Parenting ©

By Michael Casey

“Mom where’s my shirt?”

“Where you left it.”

“Mom you have to help me, I have to wear it for school.”

“It’s where you left it.”

“You’re no use, Dad where’s my shirt?”

“What did your mum say?”

“She said it was where I left it.”

“So it must be there then.”

“Dad you’re no use, you’re worse than mum. I wish I was adopted.”

“YOU WERE, “ echo Mum and Dad.

“You two are cruel you’ll give me physiological damage.”

“Then that’ll be something we all have in common,” retort Mum and Dad.

“I’ve found it, I’ve found it,” screams the child overjoyed.

“And where was it?” ask the bored parents.

“Where I left it,” whispers the child sheepishly.

And so it goes on in every home everywhere the world. Kids should have all their things electronically tagged, then with a bleep everything could be revealed. Letters  from school arrive at the bottom of school bags, well arrive is a general term, arrive should be replaced with are discovered, just as archaeology discovers things. Three months later you discover what is happening in school, school letters could and are used as bedding for gerbils, sometimes you only know what has happened at school when you are cleaning your kids’ gerbil cage out. Then the terrible thing happens, the gerbil is dead and you have to find an old shoe box and a priest so that the gerbil can be buried with dignity in the garden. Making sure the gerbil is buried deep enough so the local foxes don’t get a takeaway option for their own dining.

“I’ve got nothing to wear.” Now that means you have to visit the charity shop for yourself while you kids spend a fortune on the latest trainers. If you are from a large family you had caste me downs, I did, but this generation don’t want to do that. You tell them tales from your youth and about grandpa and grandma in Ireland and China, in our case, or any other combination for the rest of you reading this. And what do they reply, “that’s the old century,” as if the 2^nd half of the 20^th century was in the Middle Ages, did we have indoor plumbing then?

“Mum, Dad can I have £20  for a trip.”

“When’s the trip?”

“Tomorrow.”

You would have known about the trip if you only bothered to read the paper you used to wrap the gerbil in when you buried the gerbil in the garden, Father Dan in attendance, he’s a family friend and comes around for the dinner, so stifling a smile Dan had blessed the grave. The child promised to come to church more often, and ran away crying.

“Here’s £20 then.”

“But what about refreshments too dad?” the child looks up pleading to you.

“Ask you  mum.” you walk away, you had plans for that £20, you were going to have a beer with a school friend, someone you’ve know 40years, now you’ll have to ask him over for a few cans.

“Mum dad said you’d give me a tenner for resfreshments,” says the child.

Mum is all knowing and loves her child, so she follows dad and steals a fiver for her child.

“But that’s only £5,” says the child looking all hard done by.

“Dad’s given you £25, so hop it, or I’ll give you a kick up the backside.”

Dad looks at his empty wallet, he’s high and dry now.

“What can I do now?” he asks all forlornly.

“We could go to bed,” replies mum.

“Sex at you age, you are disgusting,” replies the child.

Like my Page (c) by Michael Casey

How do you capture a thought, its like a polar bear trying to capture a butterfly in its teeth without harming it. So you use a metaphor or some other kind of butterfly net, ideas lap at your toes  like walking on the beach at Cromane Lower Eire, then you get sands between your toes.   Your socks are stuffed in your pocket only they fall out and you stumble to catch them like a wicket keeper in cricket, or the catcher in baseball. See already I've put a few diverse thoughts in your head. Images is what advertising is all about, a warm and soft glow in your mind then you buy stuff. Memories of a first kiss, or the first loss of innocence, something that makes you smile and close your eyes, and want more. So you will go out and buy stuff, just one click away. I shouldn't ruin the illusion, but I will, you can buy my 5 books on Amazon Kindle, just look for my silly face on the corner. Comedy sells product, but how do you sell comedy itself? Perhaps  I should say read my books and your chest will expand, you'll look like Rocky, or if you are a girl you'll look like Angelina Jolie. Read my books and people will be impressed by your choice of reading, I never thought you'd read him, Michael Casey is so so, well just so so so, we have so much in common now, quick marry me and we'll read his books while we are on honeymon.
So I've displayed cheap marketing tricks that B list celebrities use all the time for their Z list latest films. I've got on all the front pages  by flaunting my body, are fat hair chests all the rage now, is silver coloured hair with matching eyebrows the latest thing. Do I look like Steve Martin or Leslie Neilsen?
This is what you get when you ask me to go to your page on Face Book, would you have refered a kiss under the mistletoe? Or will you just strike me off your Friends list, a horrid horrid man, or is it polar bear ?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

