Colours

Colours©

By Michael Casey

I don’t know about you but I find BBC4  has some really good stuff on it. Today I was catching up on a programme about colour in Art, then tonight I caught the final episode which was really interesting. We all have a favourite colour, mine is blue, not too blue but blue enough, and then there is the Virgin Mary blue that you see on statues of Mary in church. The show on tv explained how the Church wanted to keep a monopoly on the colour, and in fact how only She should be coloured in that blue. So it was heresy for Mary not to be painted in the right colour so to speak. This is the European tradition, for Faiths all over the world I imagine there are and still are rules and so forth, so I’ll stick to Europe.

I’ve always liked paintings, I saved up and bought a few for my walls many years ago before I was married, you know when you don’t have to think about children’s shoes and so forth, now you think about the colours of the shoes at your daughter’s school and not about paintings for your wall, though both my daughters are artists.  Colours are Life, they really are, we have the beauty of girls all over the world and the traditions of hair and the colour of clothing,  to be honest a girl’s smile and eyes are the most important thing in my opinion.  Girls being girls like or should I say adore a bit of colour, it really does control men, if you like colour is the bait that gets a girl noticed and a man hooked. Yes I know that sentence may annoy some, but you can write your own essay and let people judge your writing. Colour is soft, colour is cold, colour is warm, it is matched and mixed, and when every aspect of colour comes together it stops the show. How do I know this? I have a Shanghai wife and two daughters, they have taught me! However for me its just the eyes and smile which I look for.

In the tv show it talked about artists’ ideas and beliefs, their feelings are so intense, a factor of 100000 compared to you and me, Don McClean’s   Starry  Starry Night explains a lot, even Dr Who when he met Van Gogh, colour means so much. We can hate a colour for many reasons, it may have been your school uniform or your work uniform. I wear rugby shirts a lot, so bright orange with a polo scene on my Polo is my favourite, I can wear office wear when I have to, but otherwise its big brash colours for me, on my site and on Facebook you can see my use or abuse of colours.

On the show they talked about architecture and the use of scale and colour, why do dictators like themselves so much, North Korea has giant statues, Fascists had statues galore and giant imposing buildings to match their egos. To me its like the Emperors New Clothes, we  the people should laugh at those kind of people, their worth and intellect is in inverse proportion to their monuments.  In North Korea the new boss’s wife has her fancy handbag worth 1 year’s salary  compared to the average person in that country. Laughter should be used to bring those people down.

Banksy leaves graffiti all over the place making a statement about stuff, perhaps he should do a tour of all these totalitarian places and draw moustaches and chads all over the loved leaders  posters. The trouble with leaders is that they see things in black and white, colours are forbidden. 

Food and Panda

We've just come back from a family meal at Wing Wah, the one by Wing Yip supermarket. Its a bit like doing bingo, you get a list of up to 80 and you tick off what you want to eat. You have a sip of your drinks while you are waiting. Then  wave after wave of food arrives, its more like snacks, very tasty. Jing Jie, the wife, ordered 11 items, including chicken feet. We did not finish everything so we took two items home, and Jing Jie ordered half a duck too as take away. All in all good value, and best of all she paid. I'm all for equality where women pay. We then paid a visit to Costco to get some books for Annie our daughter, Eve wanted a giant teddy bear, 53inches tall, but we did not get it for her.  You can also get a cheap snack at Costco should the need arise.

I'm also on Facebook, in the vain hope of getting noticed as a writer, hasn't worked yet. There is another Michael Casey on Facebook, but he is a porter at Heartlands hospital. And to add to the confusion on Amazon Kindle there is another Michael Casey, but he is a Monk and writes spiritual texts, so that's not me. I have 4 photos of myself on the covers, those are me.

Cheerio from Birmingham, I'm listening to Usher on the computer as I talk to you, I got a free CD when I bought some aftershave. Usher is good, I just hope his aftershave is, or I'll give it to the wife instead.

