Dickens, Christmas and all that (c)

Dickens, Christmas and all that ©

By Michael Casey

I was reading a gushy piece in the ads so of course I hated it. I switch off if I read gushy stuff. If I meet pretentious people I hate them immediately too. Style is a very difficult thing, my own developed and that’s what I and readers are stuck with. People nowadays do have a smaller attention span, and if you watch satellite tv then you will see what I mean. It really is a bad thing, no wonder Americans go to cinema in droves, the tv is so bad and with all the adverts on top, heaven help us.

 

Now reading is a very personal thing, as is soaking in the bath with just you and your thoughts for company, or maybe a radio in the background. I used to stop up late to finish the latest Alistair MacLean, I read all his books 30 years ago, some in one session till 1am or 2am. I love radio so I spent 20years plus listening to Radio4 too. Finding a book you like and an author too is great. I read all the Sherlock Holmes books when I was 10 or 11 so I was a fan. I watched the new and great tv series set in today’s world, so I rushed back to the books, sadly after over 40 years I just could not read them again. Sometimes its best to keep the memory and not go back.

Dickens is big, we all love A Christmas Carol, I have even cried while listening to it on the radio after Midnight Mass, I think we may have had to read some in grammar school, Oliver Twist or something. My own view is that students should be given a week or two to read the set text before starting to do English Lit on it. English Lit can kill a book, we did Over the Bridge by Richard Church, all I remember was that he wanted a piano, and was he ungrateful for all the hard work his parents had to do to provide it. Correct me if my memory after 40years is wrong. Over my shoulder we have an electronic piano, so I’m smiling as I talk.

 

Dickens used to be serialised before his work appeared in book form, nowadays we all blog and then hope people go to our site and then read more  and final buy a book or two. The modern method of writing would I think appeal to Dickens, he could travel and perform and after a busy day  blog away with his thoughts ablaze, a strong drink on his desk. If ever I get lucky I’d have an old fashioned desk and a big sturdy chair, and space for a pitcher of orange  juice right beside my computer screen. I’d have a  nice old fashioned clock on the desk too, so that I could time how long it took for people to comment on my newest blog. 200years from now I’ll be dust, but perhaps my great great grandchildren will still wonder why my hair was so white and why did a Shanghai girl marry me.

I hope it’s a great story just like  Charles Dickens. 

Tree Story

Tree Story©

By

Michael Casey

I had a tree at the bottom of my garden for maybe 20 years, it was a Laburnum tree, or Golden Chain. My mother had one at the bottom of her garden for years and years, I don’t know where she got it from, but every May it was glorious, golden chains of flowers, really really pretty.

When I got a house of my own I decided that I wanted a Golden Chain or Laburnum of my own too, so I  took a sapling from my mum’s garden and planted  it at the bottom of my own garden, I think I must have taken the 4 foot sapling on the bus to get it to my house. After a year it flowered, glorious and yellow, a sight to behold, a perpetual memory of my mother who had green fingers as far as her elbows. She could dive into a hedgerow or into a municipal garden while on holiday in Weston-Super-Mare  and take a cutting then throw it into a plastic bag with a bit of water and then take it home 2 weeks later where she’d plant it and it would grow for her. Anybody else would have a dead plant, not my mother, she passed on her green fingers to my eldest brother who has a show garden.

Trees grow and twist and bend as they grow, wonderful shapes and patterns just like a contortionist at the circus, but so much better. So the tree always reminded me of my mum and her love for all her big family. I also have Shamrock growing by the wall outside my back door, again I brought it to my home from the family home, and again it reminds me of my mum and my old aunty from Ballyheigh in County Kerry, it was Aunty Mary who had sent us some maybe 35years ago. So plants and trees are a token of Love, I’m sure everybody can remember planting something with somebody, together something was shared and is special because it was shared together.

Yesterday I cut down my Laburnum tree it had outgrown the space there was for it, I don’t know shall we dig it up and replant or just scatter seeds all around, and have a scented blossom plant grow on the grave of the Laburnum. I’ll consult with my two daughters, we can wait a month for the cold snap to stop biting at our ankles and then we can decide on colours and smells. Having said all that a Cherry Blossom tree would be nice, just like they have in Japan, after all we are a  Shanghai family , and we do really have Japanese neighbours just 2 doors away.

Flowers and plants are really expressions of love, learned men and poets and gardeners will explain it far better than me. My mother’s parting gift was white flowers all over my sister’s front garden, our mother had died and a few weeks after she had died white flowers popped up all over my sister’s garden. Mum had sneaked up to the house and planted seeds, so after her death they were a smile from Heaven. And Nature itself is God’s smile.

