Thousands of children ‘not ready for school’ at five

Thousands of children ‘not ready for school’ at five

By michaelgcasey

I was so not ready myself that I ran after my mother down the school drive, 1963 was the year I think. Years later I was the Head Boy of the school.

As for the general population, am I old fashioned in thinking some parents don’t love their children. You don’t have to have children, there are pills before and after, and men can even do something, so there are no excuses for having children, IF you don’t want them.

But IF you do have kids then LOVE THEM. I had a humble beginning, if you find the photo of my mum’s home in Cromane Lower back in 1920s then you’ll see just how humble her beginning was. The difference between now and then is just how poor my family and millions of others were.In Andrew Marr’s show last night, which made me seasick because it jumped so much, his observation was that the village comes to town, to mega cities, and it is that which binds communities together. Obviously I was looking out for Shanghai as that’s where my wife is from.

When our girls were born, Ma came all the way from Shanghai to be with us here in Birmingham, on each occasion she stayed six months to help out. Sadly in the modern era there is no granny, or granny is a party animal in Ibiza or is on a fly drive in USA.

So you don’t have an extra pair of hands, as granny wants her freedom, this means 5 year  olds miss out on granny’s love. 5  year olds get lots of plastic rubbish with batteries, but love, where no batteries are required, that is sadly missing.

Yes people have to work,  I’m content that we love our kids, and there isn’t any money for plastic rubbish, and as for batteries…              I used to sit at the top of the stairs and have a “social” with my mum, then she’d pat my bottom and send me off to bed, I was happy because I was loved.

My kids are lucky because I’m from a large Irish family, so they have lots of uncles and aunts who love them, give them plenty of crayons and paper, 600 crayons was the last audit of all things for drawing. A pencil and paper IS enough to set a child’s mind free, when you unite this with Love from mum and dad and uncles and aunts, what do you get? You get happy kids, Granny in Shanghai is not forgotten either, with the wonders of the Internet granny can talk to our kids every  Saturday and together they read the Bible and teach granny more English, as for my girls they practice their Chinese.

Is this old fashioned and not all hip and groovy? I don’t care, I have great kids who love me, and their Chinese/Irish family nothing is better than that, and guess what, batteries are not included.

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc

Easy Listening

Easy Listening

By michaelgcasey

BBC4 had a great programme tonight, Easy Listening. I don’t know about you but for 20years and more radio was my best friend, Radio4 and Radio2. It all started when my brother went to work at a coal mine, after a year he went to Cambridge, he had a gap year before they were even invented.

So there I was in 5th year with an old Bush radio for comfort as I studied for my O Level, radio was a constant companion. I listen to Radio2 and Folk weave and all manner of programmes, I also heard a stack of Radio 4 stuck. The Bush radio did wonders for my intellect  and it was a great comfort as I really missed my brother.

Easy listening from the radio, plus in later years having a record player and then a very cheap hifi, it was just a record player with 2 speakers, but it was so soothing. John Denver, The Eagles, Jean Michel Jarre, and anything else with a nice album cover, all of them  were my companions, especially when I was in between jobs.

Music is soothing and a great companion, listening by headphones is a different experience too, if you haven’t tried it then try it right now, steal some headphones from your teenagers. My own kids are still too young to have headphones, mind you tonight my girls were really enjoying their Blik radio as they both read JacquelineWilson books.   I had bought the radio for myself but instead I donated it to my girls and I kept the old ugly looking DAB radio.

Music is good for the soul and you can submerge yourself in music, just as you can wallow in a hot bath for an hour, easy listening like Smooth Radio, Real radio used to be great until it went off air. I just adored the music with no ads annoying me, that’s what easy listening is all about, its like the bubble from bubble bath that cover and sooth at the same time. Easy listening is like a good massage given by an expert, or if you cannot get a Chinese doctor, buy a book and get some oils and donate it to your wife/boyfriend/girlfriend or whoever and just lie there with the music playing your favourite Carpenters track, or Adele.

Easy listening should almost send you to sleep, which is good because its so relaxing. My journey started with a Bush radio and now its a DAB radio or my computer with nice Logitech speakers, if music be the food of life play on.

