Inner Laughter

Inner Laughter © 

By Michael Casey

Our smallest will be a year older this week, she’s a natural comedian, we wonder where she got it from. Her Shanghai grandfather was a comedian, and I try and write comedy, though I choose the word humour mainly, and no not as a get-out clause. So how can a 7 year old be so funny, is it in the genes or is it because she feels so happy and loved that the laughter just runs out. Her humour first showed itself back in 2007 when we were in Shanghai visiting the Chinese family, she would have been 3 and a half then. She picked up chopsticks and mastered them during a family meal for 30 or 40 in a restaurant. The Shanghai cousins begged her to say something, so finally she did “A fan pi, A fan pi” she said which meant “A had farted, A had farted” laughter rippled around the room.

She dresses up as a princess or in traditional Chinese costume, she lines up 40 teddy bears and teaches them and takes the register. She parades around in my wife’s shoes, bracelets and necklaces clicking as she walks. Faces are pulled and accents put on, English and Chinese. She crosses her legs like LULU, the Chinese interviewer not the Scottish singer, and holds her clipboard and asks questions. Dolls houses are her joy, she got a Slyvestan family dolls house as a Birthday present last year, I hope I spelt that right. Anyways, that wasn’t enough so 2 or 3 shoe boxes were converted into dolls houses, and sweet wrappers were turned into wind blinds. Other items for her dolls houses were manufactured by her and her imagination.  Then she decided to try her hand at writing stories, I’ve been doing it for nearly 25 years, her Shanghai grandfather also did a bit of writing and then there is the Shanghai great uncle who is a political journalist, so its in the blood. When I read a piece of hers the other day I was amazed by the style she had, it will be her who makes money from writing before I do. Her Irish grandfather was a blacksmith and he’d be so proud of her. Pride and love I suppose that sums it up, we should all let our small daughters have freedom to use their imagination, but remember to hide your shoe boxes.

Resignation Pantomime

Resignation Pantomime ©

By Michael Casey

Oh sorry Sir, I was caught with my trousers down, with my hand in the till, or was it on the bosom of a secretary or some other members wife. Either way I did nothing wrong I can assure you, it didn’t mean anything it was only sex, great great  sex but nothing dirty or squalid. I did put the Ministerial red box under the bed and out of site. So why all the fuss, it wasn’t as if she was from another political party, she was true blue, true red white and blue, and as for her sister that just happened it wasn’t intended. And now both are pregnant and its against their principals to kill the baby, what amount of Child Tax credit will they both get. Do I have to leave my grace and favour home? Can’t I stay there, there a great creche nearby. I’d be able to push both bastards in the park and the little bins will be great to throw away all the nappies, and Ministerial papers. Perfect, so why can’t I keep my job. &*% the public, I’m better than them anyway, what the *&%$ do they know about politics, all the nuances and so on. So I have a Swiss bank account and friends  from all over the world, but that makes me an even better Minister, if the public how much blood I’ve sweated for those ungrateful B&%$£. They’d be making ME Prime Minister, and as for the S&&%$% in the press with their zoom lens, so what if I went to a late night store smoking a joint and looking for contraceptives. If I hadn’t to leg it away from the press I would have had protection and both my girlfriend and her sister wouldn’t now be pregnant and selling their story to the News Of the World. I will of course be now resigning my Cabinet position, after 15 days I thought I’d got away  with it, 

Your Close Friend John Doe 

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!