Ebooks

Ebooks©

 by Michael Casey

 

Just read DT, a bit about Ebooks. First I must declare an interest, I have 4 for sale on Amazon Kindle. Now to ebooks, I’ve seen a few people on the bus reading them and I have to agree they are great. Its so simple to upload, and then away you go. Getting folks to go and read your stuff is another matter entirely if you are a writer, but the technology is so sexy, and just like the article said its instantaneous.  In Roman days it was orgies on tap, now you have books on tap, satisfying the brain instead of any other organs. The ability to read everything ever written, and in such a small package; only the rich could read and own books, then we had Gutenberg and the printing press, it changed society forever, as will the ereader.

We all watched Star Trek when we were small and we were fascinated by the gadgets, just what did Ohoora have in her ear. Now we have delivery men and women with an electronic  signing form, the gas man has a computer to take readings, in the near future all readings will be sent down the line. So ebooks will dominate, but yes I too like the feel and touch  of  book, the smell too,  just as the Romans liked the feel and touch of their pleasures , as readers of books we all like  a nice book, something to cuddle up with, but let’s leave the Romans to their vices.

Mr Trout my old History teacher at grammar school advised reading Don Camillo and I did, it was a wonderful experience, I found a nice book shop in Blackpool while we were  on summer holidays  and I got all the books.  I rediscovered them 30 years later and I have an omnibus to the right of me, I’ve ½ read or should I say reread it. It really is such a joy, I read it in English , but you can also find it published online too, who knows in the future  it will be an ebook.  The technology for ebooks will I hope make us cherish them more in the future;  I have The Outline Of History by H.G. Wells on a shelf to my right, a present from when I left primary school, perhaps my grandchildren will have ebooks and ereaders on their shelves.

Chinese Mother I live that life

Chinese Mother I live that  life ©

By

Michael Casey

I was just looking at the Daily Telegraph when I spotted a piece about a book Chinese Mother, I scanned it and thought, I don’t need to read this I already live this, I have a Shanghai wife, so for 13years I know all about Chinese things. The work ethic, the saving ethic, and the religion ethic, what did he just say the religion ethic? Yes the religion ethic, if and when you meet a Chinese Christian you will be amazed. I don’t know if they are all converts or just how many generations of Christians they are, but I do know when they believe they really believe.

I’m a Catholic  from County Kerry, 1^st generation born in Birmingham, but my Faith goes back 100s of years, from  the nipple for generations, very very poor but a faith so rich, see photo Cromane Kerry. Now when you visit Chinese church you may see a lesson going on, lots of adults doing Bible study, the students in their 30s and 40s may all be PhDs, 12 students as many as there were disciples with one teacher, who is of course a PhD too. Once we were at a meeting, and the great thing is there is always food afterwards, just imagine that. Anyway you may ask is he a PhD and the answer is yes  yes  yes and yes, you notice somebody empting the bins, is he a PhD, no not him, he is a Professor, Andrew may smile if ever he reads this. The point is they are committed to what they love, their love of God, just being average is no good, just being good is no good,  being very good may be acceptable, but being the best of the best is their target, it’s the norm for Chinese Christians. That’s why they study Bible so much, we have 3 or 4 Bibles in our house 2 in Chinese, and one is bilingual Bible, my kids are encourages to study it every day. I’m classed as the pagan because I don’t daily read the Bible, I just remind my convert wife that I have heard the Bible in Mass for over 50years now. I did used to read it on Sundays too, but that’s no good for a Shanghai wife, I am a pagan, I may as well be wearing wode and dance around the garden naked. If I can’t pass A level Bible studies with an A******* then I’m useless. This really is the standard Chinese Christians try to attain.

In other aspects of life Chinese people  want to be the best, computing for example; we had a problem on our home computer and we ended up with a totally clued up kid come and fix it for us. The point to all this is that we have to emulate, compete and try and be better than them, and yes it can be done, we just have to raise our game. I’m fortunate because my Birmingham/Shanghai daughters have a head start because of a nagging, lovingly nagging mother,  I’m the more relaxed one in the family. This of course means that I’m classed as useless, however my girls have inherited the love of writing from me, or it could be from their Chinese granddad and a Political Editor Chinese  Great Uncle. In the end though it’s the Love from everywhere, from Ireland from China from Birmingham from Shanghai, THIS is always the key, without Love there is nothing, there is a famous Bible passage that states all this. If I were Chinese in a nanosecond I’d quote the chapter and verse of it all this, I think its Paul’s letter to somebody or another. I’m no Bible Scholar after all, I’m just a writer looking for a publisher.