My Last Wishes

My Last Wishes

By

Michael Casey

My 1st wish would be that the Telegraph lets me post in the right place. I've heard that hearing is the last thing that goes as we fade away. So a sign saying "Beware of saying bad things, such as Thank God the old B*&&&, is dead"  Why, because as we fade away to oblivion the last thing I'd want to hear are words like that, imagine the utter horror as we melt away. So I'd say, just be nice, LIE, but don't send a loved one to Heaven or Hades with such negative words ringing in the soon to be deceased ears.

My father said he heard the doctor say, "just wheel him to the end of the ward, he'll be dead soon." At that moment my dad awoke and the doctor dropped his tea. Dad lived 5.5years more and I met my wife in the old people's home, Padre Pio and Me explains it.         The consultant had given my dad a week to live and it  was  decided he would not be revived if he had another heart attack.

I think we should all make plans, so there is no dispute. I know I'd like to live long and prosper, I always used to say I want to live till I was 100, having a young family I really need to reach 100 now. But what if the worse case senario arrived? I think I would write down something on paper, I'd make a Will, but I'd enclose a comic letter for my siblings so that as they gathered around at the solicitors they'd have some laughter to remember, they'd be no money to share, but laughter yes. Like my brother peeing in pop bottles because he knew I drunk the dregs.  Like our dad saying "Rubber Onion" instead of "Rugby Union", remembering all the love, all the Nuclear Love our mother gave us. 

I am thinking of having Nuclear Love in Tears For a Butcher which I'm writing, and even Supernova Love. How can I explain it to any future readers? I don't know, Stalin once said "How many divisions does the Pope have?" Only fellow believers of various colours could possibly understand, the power of faith and love that only mothers have.

I'll have to sit down some day and write my comedy cover letter to go with my Last Will and Testiment, perhaps leave a video on my website, or a message like Yul Brenner left. Bury Me in My Boots was a book we heard at assembly 40 years ago, it was a tramp's last request, Mr Reading read it out.

I know that when you are electricuted your family flashes through your mind, as it did for Rich sometime in the 1980s, so if when we die our hearing really is the last thing to go, please be gentle and kind, be nice as Lew Dawson used to say. Just be nice.

Government Dating Agency

Fill in E784/52 and your new spouse will be ready(c)

by

Michael Casey

I saw somewhere that the Government would be involved with marriage. So that set me thinking.

Fill in form E784/52 and your new spouse will be ready.

Just as stupid as a census form would be the Government provided spouse, all you do is fill in the form.

You fill in sections stating what kind of sex life is required, variety and kind and frequency.

You fill in sections stating what kind of faith is required, though nowadays "None" would be the most common.

Sections for what kind of intellect required.

What kind of hair colour, and type, soft or shiny.

Height requirements would be catered for too.

Tall dark and handsome, or very curvy with a twinkle in their eyes. Eye colour would also be on the list.

The form would go on for three pages and has to be filled out in triplicate. Native language requirements or preferences would also be listed.

It could take hours to fill in the form, but once completed, the Government guarantees perfection and a till death do you part guarantee.

With the government in charge of our mating, nothing can go wrong. Only on the way down in the lift its love at first sight as you see somebody for the first time. Can it be true can it be really true. You were made for me and I was made for you.

Metaphor This

Metaphor This © 

By

Michael Casey

Well first of all I have to confess I am using Arabic Typesetting  as my font type. I stumbled over it recently on my Word settings, I’m using a very old copy of Word, If anybody wants to sent me a new super duper version of MS Office I’d be over the moon.

Tomorrow I pray MU beats Spain, and that Sir Francis Drake can bowl everybody over, I just want Sir Alex to get what he deserves. It will be a game of two halves, one whisky and one bitter, but I’m sure at the end of the day, all will be equal in love and war, and as Bill Shankly said its more important than that.