I forgot to say one of our pandas is a bit dizzy, he was looking manky so we popped him in the washing machine, we watched as his face appeared and disappeared as he tried to swim around the washing machine. Panda came out all bright and clean, the white whiter than white and the black all nice and black, Bold really does work. He said he's talk to his cousin Ted about it. Now the panda is sitting on top of a chair with his bum in the air to dry it.

And the Gold Goes to

And The Gold Goes To ©

By Michael Casey

It’s the Greatest Show On Earth and after years of being a couch potato its every sports fan’s chance to shine. So it’s off to the off-licence for crates of Stella Artois and multi-packs of crisps and a load of chocolates. Then there must be pizzas, 20 pizzas to share, no arguing Pepperoni Rules ok? And after all this eating and drinking there must be toilet paper, so a 48 role multi packet from Costco will do the trick, just  in case the host’s house gives you the squits, at least a full role ready with 3 more ready on the shelf.

So all is ready and you have a spare set of batteries for the Sky remote control, the chairs are  in the best position in front of the 42inch lcd tv, cushions are ready and crisps are at hand and 16 cans are ice cold and ready in the fridge. So let the games begin, everything is ready, apart from air freshener and domestos.

“Pass us a can, and a packet of cheese and onion crisps,” you shout before burping and lifting a leg to fart. You flick through the 35 BBC digital channels of sport, technology is great, Elvis used to have banks of TVs you only need one a 42inch lcd tv monster. Pizzas are passed out and faces are decorated with tomato sauce, and the sport has only been on for 30minutes. Then it’s time for another can and a visit to the bathroom, the toilet paper is ready, see everything is planned to perfection.

You get down stairs only to discover you’ve missed your favourite sport, but with 35channels you’ll soon catch up. Then disaster strikes, no not a sprain of a crash of athletes, you cannot find the remote so everybody has to stand and search for the remote. Then it’s back to the crisps and Stella, but then another disaster, you cannot find the matches to light oven. Somebody has an idea, then you lean over the garden fence with a twisted piece of paper and like an Olympic  torch you lead it into the house to light the oven for more pizza.

So welcome to the 2012 London Olympics, your friends and you have already won the Gold for pizza, Stella and laddish behaviour. 

Flowers

Flowers ©

By Michael Casey

I was talking to Ana and we got talking about  flowers and gardens and such like, I told her to look at www.rightmove.co.uk and enter B67 with a radius of 1 mile, then she could see what Birmingham looked like. As quick as a flash she showed me a house on the site, I told her it was a ten minute walk from my house and that there was a park and then a wood nearby. All a world away from her own homeland, every country has its own treasures.

I told her what my garden looked like, the grass was cut yesterday as it happens, what kind of flowers we have. I forgot to mention our small front garden with roses, fuchsia and pink hydrangea too.  Talking to Ana made me think of my mother, she had green fingers all the way up to her elbow, she even left a surprise after her death, white daisies sprung up in my sister’s garden weeks after our mother had died, a kiss from Heaven so to speak.   

Flowers remind us of loved ones and bring smiles and sometimes tears back, but most of all flowers bring us pleasure. Flowers are given on Mother’s Days and Birthdays and  on Wedding Anniversaries, and at Funerals too. There is a lot of love connected with flowers, kiss from a rose Seal sings, daisy daisy give me an answer true, if I am remember The Good Old Days correctly. The thing is flowers mean something and flowers mean more to women than men. Flowers are symbols, they are even on some National flags, the humble Shamrock is a symbol of Faith and of a Nation too.

Flowers were used in the English Civil War hundreds of years ago, the War of the Roses , white and red roses, if I’m remembering my History correctly. Flowers have a scent, they are soft to the touch, as soft as a lover’s first kiss, flowers hide the stench of death, ring a ring a roses a pocket full of roses means something. Flowers are spread on a wedding bed, a bride’s delight with the  scent of roses.

