In the Nick of Time

In the Nick of Time (c)

By

Michael Casey

You save a life in the nick of time, my brother did it twice. I was trying to swim at Monument Rd swimming baths, when you start you need a push off from the side then you can swim. So I decided to try jumping in and then seeing if I could swim without a push off from the side. It did not work and I started to sink beneath the waves, or rather the water in the pool. My brother saw me and jumped in and pulled me to the side. Would I have drownd? I'm just glad my brother was there.

Thirty years later my brother was in the right place at the wrong time, he gave CPR to our dad and saved him. This way 8 bare weeks after  when he gave CPR to mum but she was already dead/dying. That act saved dad and led to me getting a wife and family, its all in Padre Pio and Me. So I know from experience just what "In the nick of time"  really means. 

Today somebody wants to connect via a website, just as I'm leaving that website, too many scammers, I think I'm being targeted. So he could be a genuine connection that could lead to all kinds of everything, if I quote Dana., but I've just left.

I remember Fiona once saying you don't know what's around the corner, Julie Dangly also said that to me, Dangly was her comedy name, she really was wise and good beyond her years. I haven't seen either of them in 15 years, Life moves on and doors close and revolve. So events in Life happen and can change our very lives, and hearts. I was watching 

Fame, the 2009 weak version on tv last night with my daughter.  One life was saved in the nick of time, then the dancer realises he has to start again, he'll just be a dance teacher, never on the Broadway Stage, but he'll be the best dance teacher he can possibly be back home at his parents dance studio.

In the nick of time we can realise this or that is the wrong decision, she's the wrong girl, he's the wrong boy, straight or gay or any other combination. Life, a stranger's comments, an overheard comment, can make us realise this is the wrong path, we may not yet know what is the right path, but this is the wrong path. Somebody once said to me that she thought short stories or poetry was the thing for me. That was 25 years ago and more, she happened to be a female priest I'd stumbled over, I tend to stumble into things, Mark H once said "you're a good stumbler." 

Another way of viewing "stumbling" is its guidance from the aether or the Fates or God, if you believe in any of that, most don't nowadays. The old film Sliding Doors covers this topic, I've not seen the film yet. It could be our 6th sense that stops us from doing things. We sense somebody is looking at us, so we look over the road or up to a window, are these messages from "inner space" ? We're lost in a changing world, Genesis just sung that line on my speakers, so I won't take credit for it.

Its our primitive past that still connects to our technological present, technology doesn't have all the answers, though Google tries its best. The wiring in our heads and between us all will always be better than Google, because it is the beat of  time in our inner minds. 

Just add Water

Just add Water ©

By Michael Casey

I was walking up the road to Aldi, wondering how many yards I’d do before I’d start to limp, I have another Arthritis pain relief injection on Monday. Anyway a truck came sailing down the road with a portaloo strapped to the back, it made me smile. Imagine there was somebody inside doing his business, perhaps it’s a ring and poo service, like the ring and ride bus service. Or it’s  an on demand service, just put your hand out and spend a penny.

In the old days it was a penny, a big old copper penny bigger and thinner than the current 2p, if you excuse the pun. My mum was on holiday and needed a penny to pee, so she was asking for change, so a man gave her a penny, it had Boodica on it I seem to remember, anyway he gave mum a penny and said “have one on me.” That must be 45 years ago now.

The title of today’s piece or perhaps I should say pi**, if we go with the theme, is because I was thinking about how stories are dreampt up. As I said 20 minutes ago I was on my way to Aldi and I saw the portaloo. Now I see the potential humour straight away, I hope everybody does, it’s just that I see things differently and not because of weak kidneys either. It’s because of my Writer’s Eye.

So that means I improvise when I see things, my daughter says already that I’m great at improvising in general, I did work in a hotel for 3 years and 20 plus years in computer rooms. So you see a situation, and then you just add inspiration, hence the water in the title. You are putting rubbish in your recycle bin and you break up a cardboard box so you can fit more in, then you think this piece of rubbish would work as a doorstop.

Most people just throw all their rubbish in, with recycling before recycling, but if you have young kids in your house you have loads of rubbish so you really do have to squeeze all your rubbish in. No, I don’t climb in and stamp on in all, with my weight the thing would break, though it would present my wife with great opportunities to sit on top and trap me inside.

A child’s imagination is a great thing, especially if they have a dolls’ house, I know my smallest daughter often climbs into the dolls’ house, I should show her the film “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” she’d love it. Simple things please a child, but they also present opportunities for comedy too.

There is the telegraphed joke, which Americans like the best and there is the more elaborate joke. Life presents things to us, it doesn’t take much to turn them into humour. Today the Queen launched a new boat, the dignitary said to her, while still on mike “such a small bottle of Whisky on such a big ship.”

As for Alec Salmond, he had tears in his eyes, such a great waste of a bottle of whisky, if it were champagne he would not have minded. Ok Alec, that’s a joke as seen through a humour writer’s eyes here in Birmingham, but, if you do read this my priest loves a wee dram it takes the mind off his aches & pains. I do have another friend who loves golf, any chance you can get him a free round at Saint Andrews?