So MU will be fighting their corner and especially when there is a corner I hope Rooney can reach for the stars and fly us all to the moon when he gets one or three in the back of the net. No doubt their will be lots of kissing between men, because that’s what they do wen they are happy. And perhaps folk will be doing The Lambert Walk, people will be cock a hoop all over the land, in London and in Manchester too, even here in Birmingham you’ll hear all the screams of delight, in the privacy of bedrooms and in the bars, for scoring is scoring is scoring, either with a line of white, or with a  boy or a girl, for when you get what you want you are always happy and over the moon. And IF things go down the drain then we’ll all be as sick as parrots even Joey in the Red Cow who sits on a perch and says “shut the bleeding door”. I’m fit to burst with all the emotion and with all the tension, its enough to give me the runs, and I do hope I get back in time from the bog so I won’t miss any action. I may have an each way bet on the result, I can even play both ends against the middle and make a killing. But realistically I hope Manchester United give it to the Spaniards so we’ll all be done proud, otherwise we’ll all be as sick as parrots and have to drown our sorrows.

Well I hope the new CIA computer program understands all of this, otherwise them may come and render the side of my house, which could do with a lick of paint, then when its ship shape I could flog it, I shudder to think what those guys in Langley are thinking now.

Cheerio Michael Casey www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com 

To Touch A Beating Heart

To Touch a Beating Heart  ©

By

Michael Casey

I was watching Jools Holland’s show and later on I watched Glee, its just finished in fact, Music has such an effect on me, I hope on everybody else too. Music DOES Touch a Beating Heart. Music is like a heart beat, it offers rhythm to our lives, it goes fast and it goes slow, and when it ends we are dead.

Obama is in Ireland and now on his way here, he will have no doubt heard some music just as the Queen did, I imagine that as he has tea with the Queen they’ll both remark on their Irish trips, and I’d guarantee that Music will be part of that conversation.

My dad discovered Elvis in his 60s, he watched all of Elvis’s movies over a Christmas break, my dad was impressed. Musicians do touch our beating hearts, their power is so great, within 2 seconds a piece of music can get to you. If I’m very lucky within 30seconds I’ve touched somebody with my words, but music is still at least 15 times faster. I am of course so very very jealous, I can hear music on the Phoenix Chinese TV station and even though I know no Mandarin the music and the Chinese words still can touch my beating heart. I am lucky that a window has been opened into another kind of music, I wasn’t expecting that when I found my Shanghai wife.

So what is it with Music,  when the first cave man made love and heard the beat of his mate’s heart, did it fill him with wonder and then did he copy the beat with bones banging on the skull of his enemy who’d he recently eaten?  Whatever the reason I am so so jealous, a beat a rhythm a song or just the roar of the sea or even of the wind itself, all of this is music.

I’d love to be able to write songs, I have produced a few good poems, and some say my writing is poetic, but really the way I write is the way I write, I’m not clever enough to analyse my style, it is what it is. I  am lucky though if I get a few good reports, but I’d rather touch a few beating hearts.

Look at Me I'm a Nobody

  

Look at Me I’m a Nobody ©

By

Michael Casey

Well the Injunction Saga rolls on, out of curiosity I spent 30seconds online and found the name of the footballer. His wife no doubt knows who he is, perhaps he is begging her not to divorce him. Millions are at stake, but it would be nice to think he and she do both love their kids, and its them they are trying to protect.

We all want our 15 mins of fame as Andy Walhol once said, even me, but in my case its just to get my comic novel published and be a paid blogger for The Daily Telegraph. Not even in a million years will this happen. I have blogged a lot these past 2 years and I feel my writing skills have been sharpened, so that is good. I discovered that one of the regulars on MyTelegraph is having his book published in September, so God Bless him and good luck.

Returning to my theme, being famous for 15 minutes has now reached STUPID proportions, people become instant celebrities, their specialities being NOTHING.

Then real celebrities lust after the new celebrities, and that leads to sex and Injunctions.

You should use celebrity to help folks, I think one guy won Big Brother and gave the prize away. On the opposite scale a criminal won the lottery and that led to him being in jail and he lost all the cash too.

So what does this all tell us? To me it tells me we should get back to basics, don’t believe in all this S)*)(" in the media and the magazines that we find in hairdressers. Its neither real nor important, loving our kids now that is important.

But if you are really bored read The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker on my site, though some may say its just too old fashioned, you’ll just have to read it and see for yourself.

 

Attachment: Padre Pio and Me.doc