Ten Years Ago

Ten years ago this week my life changed forever, I got a job at the CPNEC Birmingham England, it was also the week my dad died. I saw my dad for the last time on the Tuesday, I told him about the new job, then on the Saturday he died. He asked for an extra egg for breakfast, by the time Maria returned he had died in his chair. Ten years have past, my daughter playing the piano behind me is ten now, my other daughter is eight, she's upstairs playing with her dolls' house. Working in an hotel was a new and novel experience for me, very hard work but loads of fun. The whole world came through the doors at CPNEC, it was a brand new hotel, I opened it as the say in the jargin. My dad had literally survived a fatal heart attack, my brother did CPR and saved him, 8 weeks previously our mum had  died in her sleep, the same brother had cradled her in his arms and tried CPR buy she was gone. 5 priests and 300 people came to her funeral, a barrister took the day off to attend and sing in the choir. Then dad nearly joined her, but he did not, and that's how I found my Shanghai wife, Padre Pio and Me on my site explains it all. I suppose I should have felt older once my dad died but I did not, I'm still staying 20 in my head, its the Birth Certificate thats 30 years older not me.  Death Anniversaries shouldn't be times of sadness quiet the reverse, our dad loved us so much, real love, not luvie love all holding hands, just quiet deep deep love, not even spoken most of the time but it was there just as gravity is. The hotel job was part of my life for 3years I excelled at it, the parent part of my life was much much more, and funny too. Having a family late when you don't expect it really is a blessing, enough to make you cry, to look up at the night skies and thank God. Ten years have gone since my dad has gone, maybe in 10 more I'll join him, we all never know the time and place of our parting, I do know one thing for certain, if I'm half as good a parent as my parents were for me then I'll die happy with a smile on my face.

Simon and Garfunkel

I was watching a documentary on Simon and Garfunkel, the creative process was talked about, all the recording tricks of the trade back then, 40years ago. Yes 40years ago, they know each other nearly 60years now. I know somebody over 40years ago myself but I was amazed that S & G had such a great collaboration even if it did break up. Music is such a great thing, like breath from heaven, only Nature itself can beat Music for  the effect it has on us. Nature with morning skies and sunsets, rain and storms, moonlit nights and more. Amadeus showed us how great Mozart was, it touched us and impressed us. Simon and Garfunkel do the same, when you go back and listen again to their music you remember just how great it is. BBC Radio2 did a  series about them maybe 20years ago, I think that was better than the tv show on BBC4, but radio is better than TV. A final thought for all the music lovers out there, it is only by listening to music that we realise that music is God's breath, and it also reminds us of our own mortality.

Hello World

Hello World © 

By Michael Casey

Hello world, or should I say hello Word, I’ve decided to get a new version of Word, mine was very old, so I googled and found software4students.co.uk  The deal with this is that you get great software at ½ the price you’ll find it elsewhere. How does it work? Easy these guys work with Microsoft to give you and me cheap software. You must be a student or a parent/guardian of a student. You click on the name and postcode of your child’s school and away you go. Less than 40quid for Word 2010 Professional Plus, it’s a bargain. They sell other stuff too, I quite liked the pen with a memory in, go to their site an see for yourself.

So I should write something super duper to go with my new Word 2010, but all I can think of is tomato soup, its cold outside and I need something nice, I’ve had too many hot drinks, I need something with flavour in. Heinz tomato soup will be so nice, though really I should save it for my girls when they come home from school in an hour. I’ve compromised and had some warming crumpet instead. I mentioned crumpet and Sid James in the same breath to a shop assistant in Aldi and guess what, he’d never heard of Sid James, though he did pass me a packet of crumpet. You can tell when you are getting old when nobody has heard of Sid James, Carry On Up the Kyber was an absolute classic. The first time my Shanghai wife saw it she cried with laughter.

As for the Shanghai wife she is out buying up all things nice for Chinese New Year which falls this weekend, 785 on Sky is Phoenix the Chinese Entertainment channel if you take a peek there will be an entertainment show, just like a Royal Variety Performance. So do take a look, the singing will be fab, I remember watching it in 2000 in Shanghai. Believe it or not but the comedy segments you’ll see are very funny, even without the benefit of Chinese language skills. It’s the Year of the Dragon this year, nothing to do with Mother-in-Laws either. So go out and get some prawn crackers in, eat them as you watch 785 on Sky, and if you don’t laugh then I’m a Chinaman.