Garden on The Pavement

Garden on The Pavement(c)
By
Michael Casey

An English Country Garden alive on the sidewalk, or pavement as we say over here on the right of USA, here in UK. The neighbour opposite is having a clear out, so a skip arrived, a small one and he is loading all his junk into it. Part of what he is throwing away is a collection of pots and containers which were once full of flowers in full bloom. Now its a water-but next to flower pots full of weeds. I did wonder would there be any weed in the weeds. Another neighbour opposite was raided by the police a few years ago. It was full of weeds, the kind you smoke. The landlord came and tipped all their stuff in a skip, after the police and taken the weed away. We have helicopters at night, they use heat sensing cameras to see who is force growing weed. At night hot spots show up really well. Over the road today its weed galore, but real weeds that cannot be smoked, just overgrown containers that need a lot of TLC. There is even a fancy bird bath kind of thing. My girls have just planted seeds galore in our garden I'm wondering should I rescue a few flower pots, and put them at the bottom of our garden in the jingle section. Then we could plant flowers, that  could poke out from the wreckage of the jungle section.  A bit of colour to brighten up the garden. Or I could just encourage my new neighbour to do her Green thing and rescue stuff for her garden. Gardening is great so long as you are watching somebody else do it.

What is the difference between a Poet and a Prose writer(c)

What is the difference between a Poet and a Prose writer? (c)

By Michael Casey

Well a poet evokes a feeling with words and rhyme, though a poem does not have to rhyme. Prose is longer and the writer paints a picture through his words. I'd say the poet via poetry is quicker, the writer has to evoke things by explanation and by telling a tale, perhaps with a list of things. Satchel, tie, blazer and polished shoes = school. Sometimes a poem is to complicated you cannot understand it, Japanese have 3 line poems which are very very deep. I for one need poetry explained to me.
 Andrew Graham-Dixon  explains Art via his programmes on tv, what I need is a Poet to explain poetry, I feel a tv series is in the making. AS for Prose what I do here and on my site www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com  I can understand Prose fair enough , but I do know that style can either kill or illuminate things. Dan Brown and JK Rowling are very popular but I cannot read them as I don't like their style. Terry Pratchet is another writer I cannot get in to. Read The Book Thief now that really one of the best books I've ever read in my life. His writing is so poetic. Reporters/ Journalists  have a style too, sadly some American journalists have the same dull style. The I've seen everything so I'm going to pretend  I'm an undertaker at a funeral. Me I think you should talk to your audience, Prose is all about talking, so people are hearing your words, its not a puzzle or an exam, writing should be for the EARS!

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.

Triple Chocolate

Triple Chocolate ©

By Michael Casey

It just has to be chocolate, of course it has to be chocolate, nothing else will do. Ask any girl, ask any woman, CHOCOLATE is always the answer. I sent the girls up the road to buy a few things in Aldi, its cheap but always nice, so I like Aldi, when I’m rich it’ll be Sainsburys. So off they went, it was a nice sunny Saturday today, Spring had sprung, not as nice as Malta but nice, very nice after our bad  extended Winter.

Two hours later the girls were back, the stationary shop had enticed them in, my big daughter wanted refills for her pen, 50 refills for 2 quid not so bad, she was spending her choir pay. The Anglicans give choir pay, me and my brothers were altar boys and we got nothing. My sister has been in the choir for 45 years  and she never got anything either, perhaps we should stop being Catholics and change our flag to earn a few pounds. So my girls were out and about, money in their pockets and not a care in the world. Me I’m hoping to come into a few pounds and then I’d do a few things around the house.

But back to chocolate, why is it more important to women than anything, even handbags or sex. A man can buy you a nice handbag for your Birthday, I know I have been persuaded to follow that path; I’ve even paid for Burberry coat, in my more flush days. So woman like to be pampered and loved, and we show our love with bags and coats. As for women, they show their love by eating cake and chocolate cake and every expensive but  ever so tasty cake they can find in Sainsburys. They are experts at it, just ask my wife, or anybody’s wife, and their daughters too. It just has got to be chocolate triple dip.

