Turning Back The Clock

Turning Back The Clock © 

By

Michael Casey

Soon we’ll be turning back the clock, Winter will be upon us, we’ll be reaching up to the high cupboards and ferreting out our duvets and blankets. We be smelling them to see if they are musty, should we put them on the washing line outside to air them, to make them fresh, or perhaps just bung them in the washing machine. Or if we are students, we’ll just spray them with deodorant and then throw them on the bed, just in time for the night of passion.

Boots catch our attention next, we look under the bed, what’s hiding there? Spiders perhaps, or if we are students in our digs in Selly Oak or wherever perhaps a mouse asleep in our boots, or dead even. So we search for the vacuum cleaner, now where did we leave it, have we got one anyway? Its hard to remember where a vacuum cleaner is when you never use it, your flatmate usually  does or did the vacuum cleaning, he was besotted with cleaning and  he always cleaned up, but that was a month ago, when you split up, when you caught him in bed with your best friend, your sister! 

We decide to go shopping and buy large tins of soup, soups are always good in Winter, and there’s always stale bread in the house as we never like throwing it away, just like Heidi in the old old story. 

So we will be doing our bit for ecology, recycling our bread, the squirrels would love it as would the birds, but no we will have all the stale bread with our Heinz tomato soup, as the nights close in we will be wrapped up all warm with our bowl of soup.

We’ll look at our pile of wood in the woodshed, do we need to do more chopping? Should we order some turf or coal. The scent of peat burning or coal fills the air, it evokes memories from childhood, the coal man coming up the entry with a sack of coal on his back, 3  sacks was what we had, a hundredweight  each, that’s 8 stones, then in the 1970s we got central heating, as we were in a smokeless zone. Watching tv together in the Autumn/Winter evenings was such a joy, dad telling us to close the curtains as it was so dark and black outside. Going around the corner to the off licence to buy sweets and crisps, and Cidrax a pop that tasted like cider, there was money on the bottles too. I used to drink the dregs and then buy mojos or blackjacks with the money; only my brother knew me, so he used to pee in the bottle first….

Time itself moved, dad would grab the clock and take it upstairs to  bed with him, “don’t have that too loud” he’d say pointed to the tv, then he’d be gone. We’d stay up to watch the horror films on ATV, Peter Tomlinson used to have a teddy bear beside him as he introduced the films, all this was when the clocks went back, back in time now as I remember, 45years ago. I hope as you all turn back the clocks you remember everything with a smile, even when you forgot and ended up an hour early for Sunday Mass.

                                    a tired looking me

Star Trek

I saw the 2009 Abrams Version of Star Trek again tonight, it was on last week, so many repeats....

I liked the idea of Spock getting the girl. Simon Pegg was great as Scottie, a great use of Simon Pegg, I like him more and more, his Hot Fuzz is a great film too.

Tonight's Star Trek looked great and the music was fab too, like classical music.

A  lot of people my age will have loved it too, all those years ago in the 60s and in black and white we watched Jim Kirk and his adventures. Star Trek is part of our lives, just as Songs Of Praise is part of others' lives.

I know Star Trek is more than science fiction, its part of the feel good generation  which came about with the Beach Boys and pop music, its all part of the same generation. As I talk I'm listening to Gerry Rafferty, that's another era too, where have the years gone. I'm sure I'll wake up one day and I'll be dead. So on that note I'll go bed, sleep of the dead.

The Sky at Night

Our back garden forms a rectangle black box with other gardens so we can always get a good view of the stars. I've always encouraged my children to look to the stars, and to see if they can see ET. The other night my daughter said she saw a shooting star. She made a wish for a big house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, not forgetting a cat and a dog and a gerbil. So I hope everybody else will be looking to the stars tonight and every night. The stars are always a free show and if we can instill into our kids the wonder for them then we've done something really great. I can remember the Apollo missions and all that, the 60s were great as a kid, Apollo, Mumhammed Ali, Beatles, much much better than todays reality tv and wanna be stars. True stars are in the Sky at Night.

