much. My big daughter likes Caylie now, if I've spelt it right. We all adore a nice bag of crisp, so an Aldi 26 pack does down well. I'm old enough to remember the salt being in a blue bag inside the crisps, and not when they reinvented it 20 years ago, I mean 45 years ago. Pop came in heavy glass bottles which had a penny refund on the bottle, and you could get some chews with the refund. I always used to drink the dregs from the pop bottles before taking the bottles back. My brother who I'd put a red hot poker on his leg, just for fun as kids do. Well my brother peed in a few bottles, to simulate dregs, and yes you've guess it, I drank those dregs. Which reminded me of the salt in crisps packets. We had an old fashioned sweet shop just a few yards away from the family house, two ancient sisters with a small husband between them lived there and made bread but in the front room was a sweet shop with all those jars of sweets. They used to say to us children as we left "off ye go, home to your parents. So we called the shop "off ye  goes".

As you grow up your tastes change, and its a nice novelty to rediscover an old fashioned sweet shop. Then the memories come flooding back. I'm lucky in a way because I drunk so much milk it protected my teeth from all the sugar. However I did give up sugar in my coffee when I was 19, just to see if I could. Blokes discover beer and stop having sweets, well until they are parents. As for women its said that a woman would prefer a bar of Cadburys or Galexy  instead of a man. Give her a  Jackie Collins and chocolate and maybe some Baileys and the whole human race could die. Sobering thought that. But it does give a whole new meaning to "I'm Sweet on You."

Cheerio from a wet Birmingham, and don't forget wine/chocolate/beer/Dr Pepper are all best served cold just like revenge, as any Mafia friend may tell you,

Drawing Pictures with Words

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 happyness, thats 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 drunkeness 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 exagerate, 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.

Well www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com is my path, will you follow it?

 

Praise and Reward

Praise and Reward, its a sticky question. Some things don't ask for praise or reward. Like if your kids do a small chore for you, they don't ask for a pound, they are just happy to help you, because they love you. If you are thirsty they'll fetch you a drink, they won't charge you for it, they'll do it instinctively. Just as my daughter did this evening when she watched me decorating, or rather my attempts at decorating, she even sacrificed her fizzy pop for me, she knows how I prefer pop to alcohol. Sometimes I'll offer a reward and she'll turn it down. For me this shows I'm bringing her up the same  way I was brought up. I know the majority of people reading this will think I'm old fashioned. I do know  that her Irish grandparents would be so proud of her if ever they saw her, Irish grandad did hold her in his arms but after 7 months or so he was gone, as for my mum she went early to make the tea.

Encouragement does work and should be used all the time. My youngest daughter just loves Matilda the fillm based on the Roal Dahl book. Why does she love it? Because its funny, and because the little girl does find love with the teacher.The teacher loves and encourages. Just as everybody reading this does love and encourage their own kids, even if at the moment the encouragement is to move out of the way of the tv so all dad's mates can watch the world cup, and isn't the garden a great place to be and dad will give you some money for pop from the corner shop If only the kids get out of the way of the tv.

My daugher has joined a sunday choir, so there she is praising God, and she gets rewarded with a few quid for singing.

They do say we all have to sing for our supper, just like Little Tommy Tucker.

The Windmills of My Mind

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas makes us all think of Snow  and Love and the film with Bing Crosby, not forgetting Family. A few bars of a song and we are away, our minds are somewhere else. Mind you in  today's world its a few drugs, or so called legal highs and the youth of today are away. Their minds turning to mush.

Me I like to use my mind and not destroy it. I've been thinking about Tears For A Butcher which will be the follow up to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. Words, ideas,dreams  float by and I sew them together, not with a needle and thread but with imagination. It takes time and a lot of energy to create a jigsaw that is a story which turns into a book. Its like word association, or an old photo thats discovered and brings back memories. We found a photo of me in shorts and wearing glasses I was alongside my tall brother, we were in Oxford visiting my brother at University. An angelpoise lamp was in the photo, the same angelpoise lamp thats sat in a corner of my brother's house today. Pictures lead to memories and in some cases to more futures, dreaming of the spires of learning, but thats another story and another university. When I write its with passion, I really am taken over by the words, by the thoughts, sometimes its like an avalanche and I'm right in the middle of it. I couldn't be all clinical and planned and precise. I'm not an architech, I am a dustman, I pick up what I find and use it, I transform it, and If I can be pretentious, it transforms me too. We have a friend who just loves music so I emailed him my best 3 poems and to  his surprize he now now thinks I'm a poet, in fact his wife just rung my wife, about some recipe no doubt. Chinese folks are just mad for their food. Anyways with Poems they sneak into my mind and then I sit down with the idea and I finish it off. BUT Poems are in charge of me and now me in charge of them. In Nov 1987 I wrote a poem called The Dead and The Living because I wanted Percy the Undertaker in my novel to be a man of great tenderness, a poet in fact. The idea came to me on a bus as I was on my way to my Sunday shift as a computer operator. I knew then that I would never write anything better than those few lines. However last year I had a line come to me while I was in Saint Phillips Cathedral having a rest and a sit down. The line was Let my Tears be my words. When I got home I sat down and finished the poem with my daughter sat on the edge of my chair. When I finished I realised that I'd just written something better than the Dead and The Living, it had taken 22years. Such is the nature of Poetry. As for my comedy writing I start somewhere and a connection will take me somewhere else, a bit like being a ball in a pinball machine, I get knocked and flipped and nudged until I end up in quite a different place to where I began. It is very tiring. Two hours is like a 12 hour shift, because I'm using all my juices. I have toyed with the idea of writing Tears for A Butcher, in fact the 1st chapter is down on paper and in cyberspace. But I don't want to commit myself to a year of writing, If I sold some of my other stuff then, or if I had a fan base, then yes. But for the moment no, so I am content to be a windmill in my mind, and yes it really is my favourite song.