A woman will allow herself to be seduced by a chocolate bar, as she undresses the chocolate, slowly and seductively removing its paper wrapper, and then ever so carefully breaking the seal on the silver foil, slowly using her manicured nail to slide up the foil. Then with ever so careful movement she exposes the chocolate to her view. She looks at the chocolate, in all its naked glory, then she flips it over so she can adore its naked glory. Yes, this is what she wants, and she makes herself more comfortable in her bed. The she breaks off a piece and examines it, before licking it slowly, she then closes her eyes and pops a piece in her mouth. She lets it lie there, the heat from her tongue dissolving it, she smiles, and licks her lips.  First piece consumed, she opens her eyes and devours the next piece of chocolate with her eyes, she thinks of the pleasure the 2^nd piece of chocolate will give her. She half closes her eyes, and flutters her eyelids, yes, chocolate is SO GOOD.

It is a very private moment, a woman and her chocolate, the taste, the feel, the raw emotion, the love. Only chocolate can do this for a woman, the anticipation, the touch, the feel, the taste as it melts on her tongue, the sigh of satisfaction. Chocolate it king, only chocolate can satisfy a woman, a real woman. The man enters the bedroom, he can be any man, any man that any woman would lust after. Only she has had chocolate first. So even if he does the Full Monty in front of her, it’s no use, he should have hidden the chocolate. What man can compete with chocolate, a funny man may have an outside chance, a very slim chance of getting her to be interested in him, after she has consumed chocolate. And how can he get her interested, I can reveal, the only way to attract a woman who has been seduced by a chocolate  bar, before his arrival in the marriage bed, the man has to paint himself all over in chocolate, triple dip of course, and then his woman might be interested in him.

Measuring Time

Measuring Time ©

By Michael Casey

Just a  tic, in the nick of time, with seconds to spare, his time had come, time had run out for him, dickory dickory doc, the clock struck one, with a slap a new life was born, he sighed his last breath and he was gone, Time had ran out for him.

All of these expressions speak of time, they are measurements of time, time is measured and commented upon. So why are we obsessed with time, I speak as a lover of watches, ones with Roman numerals and automatic, but I’m wasting time.

Measuring time began with the monks, they had to say their prayers throughout the day and night so a candle was used and it had marks, notches on it so the friars could get up and pray, otherwise it would be more than the flames of a candle which would flicker, it would be the flames of Hell itself. So Time and time keeping were vital. Yes we all know about 2013 being the end of the world according to the Myan calendar, that was wrong though, you can discuss it yourself later on. And yes we all know that Stonehenge was a timepiece too, and the Pyramids were whatever they were too, plenty to Google later on.

In Chaplin’s Modern Times we see that time is money, and so it is, Henry Ford and production lines were so organised to optimise time so that more product could be made. Das Capital by Marx was written after observations of the cotton mills of Manchester as Marx went around with Engels, or that’s how I remember it from History, you can cross check my facts later on. From there you get “the means of production should be owned/used by the workers for the workers” And the rest is History.

Historical events are a means to measure Time, each event displays how Time is used or abused and its effects on the populace. The Manhattan Project  was a race against time, to shorten the war by years, morality and time on a collision course. Before it was tested some of the scientists thought it could bring about the end of Time, because they feared the atmosphere itself would be set alight, so ending Mankind’s Time.

Nature is the earth’s own time, turning tides and the seasons mark the  earth’s orbit in time and space. Earthquakes and volcanoes act like mini alarm clocks to awaken us to the fact that we are merely ants on the surface of the globe. The Spring bloom is a wonderful reminder of the cycle of life, of nature’s clock. The harvest is the results of nature’s hard work. Autumn and Winter too remind us of Nature’s need of rest, the earth sleeps, but in the Spring there will be growth as Chance the Gardiner did say in Being There.

