A little bit of Paris in Birmingham(c) by Michael Casey

A little bit of Paris in Birmingham©

By Michael Casey

I have my lunch in a little café up the road from where I work. They have these little round tables and when you sit down you immediately struck by the sight of all the cakes, cakes galore so to speak. They are mouth-watering strawberry cakes, everywhere! 

I was away over the Easter holidays and the shop had a total  refit, new windows, new doors, new floors, new furniture. New display cases for all the cakes, even new tables and chairs.

What hadn’t changed was the cakes and all things lovely. I walk through the door and they say hello and start on my beef panini, I grab a drink from the fridge point to it and start drinking. I talk a lot in my job so I need a drink, I finish half my drink before my panini is ready. I’m in heaven, the food is great, the brothers in The Pastry House are very nice. People come in for English tea or Arabic tea, people shake hands and say hello, cakes are chosen and eaten. You hear several different languages, there is laughter in the air, there is debating, there is friendship, there is fun.

For me it’s a quick and nice bite to eat before I dash back to work. I asked Zain where did he get the money to pay the Polish workers to do all the changes, “did you win the lottery,” I asked. 

“No,” he replied, “it was a scratch card.” I laughed at his reply, he may have been joking, he may have been telling the truth, I’ll never know. But I do know, for me, this café on The Coventry Road is my oasis of peace on a busy day, the world may pass by, but for me, for a few minutes, I could be in Paris, Paris in Birmingham.

UTube are you ready?

My 9 year old is making a movie of herself playing Adele's latest tune, her 7 year old sister hold the digital camera  while she plays. All this modern technolgy in our Chinese/Irish household. Meanwhile harking back to oldern times  my wife has been baking bread. I'm slightly bloated having been force fed all the bread, old fashbioned English bread, and Chinese style bread too. I also knocked over some concoction of mushroom in an old coffee jar, that was lurking in the back of our fridge. Orange juice is nice with all this bread, as is a nice knob of butter, there is something so satisfying a piece of warm bread in your hands with the butter melting down your fingers. Ice cream streaming down your fingers is a great childhood memory too. I have a warming mug of coffee besides me at the computer as I talk to you, behind me one daughter is now singing Adele's song while she plays the piano, the other daughter has decided  to go into the next room to film my wife and the breadcrumbs all over our glass eating table. Adele's music echos around the front room as the shadows begin to fall, we'll have more music soon, Glee is on tv, I'll record it for the girls. I hope everybody else out there has a similiar family dynamic, it does make you want to thank God for the gift of family. My small daughter has just returned, she's just done a tour of the house, filming the entire house, perhaps she'll be an estate agent in the future. I did notice  on one estate agent website there was a thrumb print on all the photos, 1st law of cameras, clean the lens. I wonder did Michael Moore or Spielberg start this way, I know they are not girls, but the use of technology and the naturalness of their creations, I may never be published nor make the stage but they WILL.

Gagging For A Drink

As usual I cannot post in the right place....

I read the news item about Cocktails and folks trading up in the drinks stakes.

I used to work for a market research company into alcohol sales, StatsMR was the name until ACNielsen bought us out, I had 21 good years there. Since then my life has been a bigger and much more varied adventure.

I can remember when AlcoPops were invented, I seem to remember when my boss said they wouldn'd last. I was the shandy drinker while my learned friends were also great at drinking. And I mean great at drinking. We had a collection of spent bottles and cans which would impress any party animal, I suppose we had them instead of potted plants.  We really were great company, that's why we were bought up, and our folks became the bosses down at Oxford. The Oxford office of ACN was like a 6th form college with a sports field behind it. It really was like a club not a place of work, but that's another story.

As for alcohol it is a great thing, the first miracle was changing water into wine after all. I'm not much of a drinker myself, I was the shandy drinker at ACN, nowadays a random couple of pints  every few months or more is enough for me. I do think alcohol is one of Life's greatest gifts, it does relax it does mellow people, its as good as as taking your shoes off at the end of a busy day. Perhaps we should have shoe racks under the tables in bars.