Treasure

Treasure ©

By Michael Casey

Well its 2 weeks before Christmas and we are all thinking, or perhaps thinking of presents and so forth. If we are children it’s all about what we will get, but if we are parents it’s all about what we can give to our kids. All I want for Christmas is my 2 front teeth the song goes, me this Christmas I’ll settle for a lack of back pain.

I’m thinking of The Bishop’s Wife, the Cary Grant and David Niven version, perhaps all I should say is go and watch it again because it says it all. We all treasure different things, this Christmas I found a cheap but very good quality dab receiver with a ubs port, so after a 2 or 3 year gap I have replaced my old hifi, look on Amazon for the Pioneer one. This is my treasure, it cheered me up and took my mind off the pain, just imagine a piece of plastic no bigger than your thumb can store all your cds and then you can play them back on the hifi. As you may know I do love a bit of music. The last hifi we donated to the car wash attendant, he did a good job so he ended up with a hifi with great speakers, it was in the car boot and instead of a charity shop getting it the car wash guy got it.

Treasure comes in many forms, memories are all our treasures, me for family things I seem to have total recall, as if I’m the family historian. I remember the tales my dad told me over many a year, he repeated them over and over again, but for me I just loved it. Listen to the old they do have laughter and wisdom to share with us. At Birthdays and Anniversaries and Christmas we remember our friends and family, we buy them gifts, we send them  a card, and if they are no longer with us we share stories they had shared with us, by doing this we keep them alive.

Treasure comes in many forms, right now we hear of the Spitfire and how some may have been found in a foreign field. We also hear how loads could be buried in crates in Birmingham, that’s where I am now talking to you all. The Spitfire is a treasured icon and perhaps we should all be going out with metal detectors, looking for treasure we could all treasure for generations to come.

When we receive a gift for Christmas or whenever  we treasure it, a Don Camillo omnibus in English for example would be a great gift for me, I have Don Camillo on the shelf behind me. When I think of Don Camillo I think of Mr Trout my old History teacher for it was he who recommended Don Camillo to me. So there I have a memory and a treasure combined. Charity shops will gain stock after Christmas as unloved items are sent away and abandoned at Charity shops. We might not realise the thought the intent behind the present, we may not realise it’s on a par with the widows mite. Children, some children want and expect the latest this and the latest that, 100s of pounds spent on plastic junk, batteries not included. If your uncles and aunties are teachers what do you get? Books, books, books and more books. We do have 2 new bookcases in our house, so that’s just fine.

We can discover a little café or a little pub, now that too is something to treasure, an oasis of calm where you can indulge and enjoy a coffee and a cake, or a really decent pint or three and pork scratchings, I am in the Black Country after all, let’s just stop a second and think about that. As a child we discover sweets and the memory lasts a lifetime, then fancy old fashioned sweet shops appear, halleluiah praise the lord, and the tastes and memories come flooding back. There was one such shop in the Law Zone in Birmingham, men in suits, very expensive suits queuing for sherbets well in my imagination they did.

Time spent and misspent is something to treasure, climbing over walls and going scrumping when you were a kid, running like mad to escape the owner’s dogs, getting splinters in your fingers as you escape. Getting home and mum had to get out a big long and thin needle to remove the splinters. The screams you made and the tugging away as mum got the splinters out, do you remember it, do you remember it?

These are just a few examples of treasure, I hope it will   awaken long almost lost memories in all of you who read this, it has reminded me of my own life and of some of the Don Camillo stories too. Nothing we buy nor nothing we give or even receive can compare to Love, love is a free gift, costs nothing, but it is priceless, so treasure that this Christmas.

