Accents

Accents ©

By

Michael Casey

I'm from Birmingham, need I say more. In fact I don't really have any accent at all. Why? Well my parents were from County Kerry, the best county just to remind you, and my mother never lost her accent even after 50 years in Birmingham.

And dad was in a steel works for 40 years alongside Welshmen. "Hello Dear how are you?" was his refrain, on the family holidays to Abergele the Welsh sometimes thought HE was Welsh.

I never heard mum's accent, except on the phone and it took 30years before we got a phone. My wife is from the east, the Far East, Shanghai, so I had to speak clearly so she could understand me.

I don't hear her accent at all, on the phone she is totally Chinese sounding, and incredibly sexy sounding, to my ears anyway.

As for our  eldest daughter she sounds very very posh, like Veruka in Willy Wonka/Charlie and the Chocolate factory, totally English sounding.

 Our younger daughter, is not as posh, but on the phone, we cannot tell our daughters apart. So accent is a fun thing.

My sister in law's sister has a Welsh husband and they live in Scotland, and have a daughter. In their house your hear, English, Welsh and Scottish accents.

In my house you hear Chinese and Shanghai accents, when our bilingual daughters speak Chinese it’s with a very posh Chinese accent.

www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com  to hear my posh Birmingham accent, I tell 127 stories, need I say more?  

Law Speak

Law Speak ©

By

Michael Casey

We all have our own way of speaking, you know what I mean like, um, er, yeh, you know, what I mean, like, in it, like what I was saying like.

That’s why we have barristers or is it baristas in Court? To speak clearly on our behalf.  And those that use words as their tools have a special way to use these tools, these things called words. If you know what I mean like, Harry.

A lawyer says:- I was somewhat disturbed.

We say:- I was livid, I’ll kill that bastard.

A lawyer says:- There will be consequences.

This means:- You will have a visit from the bailiffs in the middle

                      of the night.

A lawyer says:- It would be mutually beneficially for our economic  

                        viabilities.

This means:- Lets move in together, get those Silks off now!

A lawyer says:- We should compare and contrast the aspects of

                         our mutual satisfaction

This means:- page 79 and 99 and 103 of the Kama Sutra

A lawyer says:- The prospect of advancement for our  mutual

                       skills through the generational aspect.

This means:- Let’s work our way through the Kama Sutra,

                     because I want your babies, NOW!

So on it goes, posh words, tender words. Words dripping with the letters of the alphabet. Letters which are Bold, letters which are in Italics, letters which are underlined with love. When a lawyer gives his heart, she gives her everything. Signed, sealed, codiciled, copies taken and bound, and certified and stamped. That’s what you get when a lawyer falls in love.

Love is too weak a word for a  lawyer, its mesmerising intoxication, it’s an hallucination of pulchritude, it’s a goddess visiting Birmingham from Heaven itself. And no this does not mean his new girlfriend is from Harborne either.

Her beauty stills his beating heart, he drops his briefs, his papers on the floor, you non-lawyers can be so so  so, non-lawyer like. A lawyer in love is such a great great thing, like an eclipse. The diamond of her beauty, her pulchritude overwhelms, intoxicates him, the air itself is torn from his chest.

She has power over him, just like  in the James Bond film. If you have to compare a lawyer in love, who else but James Bond bares any comparison, they do go to the same tailor after all.

After the scales of justice have been shaken to the core, blindfolds and love games galore, then there will be children, 2 or 3 or more. Tarquin, and Rapunsel  Smythe-Casey Q.C.s just like their dear papa Michael Casey.

So was it good for you, see you by the drinks machine, you can unruffled my hair as we stand there.

follow me, be perfect, be wonderful, be rich

Follow Me, Be Perfect, Be Wonderful, Be Rich ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve got a stinking cold or even flu at the moment, I think my wife shared it with me. My daughters have covered themselves up like cowgirls with scarfs covering their faces, so they don’t share my flu/cold. Such is family love.

So they’ll be sighs and sneezes as I write this, or rather as I talk to you. I hope you’ll agree, I talk to people, I’m not just a piece on paper. So what’s annoying me at the moment? Follow me for a perfect life, for a perfect smile, that’ll change your life. That’s what I’m reading as I look through the Web.

So you follow Ms. Bright Smile and read her blog all about the art of smiling, the smile that wins. You bleach your teeth just like her and millions of unemployed actors, busy waiting on tables. Then with those bright white teeth your life will be complete, and you’ll get a 10 second walk on part in an advert for, yes you’ve guessed it, toothpaste. You do have to spend 10 dollars as well to get the book explaining smiling to you.