These are just simple quick examples from today 4^th July 2014. I have to do  the school run now, my 10 year old daughter is waiting for me.  Thank God, I hear you all say, sometimes I think I’m talking to myself, but I do want to be on the radio, so then that would be true.

Try a Free Trial

Try A Free Trial ©

By Michael Casey

I’m trying to get noticed as a writer as you all know, I have a website and I regularly post, in the vain hope of finally getting noticed. I even had a low budget film producer say he’d put my Pitch to his backers. Sadly nothing came of it.

There is Mandy.com which has all kinds of everything on it, that’s how I stumbled over the film producer, a year ago. So you can all try that. There are job agencies too, for Media with a capital M. I got an invite today to try one, a week’s free trial, but you have to enter your bank details first.

So I just sent him my Linkedin Profile and CV piece as well as my elevator ad,  90 seconds with Michael, cartoons for radio. I hope it amuses him, perhaps he’ll post it on his site for a week, and then I’ll finally get noticed and start making a living from writing. Ok, I can hear you laughing at the back, stop it or I’ll tell your mother.

You can even get a free trial of Jonathon Cainer the horoscope guy, I don’t begrudge him a penny he does have a large family to bring up single-handedly. I was at Mass on Sunday and there was a family with 5 children just like Jonathon, at Mass they were all under 9 years old. It made me smile I was from a family of 15 if you include the lodgers and the cat and dog.

Free trials are great if they really are free, like the samples you get at Costco or Sainsbury’s but that’s food. You could always bring your family along and be like gannets enjoying the biscuits or sliced ham or whatever it may be. Move from shop to shop till you have fed the kids. Though some steal the produce from the dustbins behind the big store, we’ve all seen it happen.

Broadband is the biggest free trial we all get offered, Virgin was cabled our street so you get big red envelopes offering all the deals. Or so you used to, people just threw them in the recycling bin. So Virgin got clever and posted them in big white envelopes, so people would at least open them. This kind of marketing is 3% effective so I was told in my market research days. So now the envelopes are opened, and then thrown in the recycle bin.  

BT itself also has direct mail offers, free offers, to you John Doe and your sister Jane. Thanks to computers the same letter can be tailored to fit all kinds of names. Special offers just for you, only you in your street, just you and not even your next door neighbour. My neighbour just updated her broadband, we’ll discuss it over the garden fence when I bring the washing in. Anyways broadband IS an essential service. The Government thinks so, because they can tax whatever business is generated.

Free trials of films straight down your internet connection, free trials of Times Newspaper straight down your internet. I did ask could Rupert give me a column in one of his papers, I have a back list well over 520 shorts. Then you’d all get me as well as the Times. He hasn’t replied yet, but I’ve been waiting all my life, maybe when he reaches 100, then he’ll give in, 18 years to go then.

PPI and all that

PPI and all that ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve just had yet another nuisance call, it starts with silence, as the caller is busy chewing gum as he calls you, or looking at the sports pages. I’ve already judged him, zero for customer service and 10/10 for chewing gum. I worked at Front of House in a 4 star deluxe hotel, so I was trained exactly how to do things. Chewing gum was not on the to do list, quite the reverse.

It’s always best to listen and not speak after you pick up the phone, if you speak the automated PPI kicks in, and then you are trapped. It does say on the recording that if you press this number you will NEVER get any more calls, but this is just a LIE.

So I’m weary and wary of phone calls, it’s not as if we are in the phone book. If ever you do an online competition they say they will not share your phone number, but I’m dubious.

So you answer the phone and ask who is calling, but they won’t tell you, are you Michael Casey they ask, but if you ask them who they are it’s a State Secret. So you ask them a 2^nd time, and they ask you if you are Michael Casey, again. So you say you’ve asked THEM who they are twice, but they just say they have asked you who you are twice defiantly. So I hang up. They don’t hang up because they have to PRETEND, they are making a call, from their call centre, so the boss thinks they are so good annoying  potential customers with the benefit of double glazing in Summer.

A friend once said he put somebody on hold for 15minutes, and only then did the nuisance caller hang up. My wife says I should never answer the phone until the answer machine starts, then the automated calls are screened out. Should I miss her call telling me to hang out the washing or put the rubbish out, now that would be another matter entirely.

Perhaps I should never enter any competitions, then our ex-directory number would not be circulated to people who promise never to share it, that’s a Politician’s promise. Though I should thank the man with the Manchester accent, or up North accent, at least he gave me the idea for this piece.

One of my ideas IS to teach Customer Service by using my play Shoplife, by standing it on its head. Never do what the characters in the play do. All the cold calling does at least give me as many ideas as annoyance, so its balance as my Shanghai wife calls it. Though I’d love for the cold callers to catch a cold, and then they wouldn’t be annoying me.

Ring, ring the phone is ringing, I better answer that, no on 2^nd thoughts I’ll leave the answer machine enjoy it.  