Prof Beard and Me(c)

Prof Beard and Me

By michaelgcasey

I heard a bit of Prof. Beard on the radio and today in between wincing with pain I read her piece on the BBC website, of I forgot to say she was talking about teaching at Uni and all the surveys teachers have to hand out. We are all a market research driven society, it even has it on vans “am I driving well”, so you cannot avoid it. I did spend 3 years at a 4star hotel so I know all about customer service, if you get it wrong 10 people know about it, and if you get if right only 4 know about it. So 99.99% of the time you must get it right.

As for teaching, you have to please the Head at the school level or you don’t get that raise, or your 1year contract is not carried over, everybody is just a hired handnowadays not just in teaching, we are also the worthless society, judging by all the 1 year contracts. Little wonder moral is so low. But we soldier on because we love our subject and we want to share it with students. But are they listening? That’s another question. At Uni at least they have chosen to be there so they should be more attentive.

As for Mary Beard and Homer, Homer Simpson is known and perhaps he IS the modern Shakespeare, her Homer the Greek guy, and not the one down the road in the Kebab shop. When she talks I listen and I learn, I enjoy her tv documentaries, and I don’t mind if she doesn’t apply war paint, she is not on X facter after all, but I would vote for her because she is so illuminating. BBC2 and BBC4 have opened up doors in the mind for me and millions more.

How about Prof Beard on Strictly Come Dancing, you could have Prof Brian Cox on it too, perhaps doing the music, all your fav teachers having a go at the dancing, and Brucie could give a lecture on the significance of dance in early culture., starting with cave men and up to the present day. Humour does have a place in learning,  in my blogs some of you may have spotted it.  Or then again perhaps I should have a makeover myself and try my hand at the Xfactor, a new Pavorotti.

Shakespeare was....

NOVEMBER 28TH, 2012 18:42

Shakespeare was ………..

By michaelgcasey

I’ve been watching the Sky Arts prog on Shakspeare. It was interesting but left me feeling empty. My tutor once said I was Shakespeare’s agent when I wrote an essay 20 years plus ago, all I can remember is that I got 74%. There was a documentary about Will on BBC2 a few years ago and that make a compelling case for Will being from Stratford. It highlighted all of Will’s influences and perhaps he was a Catholic too, how all of life’s events made Will the man he was. How he learnt so much stuff, so he was able to write what he did write, Will was the man. In good Will hunting the cleaner can do maths problems that out fox the greatest brains, in the end though that Will finds out the most important thing of all LOVE.

Scholars say that Will Shakespeare couldn’t know this and he couldn’t know that, and he couldn’t possibly be so mean, according to the Sky Arts program. In real life we all know some Son Of a Bitch, who seems so nice but in reality he’s a SOB, if only we knew about things but the person seemed so nice so genuine, but in reality…  People have got away with murder and things even worse than murder, but we don’t have hindsight.

Shakespeare is the same, he amazes us, he touches us.  Steven King frightens us to death, doesn’t mean he should be on Death Row, he must be warped because of the way he writes. It is his job, it was Shakespeare’s job, writing is what people do, you don’t have to be a Saint to pray and you don’t have to be Satan to curse and do worse. And if only we didn’t mix the two up with current sad and tragic events in the news….

Shakespeare is fun and kids do him at school, Macbeth is being studied by our kids if they are old enough to be in the GCSE class today. Cliff Notes and BBC Bitesize are a great help. But back to the plot, I feel the older BBC documentary was more accurate, and I vote for that version of Will’s identity. If I can  do my bit of writing, from my own background then why on earth cannot Will be the man who wrote his own stuff. Clever people are trying to hang their own coat on Will’s frame, but sadly the cloakroom tickets have fallen off and the wrong garments are being given to the wrong man.

