Return of the Blog

Return of the Blog ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve been away from my blog for a couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get folks to go to www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and sample my wares, I’ve been using Facebook and Linkedin to try and whip up interest in my work. Amazon Kindle now has 4 books of mine waiting to be discovered. I’m Michael Casey, not the Michael Casey the monk who writes religious books, nor Michael Casey the DIY expert, just look for my fat face on the covers then it’s the right Michael Casey.

Poetry is a big big thing, Facebook poetry section has almost 22,000 members, I have written 2 great poems in 20 years, other than that the standard on Facebook Poetry is very  very high, better than my other attempts at poetry. However as somebody once said my general writing was in itself poetic, so I’m trying to impress the Poetry People with my other stuff.

Today is End Of The 11+ plus day in our house, my 10year old daughter did this exam this morning, if she passes she’ll go to King Edwards Grammar School. I can remember my own 11+ and the deputy head teacher whispering to me, “if you’re stuck go on, don’t waste time.” So did I cheat? I did pass and I did go to one of the best grammar schools at the time, 1970s and all that. Nowadays there are fewer and fewer grammar schools, if my daughter fails there are still two good              ex-grammar schools just up the road from where we live. I suppose its discipline that matters the most, if you are in a school where the other pupils are badly behaved then you and the rest of the class suffer. So really I don’t care where my daughter goes, and pass and fail does not matter, so long as she is happy. 

We are celebrating tonight with duck and pancakes, my Shanghai wife is a good cook, she just had to “steal” some leeks from our local take-away friends so that we could celebrate. End of the 11+ study regime, 2 or 3 hours of extra study every night for months, folders from a Chinese friend at Birmingham University. The folders are now in the boot of our car and will be returned, however in 3 years time they will no doubt return for my younger daughter. In Glee the other week the Chinese character got an A- , which was a F as far as his family was concerned.

That line made me laugh out loud, but if you have Chinese family or friends it is so so true, there must be 20 PhDs at least who attend the Birmingham Chinese Church, so their kids are all off the scale as far as studying goes. I used to think look at all those PhDs, then there was one emptying the dustbins, he wasn’t a PhD, no he was a Professor. I must also add they are amongst the kindest people I have ever met in my life.

So I’ll finish by saying my half Chinese daughters, are A++++++++++ in my heart.

Grammar or Style my reply to a Linkedin piece

I was probably the last person in England to be taught grammar, early 1970s. It is rare for it to be taught now, but Google away and contradict me.

Grammar is scaffolding for language, just as gossip is the glue that binds communities together.

People who are fixated about grammar etc, are stupid as New Yorkers might say. Its the message

that matters, sure if the words are so badly written that nobody can understand that does matter.

Its very American to go on courses to learn how to write or go to Journalism School for 4 years.

I'd say don't waste your time. 

Me I listened to BBC Radio4 for 20 years before I picked up a pen, its speech radio with drama,news and so on. So from 10 to 30 I must have heard thousands of plays and so on. Then when I picked up a pen nearly 25 years ago I had a good start, but it still took me a year of trying before I said to myself, I can write.

Style you either have or don't have, you can steal somebody elses or over analyse every book you have ever read. My own experience of Eng Lit is that it kills what you should be reading.

enjoy the book first and then think why you loved it afterwards. If the passion is there, then  make love, don't ring your priest first, just make love. English should be such  a passion, I'm told I have a good style, I hope because its funny, but you cannot analyse a joke, its either funny or its isn't. Humour does depend on the delivery, its the way I tell them was what one  great Northern Irish comedian said.  A favourite uncle only has to purse his lips and we all start to smile, then when he says something we are in stitches. I know from my hotel experience  at CPNEC I could raise a laugh, why, because I was practicing all day every day 12 hours a day, with such practice I had to be good. Just as a singer practices and reaches her peak, so does a writer. Bad style or bad writer, say like Dan Brown, can kill enjoyment so you cannot read more than a page, yet we are all different, some people think Dan Brown is great, I do not. I'll leave you with that thought. My stuff is on www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker my lead book is on Amazon Kindle with 3 other books of mine, just look for my face of the covers.

