Pens and Penmanship

Pens  and Penmanship ©

By Michael Casey

 

I just read a piece in the BBC magazine online, it was all about fountain pens. Now I immediately have to confess my writing is terrible, and no I’m not pretending, as far back as 40 years ago at grammar school I was told off for it. In fact I was told off in Primary school too, they even got me to write a few rows of “a” and of “b” and so on, it failed to improved my writing, I was a massive reader at the time, for one year I was practically left alone to read, perhaps  it was then that my writing died. In grammar school my friends said my writing was like drunken spiders, or in today’s world my writing is like spiders on acid. So there you have it, my writing is bad, very bad. So bad perhaps I should be a doctor.

Once you have bad hand writing people take the mick when you tell them you are a writer, as did the nice lady from the neighbourhood office a couple of weeks ago when my daughter went to collect a prize for drawing. Both my daughters draw and paint, they are very very good at it, they have a collection of 700 crayons and paints and pencils, not to mention felts and gel pens and all things that can make marks on paper. My daughters always need more, so that’s dad’s job to provide more artists material. I am of course very jealous of their skills, if I bit the top off my thumb and used that to sign my name that would be an improvement on my signature.

So what can a writer who cannot write do? He can type, I remember learning to type in 1978, I stood at the bus stop moving my fingers and trying to remember the qwerty keyboard. Now I’m a fast typist, when I’m writing my stuff, I’m not so fast  as a copy typist, nothing is more boring than typing up somebody else’s stuff. I remember one of the more mature ladies at the law firm who said “I was once clocked at 100wpm” and so she was, and that why one of the partners gave her two crates of champagne as a personal thank you for her typing, at that speed the paper would catch fire no doubt, if we still used the old typewriters.

So how can this writer improve his writing? I use different fonts on Word, and hope people like the look, looks do make a difference. If I can give a silly example, the ASDA near us uses a big bold font, but the size is too small and the letters touch other. This means to my eyes it’s terrible, and that’s the only complaint I have about the store, but I’m sure if any ASDA people read this they may change it. A sign encourages us to buy or to laugh, when we leave stuff out in the entry for Sky Burial I leave a note encouraging people to take our junk away. “Sit on Me” for a chair, and “sleep with me” for a bed, as I look out the window our gay neighbours are getting a new bed.

We get loads of junk email, if we had an open fire we’d never need to buy fuel, we’d just toast our bread on junk mail. Junk mail tries to look appealing and is printed on glossy paper, glossy paper is very heavy as I can remember when I carried bags at CPNEC, homes abroad salesmen had cases and cases of the stuff. So writing and communicating  all needs words, good words from a writer, but how those words are written and displayed has a massive impact, ask any politician. When  contracts are signed it’s done on quality paper that is bound together with a heat bind seal, and it’ll be a red seal if the contact is for Chinese clients, I know I’ve done 1000s. So presentation is king, you don’t want “thank you for your pieces of paper” when you send stuff to a publisher, and yes 25 years ago I did get that putdown. I hope you are all enjoying this Bookman Old Style, but I know just how important type setting is, another putdown a really good snide one was when I was turned down for a job and the HR lady replied in flowewry type face  and yes I do know her name.

All I can say is thank God for word processors, 1988 was the year I bought an Atari520 just for the word processor and it was very very expensive, it did play a big part in my life, I had Shoplife accepted by a theatre, I wrote it in Aug 1988 when the Olympics were on. Yes I’d love to be able to write, but I can write but not handwrite, so I hope any future readers will accept a rubber stamp when I do any book signings, my daughters will be on hand to draw a cartoon on each book.  

Alternative Swearing

Alternative Swearing ©

By Michael Casey

Swearing is the norm nowadays, but if it defuses anger and prevents physical violence  then I’d say it’s a good thing, it’s a safety valve. In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe “Belgium”   was the worse thing that could be said. Nowadays everybody swears in films, American TV is very strict so that when it comes to films all the swears that could not be said on tv are said on film. I remember watching Saturday Night Fever when it first came out and thinking they don’t need all this swearing, and later the film was edited so that it got a lower certification and more people could enjoy John Travolta, as you all know I am Birmingham’s answer to John Travolta.

Now how to we prevent the air going blue, so that the ladies don’t blush and aren’t offended by all the language. I was talking  to Bernard Manning the other day, well in my imagination anyway, and he gave me loads of ideas, as did Lennie Bruce, they share a cloud together in Heaven, it’s a blue cloud of course. You aren’t calling me a “flowering petal” are you? I’ll be very angry if you are,  “you’re just a custard cream anyway” Now don’t look at me with that tone of  voice or I’ll “dip  your biscuit in my tea” and there won’t be any “sugar in it either” Are you calling me a “Politician, take it back you  table you” ok, so we’ve all calmed down a bit.