We love our watches which have moved on since candles were first used to measure time, perhaps a watch with a 3D image of a candle burning will be the next design by Omega or Oris, it may have already been designed. We like to think we are in  charge of time, pocket watches became wrist watches during the Great War, when a whistle blowing was signalling end of time for millions as they went over the top in the Battle of The Somme. So why is time so important? It’s because our lives are so ordered and regimented, a time to sleep, a time to sing, a time to work, a time to eat, a time for sex, a time for everything. As we look at our watches and clocks we have become like Chaplin in Modern Times, we have become part of the machine, we have lost our soul.

So what should this lover of watches advise? Should you all take off your fancy watches and send them to me? Could I turn them into an artistic mobile and call it Time? Should we all refuse to look at clocks just follow the rhythm of our bodies, getting up when we feel refreshed and eating whenever we are hungry, and only working in the fields to produce our own daily bread, clocks 500 years ago only had an hour hand, we were less rushed then. Should we all remove the minute hands from our watches and clocks, we should just follow La Dolce Vita?

Sitting on a rock at the end of the Cromane Peninsula in Kerry Eire, now that was perfect peace for me, just watching the water lap against the shore, looking over at Inch on the Dingle Peninsula. I suppose God doesn’t have a watch, he has Nature and the tides of the Sea, and in the end that’s the perfect watch for me.

Original Thought

Original Thought ©

By Michael Casey

Original, now that’s a big word in itself, original, unique, not done before. I suppose “In the Beginning there was the Word” now that would have been totally original, nobody had done anything before then. Light was a big deal, day and night an even bigger deal, sea and land was original and unique too. Man was formed of clay and his better half was formed from a rib of his, so everything was fresh and new, Original.

Sex was new and exciting, then they ate from the tree of knowledge so they discovered they were naked. So they were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. Original Sin, and the need for clothes arrived. That’s when original stopped being original, why because clothes were needed. And labels came into being, fashion arrived too, these leaves look better than those leaves to hide our nakedness and to keep us warm. Sewing machines weren’t invented for millennia, so to sew a stitch, when we didn’t have a stitch on became a great talent. “Never mind the quality feel the width” comes to mind, the very old tv show, was Milo O’Shea in that in the early 60s?

There is a history to fashion, and fashion like history does repeat itself. It’s a very interesting topic in itself, I’m not qualified enough to bore you on the matter, though I may try later, much later, when the fashions have changed again. So what of original? Can anything be called original? We all are original a one off, one of God’s creation, or we are here because our parents got down and dirty, to use a 60s phrase, but I’m not being original by using it.

An original thought or idea leads to change, because it challenges previous thought, so something new happens. Rugby was invented because a guy cheated by picking up the ball, he was original. American football is perhaps the bastard child of rugby, when I played rugby at grammar school we thought American football was for girls as they wore padding etc. Now that’s an original thought and I’m smiling because I can guess at  the reaction to that thought, but I’m smiling because I’m pulling their leg, which is a posher way of saying “you S&***ing me”

Now what is original? The light bulb was original and it has changed everybody’s life, we can work and play and study more because of the gift of life. Then you get a whole industry of lamp shade makers, followed by light designer, florescent, LED, LCD and whatever other combinations of letters to form light.

So everything starts off virgin and new, then it is corrupted and we prostitute it to our needs, even words are corrupted or should I say chosen to see if people are still listening or reading this. You get my point, things, people, words, even Nature itself starts in an original form and then is changed by us, by Man.

So what is an Original thought or an original anything else? Mozart, now we can all agree he was an original, his music was original, he had original thoughts which marked him out as a Genius. Einstein it is said was 50 years ahead of the game, other masters of their art are and were originals. Sports figures who can do wonders in their sport, poets, musicians and inventers all these people are original and unique. They had Original Thought.

What pleases me is the fact that Nature or God, take your pick, will throw up somebody who makes us marvel. How could this person be so gifted, how could this nobody, this nothing, this dirt be able to write this, to play this, to create this, it goes against all reality. The answer is simple, Originality is wired into us, it is in our DNA. Why do we copy, we copy because we are monkeys, we are apes who copy what we see because it is pretty, we see tricks and we copy them. We see originality so we copy it. The new jeans, slim fit, tight fit, baggy falling off our butt fit. The new car, such clean lines, 40 years ago, cars were rubbish, certainly here in UK, the designs were just bad, quality too. I remember when the latest new thing was unveiled, it look like a lump of cheese, a wedge of cheese. My sister’s first car a Mini Metro. Then everybody else copies what is new, then they copy the copy.