Flowers can also be false, a traitor, a trap, hiding behind smiles of love when really it is lust. Me am I all romantic, do I bring flowers for my wife all the time? No never, I never bring flowers, even though I have a painting of red and yellow roses on the wall behind me. No, because she has hay fever.

Saturday with the girls

Took the girls on a mystery walk this afternoon. They had been swimming in the morning, then singing in the afternoon, at a wedding and they got a few quid too. Then it was time for our Saturday afternoon stroll. I had been looking at www.rightmove.co.uk  with area B67 and 1 mile radius. So I knew that near my daughter's new school there were some great houses, only 4 times tyhe value of ours, but maybe one day I'll win the lottery. So we went for a walk and the girls tried to  guess where we were going. When we got to the top of the main shopping they guessed I was taking them to the new school. I told them it was a mystery, and we walked past the school. The girls said I was in league with the fairies and I was taking them nowhere. I promised a shop and a treat from the shop when we got there. The girls did not believe me. I knew from Google exactly where I was going, I kept on saying keep right on to the end of the road, then keep looking right, they did not believe me at all, more comments about fairies and fairy dust. Finally we arrived and there was 7 shops in a row with a newagents at the end. So we had tiptops from the shop and then headed back. Tip tops are plastic bags full of flavoured ice, if any of you not from UK have never heard of tip tops. I was transported back 45years. I really enjoyed the tip top, we'd walked 3 miles nearly 5k to reach there. Going back is always faster, so we got back with 10k under our belt, or should I say under our shoes. We did stop off for a lottery ticket, so maybe we can afford to move there IF we win. Now the girls are watching Charlie and The Chocolate Factory for the 10th time, as they eat mint flavoured chocolate. Twilight is on afterwards so we'll watch that together. I hope you all had a good family day today. Michael in a dry for a day Birmingham

Facebook the new Pen Pals

Facebook the new Pen Pals ©

By Michael Casey

 

I used to have a SW radio and I’d listen to all the foreign stations from all around the world, in English as I’m not multi-lingual, though one of my brothers is, and a very old friend from grammar school too. The quality of the radio reception was truly amazing, I had a 30foot round room antennae made from old electrical wire. I had a schedule and I’d listen religiously to all the programmes, I even got a request on Radio Brazil, and one on radio Switzerland. That was 30years ago and more. I even heard radio Australia. This was before computers and Internet.

People will probably laugh when they hear of SW radio, it was the bees’ knees back then, BBC world service is SW radio still. Reaching out, or listening out was very interesting for me. My first radio was a blue plastic radio with a small square battery in it, the kind of battery you have in your 2  smoke alarms. I listened to BBC Radio4 on an old Bush radio for 20years before I tried writing, so you can understand just how important radio was/is to me. Radio brings another dimension to your life, as children we listen under the bedclothes so dad cannot hear. Or we’d save up for an earphone, which went in one ear only, headphones did not exist back then, 1960s what an era to grow up in. We had a white plastic radio for the living room, my dad heard my brother’s request on Tony Blackburn, long live Tony Blackburn.

Computers and Internet have changed the ball game. We can speak and see folks all over the world, we broadcast to Ma in Shanghai all the time, MSN messenger does the trick, its all so easy. You’d be burnt as a witch if you predicted all this years ago, but technology does bring all of us together, that is truly wonderful.

Now what about Face Book.  It does bring people together, even if Mark Zuckerberg never answers my messages, and has never bought any of my books. Face Book is the modern short wave radio, it brings people together from all over the place, and best of all it’s a 2 way communication. So in my case I contact writers in the vain hope that they’ll think I’m a great humour writer and tell their agents and hey presto I’ll have a 4 book deal and be on Opera telling her about my latest oeuvre, and I promise I won’t jump up and down on the couch, I weight more than a heavyweight boxer.  Another side to FB is the sharing experience, so as I did some Esol   English teaching I can give a few tips, share a few websites with people. LearningEnglishWithMrDuncan on UTUBE is a great resource, 150 short lessons with subtitles. Mr Duncan is now working in Shanghai, this amuses me because my mother-in-law could end up as his landlady. I would still like Mark Z to buy my 4 books and tell the world to do the same, then I could live in Palo Alto, and who knows Mark Zuckerberg could be my landlord.