“Politician” is the rudest word of all in the alternative swearing dictionary, though don’t broadcast this but I was once called “A lollypop lady”, I nearly used a “liquorice” on the person who called me it.  Our local MP is a bit of a “custard pie” it must be true it’s written on all the bus shelters. Tell me why he is a custard pie, that I cannot deny, he really IS a custard pie. What do politicians, real politicians call themselves?  Honest as the day is long is what politicians call themselves, but in reply the press corps  call them “A bunch of Daylight Savings, fiddling with the minute hands” which sounds about right. Just a moment I can hear my phone ringing, no not another metaphor, my phone really is ringing.

I’m a bit flustered, that phone call was the worst I’ve ever had in my life, an hour of heavy breathing, then the lady called me, I can’t bring myself to repeat what she said, it was so shocking, an hour of heavy breathing from a lady I can handle, but she just called me a “political WRITER”.

Bring Back Barter

Bring Back Barter© By Michael Casey

Should we bring back barter? I got an ad for something a few mins ago, so I offered to trade my 4 books for some nice Adobe software. Could I write a poem for a loaf of bread and some shopping. Could I pose as a George Clooney lookalike in exchange for some orange juice, and I do love my orange juice. Could I hop 100yards in exchange for some vegetables or stand on my head for a bottle of milk. Should I wear my clown hat in exchange for a nice Jorg Gray watch, the nice blue hands one on Amazon, President Obama has one but  the one I like is cheaper, 84quid. Should I sit on the wall  outside my house and tell stories, I was once called Jackanory when I was at a law firm, no I'm no lawyer. Would people leave scraps in a bowl for me, would I earn coins and maybe notes, food of all kinds as a reward for being a modern fool. Would Prince Charles say "off with his head", would I be thrown into a dungeon, would I be chained to a wall till my beard was 10feet long and my nails were long and curly. Would people  people come and mock me in the dungeon. Or would I just be ignored, the fool on a hill, and I do live on a hill. Who knows or do I have a talent to amuse, just as a book on Noel Coward was called.  Maybe I'll be famous when I'm dead, and no don't send a hitman to get me, my girls need me, if only to get the bike out from the shed.

Waiting

Waiting ©

By Michael Casey

Waiting, we all wait, for this for that and for anything else in between; we may have even suffered Waiting For Godot while at grammar school, which is ten times worse than double Latin on a Friday afternoon, two hours of Latin, I know I was that man. Waiting they say is good for the soul, wait for your exam results, wait for the bus to come, waiting for the girl to give in. All sorts of waiting, each of which brings out  all sorts of emotions, how could waiting have so much power over us? Are we impatient?  Do we want things now, are we the now generation?

We are the Internet Generation, my girls ask me questions and I try my best but if I don’t know I direct them to Google, “dad you are our Google” is what they say, as usually I do have some answer. Waiting for the postman to bring news from  some foreign field, each letter treasured, then one day it’s not a letter but a telegram, a dreaded telegram, a telegram means death. Sadly all over the world this is still what’s going on, death in a letter, then waiting for the pension, waiting waiting waiting; sons can go to war but their sacrifice is not recognised, their wives and kids can wait and wait and wait until finally the pension letter arrives. Why did they have to die?

Is something better if you have had to wait? True love, sex, that car, that house, that job, does it taste sweeter if you have had to wait? I remember my cousin’s wife telling me that her husband really treasured their children as marriage and family came late to him, so he loved them all the more. Perhaps fifteen years later, “the urge” as they call it in County Kerry  came knocking on my door, waiting was over I have a family myself, my Irish cousins say I got all my luck in one go, the waiting was over, I have a family, a Shanghai wife and 2 daughters. Now I am forever waiting for them, 3 girls in the house is fun, but you wait a lot for them, waiting while they change or comb their hair, what’s the nursery rhyme? Dan Dan washed his face in the frying pan, combed his hair with a leg of a chair? Well that’s me, but my 3 girls, I’m forever waiting, but at least it’s not as bad as Waiting for Godot. 

A Rainy Saturday

A Rainy Saturday ©

By Michael Casey

It’s another rainy April day,  mum is out for the day so I’m left with the girls. So we can catch up with our films on the Sky+ box, we watch Charlie’s Angels together, it’s very funny with lots of tongue in cheek humour, one or two jokes for the grown ups too. We like the kung fu too, we are a Shanghai/Birmingham family after all.

My big daughter is mad for pencils, so she persuades me to order a propelling pencil set, she uses it to draw with too. When you have an artist in the family you have to have the right kind of pencil, the fact that she has 500 pens, pencils and crayons already does not matter, she must have the latest one. She was given 10 new pencils the other day by somebody we met while we were sheltering from the rain, but that was not what she needed, she always “needs”  the exact thing she wants. She is a great sketcher though.

As for her small sister, she was upstairs near her beloved dolls house, it now has two bright plastic chimneys, red and blue, old building blocks were added to make her dolls house more distinctive.  I shout up the stairs reminding her to read too, I ask what page she’s starting from so I can gauge if she is doing enough reading. She does 70 pages plus in a day, she’s a very fast reader. Now that she has mastered all her times tables I am a happy dad, the 8s were the hardest, I reminded her I was beaten by the teacher, so  I got mine right the 2^nd time he asked me, which was an incentive for her.