Just Say No to Warren Buffett

OCTOBER 22ND, 2011 21:41

Just Say No to Warren Buffett

By michaelgcasey

Too many wars broke America. Too many arguements amongst politicians broke America, too lax tax laws broke America. Lending money to folks who had zero credit rating broke America. America is divided, just watch Fox news having a discussion programme, 50% don’t bother to vote, and the rest are divided. So 26% of the country tells the other 74% what to do. Politicians need to grow up but they won’t. And Still folks naively vote Tea Party. In then end you have to negotiate. I feel sad that USA has reached this point. Perhaps we need the spirit of the 60s again, when we all had hopes and dreams. Spending billions to get elected is obscene. USA can be great again, but it needs to start from the bottom up. Don’t complain about China, especially when China is bailing everybody out. USA has to recapture its spirit again, they need to start today immediately, and never never never put their hopes in any politician, change USA one person at a time. Its not a spiritual message, its a love yourself back to health and strength then USA can be what it wants to be.

Red Carpet

The Red Carpet ©

By

Michael Casey

I was just reading the Daily Telegraph, its my paper of choice, they had a photo selection on the continuing celebrations for Paul McCartney and his new wife. This time it was in New York, the red carpet was rolled out, though I couldn’t actually tell from the photos was the carpet actually rolled out, a la Oscars. But the theme is the same, you are important, so the red carpet comes out, I’ve just had a look at Google for the history and Wikipedia says something but remember Wikipedia is not Gospel, look me up and see how inaccurate it is.

A  red carpet makes us feel important, as does a fawning flunkey, Dickens captured it all with Uriah Heep, and no I’m no Dickens expert, I just know 2 sentences about everything, which is one sentence more than the average guy, if I’m lucky. Or if any of you are old rock stars then Uriah Heep was a ROCK band. A new carpet has bounce and as we all know it’s the underlay that makes the difference, and more importantly than that it’s the carpet fitter, the bloke with the gripper  who turns  a house into a home. I saved up and had all my house done 6 months after I moved in, that’s 25 years ago now. It wasn’t red carpet but I felt important, I  was bouncing around my house, my red carpet home for weeks afterwards. Now years later and I’m married with girls in the house, we had to replace a chair so when the square yard it had sat on was revealed after decades of darkness the square was pristine and bouncy, as bouncy as a bouncy castle. So my girls enjoyed the bouncy square until the new chair arrived.

If you stand while you work as I’ve done in several jobs then a touch of softness underfoot is so so welcomed, whether it be red white or blue. I used to stand for 12 hours a day walking on marble in the hotel, CPNEC. We did 4 12hour shifts, the first day off I’d hobble down the stairs at home, I needed recovery time. So if ever I get the red carpet treatment, I will really enjoy it, but I do hope it has masses of soft underlay.

Red carpets are noisy they shout and scream at you, I am George Clooney, worship me, me I do actually look like George Cloony, google “michaelgcasey” and then hit images. Oh I was a bit economical with the truth during that last sentence, but  I do look like the Welsh news anchor on the BBC, well my wife thinks so. Yes, where was I, on the red carpet, would it make any difference if the colour was changed? I think it’s the concept of an outdoor carpet, we could have wallpaper on the outside of our homes, that would be extravagant, here in UK we have Blue Plaques to show/honour famous people and where they live. Just up the road from where I am talking is The Birmingham Oratory, and it has a blue plaque, John Henry Newman lived there, if you go a few hundred yards further up the road there is a blue plaque for JRR Tolkien, I doubt if there will ever be a blue plaque to me, MichaelGCasey. 

So will I ever be smiling from the red carpet walking arm in arm with my three girls, as they talk in Mandarin as we walk the red carpet in Shanghai, my books  translated and filmed, the top show in China, probably not, but if anybody has any carpet going spare, my living room now needs a new carpet, any colour accepted.    

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