Trading up is a good thing, a nice drink IS nice and if you can make it even nicer with an extra pound or two then good. I do the same thing myself, though in my case its cloudy lemonade instead of regular lemonade in Aldi; I even saw lemonade in glass bottles in Aldi, harking back 30 years or more, trying to create an upper class lemonade. I wish them well but that won't work, wine yes, lemonade no. My brother used to pee in the glass lemonade bottles because He knew I'd drink the dregs before trying to get the money back on the bottles, perhaps thats why I like bitter lemon.

Trading up in food is good too, I am lucky my Shanghai wife is a good cook, Eastern or Western, she's baking bread as we talk. I like my food too, see the photo for proof, breaking bread is first thing Man ever did, and sharing a meal is the thing that binds us even in or cannibal days. So  stock your freezer well.

Shoes and your Sole(c)

Shoes and your Soul ©

By Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I love shoes, they are something we all need and they really are good for your Soul.

When you stand up all day, be it as a Concierge, or as a Teacher or as a PC on the beat, you really need to have good comfy shoes or boots or whatever. Being in touch with your Sole IS good for your Soul, we all sigh when we come home and slip our shoes off. We wriggle our toes and throw our socks at the dog, the cat arrives to play with your socks. The dog meanwhile loves to lick the salt off your sweaty toes.

All is balanced, we are all one with Nature, we may soak our feet in a bowl of water, my mum used to add Jeyes Fluid to the water when our dad came home. When you stand up all day in  a steel works your feet really do need some TLC, my dad’s feet were so so baby white, my mother used to use the tongs that she used in the washing machine to pull my dad’s socks off. 

400 degrees of heat tends to glue your socks to your feet.

My dad always used to say “It’s great to wash your feet.”  And of course  he was right. Finding his slippers for him , then a big mug of tea, this was our family.

Me, I like comfy shoes, I buy shoes, 2 pairs every time there is a sale in Clarks. I buy brown shoes too, not because I like the colour but because they are cheaper, and when money is short then brown shoes will do, besides black shoes mean you are in service, like in an hotel for example.

The bounce and the walk around the carpet in the shoe shop is always fun, but you still have to buy odor eaters because of your smelly feet, and they make your shoes even more comfy. I always buy 2 pairs of shoes at a time, then I don’t have to come back till the next sale whenever that is. I am 17.5stones or 112 kilos, so my feet good shoes, good shoes are like a kiss, always welcomed.

Now when me and the wife got together I went to buy her some trainers in Clarks on New St. now my Shanghai wife looks very young, I tell her its because she has me, and of course she agrees with me. We were having a bit of banter and  my wife said to the assistant, “he’s my dad,” and even then I had white hair, so the assistant believed my wife, “he’s my dad,” the Freudians amongst you can work that one out.

On another occasion my wife brought back 30 pairs of shoes from her Summer vacation to Shanghai. You can imagine her horror when Lufthansa lost some luggage, and yes it was the shoe bag, her size 3s had gone AWOL. I just laughed, they were cheap but the right size for her. I should add our 9year old now has size 3 feet, so none of mum’s shoes are safe. Finally Lufthansa  found the bag and we opened our own shoe shop.

WE are also very lucky  because our 7 year old loves cast me downs, at the moment she has a pair of flashing Dora The Explorer sandals, which I bought for her big sister when we were in Florida 5 years ago.

I can remember my Concierge days when I used to walk 25 miles a week and that was on marble, we did 12 hour shifts too, so we all used to walk around like hobbled  horses on our 1st day off. So I think I am an expert on sore feet, I know just how good shoes are, nice comfortable shoes. Ask the policeman outside 

No.10 Downing Street, I bet he and his friends have great shoes/boots I bet he has foot massage often. 

When our kids are young we pull their toes and do, this little piggy went to market etc. Wriggling your toes after you’ve been on duty in an hotel or as a policeman outside No.10 really is something that resonates to the depths of your Soul.

Piano Girl(c) By Michael Casey

Piano Girl ©

By

Michael Casey

Well it’s a bright sunny day here in Birmingham, over the road the Polish neighbours are moving out, they did block the road with their van and I suggested they knock on their neighbour’s door so they could park safely, no I was not being neighbourly, they had nearly smashed into our car, though it turned out it wasn’t our car but our next door neighbour’s  brand new car. I wear sunglasses as I type so I had a problem seeing…..