Then there is the blog explaining how to be nice, with how to shake hands thrown in for good measure, it’s a 15 part multi- media web based series. So you have to come back every  week to read more, or rather learn more, be taught more. Written by Jake “the man” McGooley, a retired tag team wrestler, 7feet tall and 280pounds. There are no extra charges. Only your inbox gets 40 emails a day selling you stuff. Learning to cuss you teach yourself, after getting 40 emails a day, I know I would.

There is the web based lesson on pray, brought to you by the church of the empty wallet, because their aim is to empty your pocketbook. Give 2 bucks for this and 2 bucks for that, not forgetting 2 bucks for the other. Twenty bucks in total, sent to a bank account on the French Riviera, where the prayer leaders is preying on you. This web based series is unending, because prayer should be unceasing.

A prayer, is a plea for help, nothing else.

So as I browse like a sheep all over the internet I look at this and I look at that, how can I get people to read my books and look at my sites. Should I pay to have an advert on the sites of these charlatans and cheats, or should I just mock them with my words?

As I have no money, I’ll just have to mock them. Then maybe people will think 3bucks a book is great value. Laughter is a great weapon to use, the Spring has come and now it’s time for me to dance, Its Springtime for Hitler, as Mel sung.

29th Feb 1988

29^th Feb 1988 ©

By

Michael Casey

Well what were you doing on Leap Year’s Day 1988? You were not even born? You were at school, at University, down the pub, getting arrested? Me I was excited and gently crying, I had just become a novelist. That was the day I finished my first ever novel. Today is the 26^th year anniversary. Though should it be tomorrow? As today is only 28^th Feb 2014.

Remember Romancing the Stone? As Joan Wilder finishes her latest book, well I was a bit like that. I knew I could finish it so I decided to finish it on that special day, a Leap Year’s Day. I was learning to write when I wrote it, it took me 4/5 months. I did have a great poem in it as well, because I wanted Percy the undertaker to be a poet. I also included the bit about the undertaker’s son’s life being saved. This was in actual fact a true story as my own dad had saved the undertaker’s son’s life.

By writing a novel I had learnt how to write, blame Pad because after I had written a few short pieces it was him who said, write a book. Pad is now a computer engineer, the first time I met him he was 16 and working in the computer room with us, so he must be at least 42 now.

This book was written with a typewriter balanced on a stool in front of the gas fire as I shivered. This was before I had double glazing installed. Years later I got a computer with a word processor on, an Atari 520 and started copying my novel into the Atari. This was boring though, just copy typing, so my 235 or 238 pages became 600 pages because I rewrote the book, the Atari then got into the book itself.

Now my novel can be found at   http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1 The link is to my Amazon Kindle Writer’s Page, now I have 7 books available worldwide.

So you think you are a good writer? You are not. Without marketing behind you or luck you are, you  just are what you are. Yes I do say I’m a writer, because I write. Or you can call me the white haired old granddad on the school run. Nobody in the playground knows or cares that I spend my time writing.

Americans put John Doe - Author, on their Facebook or LinkedIn, I use the word writer because I do several different forms of writing. Being a good or great writer doesn’t make any difference. It’s just luck. If I wrote a self-help book, it’d sell 2 million, but nobody would actually read it. Trees must be screaming “make a nice book out of me.” Not just books for burning on the fire.

I’ve written loads of short stories too, and how you market them can increase sales. It’s all luck though, a LinkedIn friend said it can be an idea whose time has not come yet. So I think I’ll just have to keep waiting and writing as Sandy suggested this morning. Right now I have to hang out the washing, a hausfrau’s work is never done. Then later it’s the school run for this, silver haired dad, even if they think it’s white and I’m a granddad.

spring is coming so look out for new material

Spring is coming so look out for new material

you can buy my 7 books on Amazon Kindle just look for my face

Trust

Trust ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve mentioned on LinkedIn and in my essays/stories the soap on Phoenix TV, the Chinese station, 785 on Sky UK. So thinking about that and other events I’m thinking about impressions.

What kind of impression do you make with your LinkedIn profile for example. I’ve put a silly photo up on mine for example, I am a humour writer after all, so I’m never going to look Business Professional. So how do you impress, and what kind of impression do you make?