 

 

Burglar in Reverse

I was relaxing on my new bed while I read up on the EU, see I always read rivetting stuff. The alarm went off, I went downstairs but nobody was there. Had I put the alarm on incorrectly? NO. I looked in the fridge and there were 3 litres of Tesco smooth not from concentrate orange there. Was this an Irish thief? No it was a Shanghai wife, she had slipped in and out of the house in a minute, putting the orange in the fridge before disappearing up the road. Its great orange by the way IF a little expensive, but if anybody wants to donate orange to me on a regular basis, feel free .

I am Irish after all, Kerry, now I have 60 more pages to read, so if anybody wants to put Camenbert in the fridge while I'm upstairs on my BedzRus bed, Lecco, its really fab.

 Michael

 www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

Rediscovering John Denver

Rediscovering John Denver ©

By Michael Casey

A long time ago I used to listen to  John Denver, my dad used to say he had a soft voice and if John Denver was on the radio he’d raise the volume. 35 years ago maybe I’d get my giro and buy a few books to read and a John Denver album to listen to. I had saved up £30 to buy a stereo from a previous job, it was 8 watts per speaker.

So me and John had good times together, I remember I read all the Alistair Maclean books at that time, staying up late to do so, I could read a whole book in a day if I stuck at it. Living at home was great, I couldn’t afford to live anywhere else either. My dad’s charity I repaid 20 years later, I visited him every single day for 3 years, and that’s how I met the wife.

Avoiding scratching the record was a major thing in those days, and fluff on the needle was important too. It was a different sound compared to today, you may have heard that some singers and bands try and put back the scratches on records. They don’t like the pure song. Now or should I say perhaps 10 or 15 years ago I got John Denver on CD, so I could listen on a decent hifi.

Time and technology moves on so I have put my CD collection on my PC, so I can hear whatever I like while I work on the PC.

Then the latest step is to move my collection to my 10 quid MP3 player, so now while on the bus to work I can listen to JD. I  have noticed something great, because I am using earphones I can pick up things I’d never heard while listening on speakers.

People have all kinds of headgear for listening to mobiles and to listen to their music, it is very annoying when its loud and you can hear them even though you have your own earphones in. They’ll end up deaf, THEY’LL END UP DEAF. I had an ear infection for 3 weeks so now I really do appreciate my hearing and God for it too.  I’ll finish now , but do go and dig out your own John Denver, or Depeche Mode and Crowded House. Just enjoy your own music, and send me 6 lottery numbers, there’s this house I’d like to buy, its £4,000,000 biggest house build in 100years in Birmingham. I can just imagine myself listening to John Denver in luxury. Failing that there’s a nice house for 1/16 of the price, home is where the heart is, and John Denver singing!

Wood or Metal, which is best

Wood or Metal, which is best ©

By  Michael Casey

We all can remember the old fashioned sprung beds made from metal, and how you needed a spanner to dismantle them. I’m talking back in the 60s now and the beds now doubt came from the 50s. Pillow cases were stripy black and white, convict style.

Mattresses were just as uninspiring. Headboards were really heavy, made of steel with a wooden piece at the top.

I remember one of the single beds in the room we all shared. The leg had broken off, so first a tin of beans, then an iron, an iron iron, one used for ironing clothes was pressed into service to support the bed in the bottom right hand corner. I suppose we were quite poor in our childhood days, but much much loved.

We also had to move things about in our lodging house next door. Painting and decorating when lodgers bailed out. My mother bought up a load of material from the fire salvage shop down the road and made ticks and pillowcases for the beds in the lodgers rooms. Mum really was a devil on the sewing machine, I’m told dad carried it from West Bromwich to Berry Street Winson Green. Singer was the  name and sewing was the game, I think we have the very same machine tucked away somewhere.

So why am I talking about beds, metal or wood today. Well you see I am heavy, very heavy, even if do look 4 stones, ok 3 stones lighter than I look. I bought a bed when I moved into this house and it lasted decades. However when I replaced the pine bed with a medal bed you can guess what happened. The metal headboard went wonky, it riggles and jiggles. Then one side of the bed just gave up all together, like an elephant doing the splits, my bed split apart, but only on the right hand side.