Piano practice was also part of the day, my big daughter can play a little, but she and her smaller sister need to practice practice practice.  The piano will be a good investment IF in the end they can both play, we did get a letter from my big daughter’s new secondary school offered music lessons and instrument lessons; we are lucky though because Betty from the choir gives them singing and music tuition, all this means is that they are better at the piano thanks to Betty. Perhaps I should nominate Betty for an OBE or something, along with the lollypop lady.

The girls have both retreated upstairs so they must be making stuff or drawing, I do know when to switch the tv off and to switch the computer off too, a balance between fun and creative arts is a must to my way of thinking. I don’t need Dr Spock’s book, didn’t he say he was wrong years later anyway?  I have to finish now, my big daughter says she wants to write a story. We’ll turn into a family of writers, now that would make all my dreams come true.

Data Mining

Data Mining ©

By Michael Casey

So you look on line and you buy a great new watch, say its automatic,  that’s one of my weaknesses, I just love watches. I should say that I had 20 watches in 20 years as I was always carrying boxes around computer rooms or print rooms. Once the glass fell out of a watch so I glues it back, only I glues the second and hour hands together, I wrote about it in The Watch and Me which you can find on my site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

Though today I want to talk about Data Mining, you know where you are offered something free, but you end up paying through the nose, or rather you are led by the nose, like an old bull because you’ve fallen for their bull. Win a free ipod or whatever, but then you have to join this or join that. If you’re stupid enough to fall for it you then have to provide information. Your name and age and date of birth, where you live, your salary bracket, how many kids you have and so forth. I get 20 plus emails a day, junk emails that is, I am on Funny or Die so folks over there must feed in my email so I get all sorts of rubbish from USA. Be a proctologist , be a F16 pilot, join the KKK family discount available, pay $300 and away you go. Respect ME and we can steal $15,000,000 from Sierra Leone just email me  at my private email, it’s probably a jail, and we’ll be millionaires together, just send 1000USD to cover expenses. The expenses are cheap whores, recommended by the Secret Service, so they must be good.

Surveys online are another way to data mine, then you get thousands of  junk emails, I know, I get them all the time. When you buy things they ask for too much information, just so they can sell you more stuff, or just collect 1,000,000 email addresses and sell them to marketing people. It’s too much, Big Brother 1984, has anybody read that book, I did at grammar school. I always say I’m 100 years old and live at the Vatican, and that I’m a Pagan. But the data miners persist, they want to know your weight, your height, your inside leg measurement, I even hear that they want a blood sample, a hair sample, a sperm sample too, does my photo look so good that people want to breed from me?

Just tell them to go away that’s what I say.

Stuffing Tony

Stuffing Tony©

By Michael Casey

 

Stuffing Tony, what am I talking about, no not our tame turkey whom we've decided to eat, nor anything else. Tony is in fact a soft toy, he's my small daughter's favourite, the one she loves the most. He's a white tiger, he was in fact he was her sister's Birthday tiger from a few years ago, but she cried until she owned him. Tony is a very washed out bleached kind of tiger. Tony has been through the washing machine a couple of times, he was very very dizzy when he came out. Yesterday Tony got a brother, his brother is a ginger tinger, now christened Ginger. Ginger makes us laugher because Ginger is how English people call my wife if they cannot pronounce  her Chinese name.

Tony is one of 40 stuffed toys the girls have, they live up a corner behind the sofa which is just behind me. They are allowed out to form a class when my small daughter plays teacher, afterways they climb back into their Iceland bags and go to sleep. There is a problem with Tony though, he's lived in the fast lane and lost a lot of weight. So following strict instructions, today I have done a stuffing transplant, which is like a heart transplant but much more important and dangerous. Today without any sedative I have made Loony Chick donate some stuffing to Tony. I took the scissors and make an incision   in Loony Chick’s behind, I then proceeded to remove the stuffing. I had previously made an incision in Tony’s neck at the back, it was then  a process of removing from Loony Chick and stuffing Tony.

The whole procedure lasted 20mins, Tony now looks very plumped up and proud, as the leader of the pride should look. As for Loony Chick, he, she or should I say it now looks as if he’d had a few dodgy kebabs, very slim, but at least the head still looks plump. When the girls come home from school we’ll decide what to do with Loony Chick, should we stuff him with chopped up old clothes, or bubble wrap? Or should he face the death sentence and be sent to a Charity shop, I  know it sounds cruel, but since he came back from Shanghai in 2009 he’d mainly been a cushion.

These are the very serious things a modern parent has to deal with, luckily I know how to sew, and I have a special relationship with all the toys. Now that Tony is full and looks like a weightlifting Tiger I hope Ginger won’t be jealous, otherwise one of them may have to end up in a zoo, or the closest equivalent, in one of the 13 charity  shops near our house.