So does originality really exist? Yes and no, because what is new is soon copied and sold much cheaper, the wheel of change goes on and on. Imitation is the highest praise, imitation in design and in culture, pop music being the obvious example. Imitation in fast food, so we have burgers and chicken all over the world, so the world becomes the same and everywhere wants to be like everywhere else.

As for me I hope my words are original and that my style is easy to read, and that you want to read more. In the end when will we all be original? When we are one with the Word, and then perhaps be Original finally.                        

At the beach, new experiences

Well I'm still on hoiday in Malta so forgive another Malta themed post. Today me and the girls went for a stroll along the coast road, we stopped and took in the view as we went along. For me it was a new experience too, this was the first time I'd taken the girls to see the sea. Such a simple pleasure but such a great one.  My mother was born on the Cromane peninsula in County Kerry Eire, she heard the sea every day of her life until she went to work at 14 at a farmer's house. Her home was 7 metres from the sea, my cousin David measured it.
So today watching the girls enjoy walking by the sea made me think of my mom, she would have been 93 this week if she was still with us. Hearing the sea break against the rocks is such a basic emotion, as is having rain facing against your face, wind touching your face and blowing your hair about, that if you haven't gone bald yet. So for me watching the girls paddle about in the sea was a first for me and a first for them. I took a load of snaps so we can show grannie back in Shanghai exactly what the girls are up to. One daughter was holding her denim dress up so it would not be splashed, even though they weren't going in deep, the other daughter had her hot pants on so she was safe from splashes. As for dad, I was sat on a bench taking the photos and musing would they remember this experience when they were big. In Shanghai a beach was built and you had to buy tickets to use it, that was in 2009.but today they were in Malta enjoying the real natural thing.
I can remember enjoying the view in Cromane County Kerry, mum's peninsula is opposite Inch and the Dingle Peninsula, where Ryan's Daughter was filmed. So that is the mark any beach has to reach in my opinion, I doubt if many can reach such a peak. Fort Lauderdale was great and I nearly forgot that beach, as I was thinking Europe in my head, that was way back in 2006. Then we lost a toy on the beach so we had to buy a hush puppy dog to make up for the lost toy, Saw Grass Mills Florida saved our day.
In England people go to Blackpool which is very windy, or to Western Super Mare where the sea is so far out you may not even see it, and if you are a nudist or gay then you go to Brigton. Other beaches exist but you can google them for yourself. Again in England we have/had donkey rides on the beach, and buckets and spades and you make sand castles. Brothers also bury each other in the sand, I can remember my brother burying me with 2 feet or 1/2 a metre on top of me, it began to hurt and dad told him to dig me out. Seaside means hot dogs and ice cream. So dad would have to buy 8 ice creams, one for each of us, I got an extra one, so I was the pet. Dad first  discovered hamburgers when we were in Rhyl, he liked them so much he asked for another, and another and another, he was waiting for them to be cooked. In the end he ate 6 in a row. The most I've had is 3, but that's fair as I'm only 1/2 the man he was.
My girls got hungry so we went for a meal, its strange that on holiday we'll spend on one meal what we'd spend on  a week's groceries, but holidays come but once a year, or 5years in this case. We may have walked 3 miles today so we hopped on the bus to get back to "home" as we call our hotel here in Malta. I asked did they like the view, one said she wants a house right by the sea, which is where my own mother started, right by the sea. That was in the West, grannie lives in the East near the sea too , the China Sea and Shanghai. Where will my daughter get her house, by the sea in Florida, by the sea in California,  maybe Monaco or even here in Malta. I don't know, but I do know that having the sea as a neighbour is a great thing. When I'm gone I'll tell them that when  they think of the sea they can think of me. Big large and windy, evoking laughing, and turning tides, but always there loving them