Michael

p.s. I still maintain that Prince Hal was a bit of a lad and would abandon Falstaff  once Kingship beckoned

www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com

http://butcherbakerundertaker.blogspot.co.uk/

Masters Of Their Art

Masters Of Their Art©

By Michael Casey

I was watching the tv and I was musing on the skills of performers, Robbie Williams and Jonathon Miller to be exact. Just how do they manage to be so confidence, confidence and arrogance are first cousins I suppose, but confidence is what I’ll talk about first of all. In my own case I started primary school as one brother got into Grammar school, so it made me happy and aware of  my mother’s mantra “you’re as good as anybody. In the end 4 of us got to grammar school. I could say how amazing that was considering we were from a working class Irish background, but in the end that may be considered boring, as everybody talks about just how poor they were. By the time I got to grammar school the eldest had just got into Oxford, now that WAS amazing for the time. I remember him listening to Cream at level 11 while he studied, our mum used to bang on the door “Mr Dixon is working nights, switch it off” Years later the next brother listened to music too, but not as loud, using the same speaker. He was different, he did not get to Oxford, he had a gap year before they were invented, then HE went to Cambridge. I do have one thing in common with my clever brothers, they listened to Eric Clapton while studying, I met the man himself when I was a concierge at a hotel.

The point of all this family boasting/pride is the fact that they worked very very hard, that’s how they achieved what they did. Me I’m the “failure” with 5 books on Amazon Kindle and I’m working on “Tears For A Butcher” my 6^th book, when I’m not blogging on my sites, including The Daily Telegraph blog area, just  Google “michaelgcasey” and follow your nose.

Now Michael Parkinson is back with a new show and that will be “masterclass”, I grew up with Michael in the 1970s when he was on the BBC, but what I hope his show will reveal is how “masters” do what they do. I had confidence most of my life because of what my bigger brothers did, it was like a shield, or intellectual big stick which was always with me. I should say though that I was a big fish in a small pool most of my working life, however once you work at a Law Firm then you begin to realise just how little your intellect is. However the LOVE that my mother gave us all, now that  was as powerful as having Saint Michael by your side, a Kerrywoman never stops praying, and even if she is dead 16years now, she is still praying.

Confidence the like Robbie Williams has, or ability the kind Jonathon Miller has really is an amazing thing to watch, I had a peek at both of them on the tv tonight. Now I’d love to see how the pair of them would get on together, thinking about it though, Jonathon might turn Robbie into an opera. Confidence is born out of ability, out of practice,  practice prevents piss poor performance as Derek once said to me. Mental energy is used at 1million volts level when you are a top performer such as Robbie Williams. As for Jonathon Miller he said he is a people watcher and modestly said he is just reminding his actors  how to insert body language into their performance. The writer Jack Rosenthal used to say he did the school run in order to pick up dialogue for his plays. So observation works its way into performance, into writing.

Making things up does not really happen, life is filtered through us, and when we create or perform we are giving something

extra to the observed life. I tell people that I am like Slumdog Millionaire because what I’ve lived has created the man I am, and gives me whatever ability I now have. Yes you can inherit pretty genes, take my daughters for example, last time they were in Shanghai, at the zoo they were filmed more than the animals.  Both  girls are very artistic, 700 crayons and felts and paints is the last estimate, which is not enough, they always need more. Where did this skill come from? Gene  pool and uncles giving them the tools, and not being allowed computer games at home. Today they were modelling clay in their studio, which sometimes passes for a bedroom.

Now to become a master practice is almost like an obsession, we had Richard Clayderman  at the hotel once, 10 years ago or so when I was there, and Richard had a practice keyboard with him, something you roll out on a desk. Even he kept the practice going, it’ll be interesting next weekend as my girls will start piano practice behind me. Will my girls become the next big piano thing, Lang Langs from Birmingham?

You can get sick of things, things can get stale, ask any actor, actors move on to fresh fields. Artists and Masters are lucky because they get paid to do stuff they enjoy. The famous quote from Jacob Bronowski to Michael Parkinson  “ I’m like a prostitute, I get paid to do what I enjoy.” and Michael quibbled about prostitutes and enjoyment. Bronowski replied “ perhaps you know more about that subject than me.”  Game Set and Match to Bronowski.