We all just love call centres (c)

We all just love call centres ©

 

By Michael Casey

 

 

We all just love call centres, we all just love it when they call when we've just sat down on the toilet and we're expecting a call from grandma in Shanghai. So the phone rings and we dash for the Andrex and the sink to wash our hands in. Then still pulling up our pants, we fall down stairs just as Norman Wisdom or Brian Rix would do, then pulling up our pants and doing up our trousers’ belt we pass by the hall mirror and see the black eye we've just got. We answer the phone, there is a long long pause, as if the call centre  guy is having a final drag on his fag  before answering, "hi I'm Guy, could I interest you in cable tv,  I've got such a great package to offer." his voice  oh so so sexy, in his imagination anyway. Has he not heard of Sky, the best package.  So we swear in Shanghai dialect, and hang up the phone. Then we notice our trousers are split, the one's grandma in Shanghai had made for us, the trousers for her Panzi, her Fat Fat Boy son in law.

 

If only we could get revenge, just like in Bruce Almighty. A bottled water company rings, so we click our fingers and its as if the Dam Busters had breached that dam, a sodden girl will NEVER ring your number again. Then there's a knock at your door, its the Mormons, you smile and smile, and they start running away, only asking which way is the airport. Why? Well I'll leave that to your imagination. The phone rings again, so you do heavy breathing, only for a voice at the other end of the phone to say "I'm Sergeant Dixon, would you be interested in joining the neighbourhood watch scheme." "Sorry Wrong Number is your reply." You decide to change, you're half way up the stairs when the phone ring again, you turn and fall down the stairs again. Your wife is just in the door and she answers the phone,  she can see you over her shoulder, "I told you you were too fat for those trousers" You trip over again, "bloody call centres is all you can say."

We all just love call centres ©

 

By Michael Casey

 

 

We all just love call centres, we all just love it when they call when we've just sat down on the toilet and we're expecting a call from grandma in Shanghai. So the phone rings and we dash for the Andrex and the sink to wash our hands in. Then still pulling up our pants, we fall down stairs just as Norman Wisdom or Brian Rix would do, then pulling up our pants and doing up our trousers’ belt we pass by the hall mirror and see the black eye we've just got. We answer the phone, there is a long long pause, as if the call centre  guy is having a final drag on his fag  before answering, "hi I'm Guy, could I interest you in cable tv,  I've got such a great package to offer." his voice  oh so so sexy, in his imagination anyway. Has he not heard of Sky, the best package.  So we swear in Shanghai dialect, and hang up the phone. Then we notice our trousers are split, the one's grandma in Shanghai had made for us, the trousers for her Panzi, her Fat Fat Boy son in law.

 

If only we could get revenge, just like in Bruce Almighty. A bottled water company rings, so we click our fingers and its as if the Dam Busters had breached that dam, a sodden girl will NEVER ring your number again. Then there's a knock at your door, its the Mormons, you smile and smile, and they start running away, only asking which way is the airport. Why? Well I'll leave that to your imagination. The phone rings again, so you do heavy breathing, only for a voice at the other end of the phone to say "I'm Sergeant Dixon, would you be interested in joining the neighbourhood watch scheme." "Sorry Wrong Number is your reply." You decide to change, you're half way up the stairs when the phone ring again, you turn and fall down the stairs again. Your wife is just in the door and she answers the phone,  she can see you over her shoulder, "I told you you were too fat for those trousers" You trip over again, "bloody call centres is all you can say."