I’m listening to Paul McCartney’s  Flaming Pie as I talk to you, I invested 15quid for new speakers on my PC so Paul is better than ever. My old Kenwood HiFi, 15 years old, we donated to the man at the carwash who did a good job so he earnt a hifi as a tip. I listen on my PC for years now.

My daughter is playing on the piano behind me, she asked me to switch off  Paul while she played. I explained it was Paul McCartney, so I had to explain who he was,  my Shanghai wife has heard of Paul, but my 9 year old daughter, she doesn’t know who he is. I wonder how Paul would react?

You see  we saved up for a piano and even gave our nine year old piano lessons when she was very small, it used to be £12 for ½ and hour, but she never practised. The piano gathered dust, a sister was born and still the piano gathered dust, its was the Chinese influence in the first place, get them young.

Well time has moved on, both girls are in a choir up the road from their school which is up the road from where we are. At choir they get music lessons and are paid too, a bequest I believe. Before we paid a Chinese girl to teach piano, now a nice little old lady called Betty teaches them and they get paid to sing. The result of all this? My nine year old has just came back into this room after finishing her dinner, and now she’s back at the piano playing Katy Perry’s Firework, and thanks to Betty she’d getting good. As for Paul McCartney he’s been switched off so she can play piano behind me.

I have of course helped my big daughter, I printed off the sheet music from the Internet. Paul hasn’t got a look in, not unless he reads this and sends us some sheet music of his stuff, and just be warned Paul, it had better be better than Katy Perry’s stuff.

Simplicity is Best

Simplicity is Best ©

By

Michael Casey

A year later, I'm making a modest living using English.

I still want my books published and my plays on the stage.

I still blog 2 or 3 times a week on www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and I blog on MyTelegraph too.

I notice that some people on the Internet like using big words where small ones will do.

Yes I know its to prove they are not inarticulate, but changing gears all the time is boring, if you are in top gear on an open stretch of the road there is no need to rev. Enjoy the ride as Top Gear might say.

Boy racers they rev all the time, they have spoilers on their cars, they have huge exhausts that frightens horses and children in the street.

There is beauty in words, things can be left understated, there's no need to prove you have a thesaurus and that you can spell thesaurus, just let the simple words speak for themselves, and no I don't say this because we don't have a dictionary in our house.

People are herded along by those who speak better, who con them with words, stop and think for yourself, don’t trust anybody’s words, only trust your own words.  The snow blindness of words is a terrible thing, call a spade a spade and trust nobody as Mulder used to say.

Preparing to Speak

Preparing to Speak ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ll be giving a talk next week, so this week I’ve been writing down a few ideas, and fitting them all together like a jigsaw. I’ve also been timing myself so that my talk lasts 20 to 25 minutes, I’ve toyed with the idea of altering the line up, or when to add this or when to add that. Writing for myself is one thing, speaking for myself is another, both of which I think I’m good at. However this talk is like a school essay, I have to fit their topic to my words and to my writing. Something I write down is between me and one lone reader, however for a talk I need to present what I’ve written, then my words now spoken take on a different direction.

Practice prevents pee poor performance, is what I heard from Derek my boss a long time ago. My sister says she used to scatter the cushions or teddy bears and then give her speech to them, I haven’t done that even though my  girls must have 40 teddy bears. I just read it through a few times and timed myself. I’m satisfied I just hope my audience is. Having worked in a 4star deluxe business hotel for 3 years I’m happy with  talking, I’ve spoken to thousands of people perhaps even tens of thousands, just think there may be 100,000 people out there who know my face from CPNEC. I once had a guest who did not speak English, she was Dutch and she spoke German too, but I persevered and discovered she spoke French, so I spoke French to her. Problem solved and she had a good stay at the hotel.

Don’t give up, just keep on talking is my motto, then eventually everybody is happy.

I suppose the same thing applies with prayer, perseverance denotes Faith is what Padre Pio used to say. So I’ll stick to the 5 Ps and see how my talk goes.

Night Night everybody, I hope none of you had too much Chocolate this Easter.