In conclusion, the more you like stuff the better you become, most  of us have to do stuff we don’t like so that we can do stuff that we do like  at the weekend, that’s if you don’t work shifts. Me I’ve done shifts all my life, but now I write I can really enjoy myself whenever I’m by a computer with Word on it. Feedback can make or break any spirit, but a few well-chosen words can really be a life saver to somebody reading your words. A song sung can help people survive the pain of the day, so think of that in the morning when you go to church.

Ricked my Back

Michael Casey

Ricked my back, so its a chance for the wife to nag me, you should do this, you shouldn't do that. Pushing me into a hot bath, as if she's boiling chips. Hiding my dressing gown, leaving me to simmer while she screams to her mum in Shanghai over the Internet The usual Adams Birmingham Family behaviour


Crawling Like a Worm in The Dirt, humbled by a photo copier. ©

By Michael Casey



Well this is my 100th post, I had hoped I could think up something nice or even spectacular. This is what I've come up with. I'm laughing now as I type. Yesterday 5minutes after I started work I bent down to fill up the copiers. I filled one, then another, then I did a third. I then screamed, I had straightened up too fast and had ricked/strained my back on the right hand side. So these past 27hours have been a lesson in pain and humility. I felt such a fool at work, the girls I work were both sympathetic and funny. Somebody came by for some coloured paper , I bent down to look under our shelf and I was racked with pain, one girl told me to crawl away out of the way so that she could find it instead. I hobbled away, out of the way. The rest of day I moved about like an 80 year old, rather like my own dad. I hoped that on my lunch break while I sat for 30mins in the cathedral my back would be restored. We stand all day in our print as some of you may remember me mention. Prayer and rest for 30mins no doubt aided my soul but not my back. I went back to work and hobbled about for a couple of hours. Then I decided I really had to go home and rest.
Getting home I got off the bus and had to walk only 300yards, a crippled Charlie Chaplin kind of walk, though I look more like Oliver Hardy. I was home 2 hours earlier than normal so the family were surprised.
I told them I was fired as a joke. Then I sat down on an old chair and then I could hardly move. Standing up again was an impossibility. Last Friday we had a drama with my youngest, this Friday,Friday 13th it was my turn. My girls all laughed at me,just as I would laugh at them if the tables were reversed. Night came and knew I could never climb the stairs to bed, but at least our bathroom was downstairs. So I tumbled onto our sofa and got ready to spend the night there. Only we have a glass coffee table in front of it and I was afraid of falling off onto it. So at 1am I staggered up the stairs like a drunk with locked joints, then I rolled onto my bed, screaming as I did so. I did sleep, but in the morning I had to slither out like a snake sliding out of bed on my belly. Some positions were possible and some were not. My wife laughed till she cried my youngsters did too, as for me, I laughed and cursed and laughed again. My wife went to see the pharmacy man for advice and a spray for me. The pharmacist laughed too, he's an old friend. When she got back I was all sprayed up, the old spray and the newly bought one drenching me and my room with the stench of a bad back. I slithered in and out of bed, crawling around as I couldn't stand up straight. As for getting down stairs that would be an impossibility. My wife went shopping, stopping first to steal my debit card, laughing she left me in my bed of pain. When she returned she gave me yoghurt and orange juice. Later I just had to go downstairs, but I couldn't walk. I slithered off bed like snake, then made it to my hands and knees, then an inspired idea. I bounced down the stairs one step at a time, on my butt , one step at a time. Then I crawled across our living room and pulled myself up onto a chair. I did notice that we needed a new carpet after 20years our carpet does need replacing. I then rewarded myself by stealing my wife's pork she'd just made.
Later after some movements like belly dancer of 120 years old, I managed to straighten up. I do walk as if I have a full diaper though. I made it too my big chair in front of my computer. And that’ s how I got to write this 100th post.
The moral of all this? Well I am a very bad patient. Health is the most important thing in our lives. I rejoice that my girls have a good sense of humour, even if I am the butt of it all. Last year when I had food poisoning they had plenty to laugh about then. And I do laugh at that memory. We are all worms crawling in the dirt. It is God's love that lifts us up, as does our family life. Sometimes it is only though pain and adversity that we learn such truths, sometimes we learn mundane things, but they too have meaning for us, even if its just the fact that we need a new living room carpet.