my stuff can be read for free at www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com    which is where you are right now

 

Kung Fu Fighting

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

Marrying a Shanghai girl brought many changes to my life. The sound of chickens clucking for one, Chinese really does sound like chickens in a hen house, if you listen to the wife talk to her friends over the Internet or on the phone or when a few are around the house.Chickens, chickens,chickens. The Mandarin for it is "quock quock quar" or something like that. Just ask ask your own Chinese friends and they will agree. They'll also tell you that Panzi my own Chinese nickname means FAT FAT BOY, not a fat boy, but FAT FAT BOY. I finally get married and have a family and I get called Panzi. Weighing 3 times as much as the wife or mother in law, has nothing to do with it, honest I'm a priest you can believe me.

Films brought us together and we still enjoy watching films on tv. If I could afford Sky Films I'd love to have it, and a Sky+ HD box. Our Sky+ box is always filled  with films for all the family, Over the Hedge, Bride and Prejudice and all manner of stuff. Occasionally we have to cull the films to make room for more. Sky+ really is a godsend for any family. I was just watching Kung Fu Hussle  which had Steven Chow in it. It really was great fun. Lots of Kung Fu action and lots of fun , and I do mean fun.It was in Chinese with the bottom of the screen cut off for the sub titles. I was really laughing, it was on Film4. Chinese Kung Fu films are like ballet and yes beyond belief but great great fun. If you don't normally watch subtitled films then please take a chance on my review skills. Do watch and laugh along. I won't tell you anything else about it I don't want to spoil it. Previously there was another film on the tv, it was called Red Flowers, again in Chinese with subtitles. This was about a nursery and how a child was dumped there, it had no Kung Fu in it, but it was really charming. How they got all the small children to act in it I'll never know but it was well worth a watch. I was asking my kids just how much Mandarin they each understood, one was busy reading the subtitles while the other seemed to understand a great deal of it. Having 2 languages I hope will pay dividends for my kids. In the future they can bring Crunchies and Dr Pepper to me when I'm retired, they should be able to afford them if them keep their language skills up. Their heart they get from me and their beauty from my wife.

I'll leave it there for tonight, lets hope England can win the football tomorrow.

 

Singing Songs

To sing is to doubly praise, Saint Cecilia said that. My sister says it too on occasion. Singing makes us all happy, it lightens the load, it helps pass the time, if we are happy we'll whistle or hum or sing. Just ask any workman, though workmen still like to whistle, or should I say wolf whistle when they see a pretty girl. "Hello Darling"  rings out from high up an unfinished building, followed by laughter when the girl turns around and the girl is in fact a boy with a girlish haircut.

But I was talking about singing. My girls were singing "A sailor went to sea, sea sea, to see what he could see see see." so obviously I jointed in. My youngest was amazed that I knew it,so I told them that that rhyme must be at least 50 years old. So on they sang, doing the hand clapping that accompanies it. It took me back, where have all the years gone, I really hope I can last till 100 then I'd have more time with my girls and any grandchildren or even on great great grandchild. But that's up to God, the girls Great Grandpa is alive and kicking into his 90s, he's on his 3rd wife now having worn out the 1st 2, Shanghai diet in a warm China may explain it.

Grandma does sing Jesus songs with the girls over the Internet from Shanghai, and my big daughter has just joined the choir at Saint Hilda's down road from the woods. Google tells me Hilda  was very wise and lived a monastic life. My daughter did an audition and was let into the choir.  They even pay a small stipend. My own sister has been singing over 45 years, despite us telling her to shut up.  Me and my brothers were altar boys, none of us getting any reward for this church work. Perhaps we should have stopped being Catholics and moonlighted for the Protestants. I was also a reader for 7 years, so I can remember passages from the Bible, as well as hearing them all my life these past 50 years.

Singing songs is very very touching, a song will touch the heart and my sister is right, to sing is to doubly praise. Songs at funerals which open the floodgate, Angels by Robbie Williams is very popular now, it was played at my cousin's funeral; songs at the last night of the Proms which make you proud and happy. As I talk to you I listening to music, Hotel California from the Eagles, 34 years ago that was out. I never guessed I'd spend 3 years in an hotel. Hotels have music to kill the deadness of an empty foyer/reception area, as do bars. Songs that you can sing too give a place a good vibe. Gay bars play lots of Abba I'm told, again because its great happy music, it helps the fun on a cold Tuesday evening. I'm listening to an old Elton John album now, Made in England, its worth digging out, its from 1995. Classical music and opera touch us too, even when we cannot understand a word. Pavorotti, and that blind Italian singer Andrei Bocelli, both can touch us. I remember in 1966  when the whole family went to Lourdes, we were singing Ave Maria in the darkness, holding up our lighted candles, perhaps 40,000 people singing in the dark. Now that is really touching and uplifting. I suppose other Faiths do things their way which are no doubt just as powerful.

As you have all no doubt gathered through these blogs, I do like my music, a pocket DAB is always close to me, in fact after 5 years its a bit battered, so I have to save up for a replacement. When you're happy and you know it clap your hands, is a song we sing when we are kids, we are all so free. We sing when we are in the shower, we sing when we are in love.

Song is the Spirit that cannot be broken, we sing  to babies in the crib, babies can hear before they are born, its singing that creates love.

So sing, sing, sing. For we are alive.

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