So what would you do? Me I remembered my childhood and reached for an iron iron, but that was not tall enough. I did have a load of photo albums gathering dust, in fact my wife wanted me to throw them away. We had compromised so I put them  in an old bag and forgot about them. Now I remembered them. Perfect to fix my new metal bed, one load of albums at the top, another load at the bottom, and finally another load in the middle. I have to be very careful as there is a radiator right next to the bed, so to avoid a boiling eruption of hot water the bed must be supported corectly.

This has been the case for a year, but I’m getting fed up with this arrangement especially as the top of the bed is shaking more and more and clatters into the chest of drawers behind. So today I had a look at beds metal and wood, online and in my local furniture shop. There was a sale item in the window and I was very tempted, I had brought a tape measure with me and the bed would fit. However when I sat on the bed it wobbled like a jelly, and it did say it was a back support mattress. So it failed the test. I tried another bed before heading upstairs to look at what was there. I did find a great bed and it was on offer, £150 for the double. If I had cash in my pocket I would have bought it. I’m like that when I buy things, so normally I don’t carry money with me, just pocket money.

I went home determined to return and buy it. But first I’d look online. I found the same item cheaper online, 30quid cheaper, the exact same  thing. Then the question is, should I buy it online or from where I saw it in the fresh so to speak.I don’t want to buy rubbish. I have decided though I’ll never buy a metal bed again. I did buy a metal one from my daughter but it is beginning to sag a bit. Pine is nice to look at too.

That’s all I have to say for tonight, wood is always better. When I was single I could just please myself but once you are married with children you have to justify every penny. Should I have a new bed for me or should I buy shoes for the girls instead, so far the shoes have won.

How do you know you are fat?

How do you know you are fat? ©

By

Michael Casey

I’m not fat, of course I’m not fat. I KNOW I’m not fat, its other people who are fat, alright?

I’m big yes, but I’m not fat, got it? Just so long as you know, I am not fat. Just because I weigh nearly 3 times as much as my wife it does not make me fat. Just because I weigh as much as my wife and our 2 kids and the mother-in-law does NOT make me fat, alright?

Does this sound familiar? Then maybe, just maybe, YOU are fat, not me but YOU.

Can YOU see your feet when you are in the shower? I can, so I’m not fat, its YOU, so there. I do have to breath in and press my hands on my tummy, but I’m not fat. When you take your clothes off the washing line and hold them up and it looks like a tent the kids can play in, then perhaps you are BIG, like me, big but NOT fat!

I weigh myself every morning on the bathroom scales, after I’ve used the W.C. and my weight is the same every day, which proves, I’m not fat. 112kilos for the Europeans reading this, or 17.5stones for English readers, for any Americans reading this a “stone” is 14pounds. So do the maths, and we say maths not math, 17.5 stones is 17x14 + 7 =245pounds, I’m as heavy as a heavyweight boxer. But its tight fat, not wobbly fat, so I look 200pounds maybe. You can all go to Amazon Kindle and buy my 4 books and you’ll see some photos too. www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com is my site and there’s more photos there as well as a lot of blog. All of which will prove that I’m NOT fat.

I don’t know about having big bones, we don’t have a dog, so how would I know, but at least my wife says I’m “medium” fat compared to the folks we saw when we were in Florida a few years ago, and compared to folks we saw in Frankfurt, which all goes to prove, I’m just big, not FAT.

So are you all agreeing with me, or do you think I a sad sad fat guy? Do you hear the same words often? Spoken by yourselves. Well my girls love me, my smallest loves me so much because my tubby is like Winnie the Pooh’s. I tell my wife she gets more value for money, pound for pound she has more husband compared to those wives who have small husbands. Compared to a regular Chinese husband, she has an absolute bargain, she has me. And I have white hair too, what more could a fashionable Shanghai girl want. Then there’s our bilingual daughters, so pretty, if she stuck with Chinese she would not have had such pretty girls. And its there that I silence her, and I’m still NOT fat.