The first time I met my wife she had a vacuum cleaner in her hand and she told me to get out of the way, she was cleaning my dad’s room. She was very scruffy with bad hair. Now when she leaves the house and it is 2 babies and 15 years later she can stop traffic. Though the girl I fell in love with was the scruffy one, not the model.

So what kind of impression do you make? You talk to somebody and you get one impression, then when you finally meet them you are pleased or disappointed. Good things can come covered in all kinds of wrapping paper. Wrapping paper is another story I wrote, look it up later, you’ll enjoy it.

You talk or write or should I say email somebody, then you discover through his words that you don’t have anything in common. In fact you can even hate the SOB because it was all just a scam to get you to invest in this or that.

I don’t know about you but at some point in your life your patience will snap. Or rather you’ll decide to put yourself first. I’m in part two and less of my life now, so I don’t want to waste time when I could be doing something nicer. I did put myself first  when I left the hotel I worked in, after 3 years of very hard work I put myself and my toddlers first. They changed my shifts so I left. Seeing my kids was more important than the job.

You may meet rich sponsors who could change your life, they can make your dreams come true. They make a great impression on you, or so they think. Then you think about it and realise they are not helping you, they are helping themselves.

The only person worth impressing is yourself, you have to talk to your own soul, is this really what you want. Do you want to talk to these people or not.  Do you want to work with them, if something is too good to be true then it is. Don’t do it.

We used to have road shows for homes abroad, perm tanned people with year round deep sun tans. They’d come and boast about living in the sun, getting away from British weather and how cheap it was to buy a home in the sun. Let’s just say that I’m glad I never meet those people ever again.

Obviously they make a bad impression, and I don’t know about you but once my mind is set nothing changes it. Yes give people the benefit of the doubt, but if they are bad they are always bad. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, suits don’t mean honesty, quite the reverse. We all remember from our Bible, that if people cannot be trusted with small things they cannot be trusted with large.

Money goes to money and that is their faith. So why am I saying all this, because I could be on the cusp of big chances, though close but no cigar seems to be the story of my life. So really I’m writing this for myself. A final thing to remember just trust yourself, never believe in praise, and ignore negative people, don’t even listen to them. You will know the answer in your heart.

Jane Fonda and Me

Jane Fonda and Me©

By

Michael Casey

What can I say about Jane Fonda, Barbarella springs to mind, it was  strange and weird and sexy, and comic and science fiction. Duran Duran the Birmingham pop group took their name from a character in the film, they say Lady Di loved that band.  Jane was in Klute as well. Her daughter was in a few good films as well, playing an assassin, as well as a really good film set in Paris with a Chinese actor, that film was really good, Chung Win Fat was the actor I think. Jane Fonda’s brother Peter was in Easy Rider. Not forgetting her dad Henry, one of the best actors ever.

So why am I talking about them, or rather her? Well in the paper it said Jane Fonda was 76 and now afraid of her own mortality. My mum was 76 when she died in the marriage bed beside her husband of 47 years. Jane has had a few husbands, but that is Hollywood. Why is she afraid of death? If I had produced a body of work as an actress, and as a keep fit guru, I’d be happy with my life. Then her family achievements, it’s great by any standard.

So why should she be afraid? If you are at peace with yourself and your God, if you have one, then any time parting is fine. I’m not saying I don’t mind not waking up in the morning, I’d love to see my grandchildren, my own children are not even teenagers yet. My children only have one grandparent and grannie is in Shanghai, far far away from Birmingham. So I’d like to be there when and if any next generation of Caseys arrive, though as I have daughters the Casey name could disappear.

So what’s wrong with Jane Fonda? Inner Peace. Or rather the lack of it would be my guess. Life is strange, perhaps I’m only talking about my own, or perhaps not. Life is a game of roulette as my brother once said. Something bad can lead to something good. Ending up a computer operator and after only applying for one such job DID change my life.

So what can I teach Jane Fonda, exercise routines? I’d probably have a heart attack in 5 minutes if I tried her workouts. Fashion and beauty tips? My wife could, but not me. Acting, I could teach her to look like a pig in a poke. My Chinese name is Panzi which means Fat Fat Boy, though my bilingual daughters said it really means PIG. But I laugh even more now because I know the true meaning.

Laughter Jane that’s what I can teach you, laughter, real laughter. Yes we are all going to be in a pine box someday, but just enjoy your friends and family. I could say live in the fast lane, but I won’t. Just look inside your own head Jane, that’s where the beauty is, not on the red  carpet.  For what’s in your head will be what carries on when you  are in that pine box. So enjoy your interior life not the interior decorations.