The Trouble with food

The Trouble With Food ©

By Michael Casey

The trouble with food is that we all eat it, if we didn’t eat it there would be no problem, but we’d all starve, so we eat it. In our house we have East meets West cuisine, Birmingham to Shanghai food. As you know my wife is a Shanghai girl, so our two bilingual daughters  have “bilingual” diet too, though to be honest they eat Eastern diet 80% to 90% of the time.

The Shanghai diet involves lots of chicken and fish and of course 50 shades of rice. Which means my daughters are very slim, they have not inherited my Irish big build, I hope it also means that they live very long lives.

I used to say as a child that I’d love to live till I was 100, with the Chinese connection that would be very useful, as my wife will live another 60 years and my girls another 90 years. I just hope there is enough money in the pension pot, though I have very high hopes for my girls so I think there will be. My youngest daughter has already decided she wants to live in a cottage and she has reserved a rocking chair by the fire for me already.

But back to food, snacks are a big thing in our house, my Shanghai wife has a sweet tooth, so if you are eating the right thing all the time you can indulge in snacks. Be warned though, Eastern snacks can be either very very sweet, or totally bland to our Western tongue. Sometimes you do need a degree in Oriental languages to know exactly what is in the fridge, on the Eastern side of the fridge, or in the biscuit tin.

Korean snacks can be very nice, I must confess, we did actually have a priest called Fr. Jacob who was Korean. Then there are Chinese and Japanese snacks, it really has opened my mind and taste buds to a whole new dimension. Here in Birmingham we have a few great places to shop for Far Eastern food, as well as the best curry houses in the world if you just want Eastern and not Far Eastern cuisine.

Behind me in the living room the smells of chicken and rice fill the air, they have just finished watching The Hunger Games, now they are eating their rice and chicken. And yes the sauce is everything.

Ten years ago when Ma the mother in law was here for the birth of our daughter, she came for both births, a local very rich Chinese lady hounded her for her chicken recipe. Chinese love their food, the rich lady could afford anything, but the one thing she wanted most of all was Ma’s chicken recipe.

Food fills us all up, it brings smiles and it deepens friendship and love, so it’s a great thing. Food to fill us, but more importantly food to share and enjoy. If I’m lucky I’ll get the slops from my 3 girls, I had my own dinner earlier so really I’m not allow to have any of theirs.  

Food is a voyage of discovery, it’s like discovering you have a tongue, when you did never had one before. Well for me it was like that, moving on from kebab and chips to all kinds of Chinese stuff.

My wife did actually cook for me on my Birthday, though I was sent out 3 times to get more ingredients, the spice of life I suppose, without any actually spice. I think she cooked egg fried rice for me but with tomatoes in it and something else. That led to marriage and children and family, so be careful what you eat.

Formal This or Formal That

Formal This or Formal That ©

By Michael Casey

We all send off applications for jobs, or we write to complain about this and that. We all meet people for the first time, so how should we write and react? Me I think just be yourself, I’m in part two of my life now, or part ¾ even, so I refuse to suck up to anybody, not that I would in the first place.

If you were held hostage would you fight, or beg? Me I’d fight because they are going to kill you anyway, so at least you have a slim chance if you fight. Or would you beg and be a Uriah Heep, I don’t mean play heavy metal either. It’s all about attitude, how do you handle people?

Jim was a great man, we worked together at Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC, CPNEC for short, his customer service skills were great, he was also a character, he could say things that could get the average person sacked, but he had charm, he was a rough diamond.

He taught me so much, as did Phil on security, Phil was my phone a friend, if I did not know I knew a man that did, and that was Phil. It was thanks to them that I was great at my job. We were the friendly hotel, and the food was great too. 2002 to 2005 were the best years of my life, though very tiring and a lot of hard work.

Now as for words on paper I think you should always be yourself, and be clear with words. Never try and be clever, because in the end you won’t impress, you’ll just be a fool with a dictionary. Yes be polite, but don’t be unctuous, or a brown nose, I won’t use the English expression, I’ve said enough already.

Please Sir, I have a great idea, and only if you deign to help me would I ever be able to for fill its potential. This is wrong, but don’t be Del Boy Trotter either. Me, I have 520 short stories, if we packaged them in 40s with a facing page translations plus my audio in clear English, then we could make millions. Teaching English as a 2^nd language, by using humour.

Now should I bow down in an attempt to get an angel investor, no, have faith in your own ability, it may be that it’s an idea whose Time has not come. A nice lady actually said that to me, you have to get somebody to see what you see, to believe what you believe. Simple ideas are ideas that work.

Now what about when you complaining about something?  I always tell my daughters that “The Pen is mightier than the sword” and I can use my words to wound to get companies to honour their word.

Companies are so conscience about their image, so if you use a dose of hard words and sarcasm it really does work. This does not mean being abusive, it means you remind the company that they are NOT living up to their image on their tv adverts.

They will jump to attention and sort out the problem for you. There is actually a website with CEO email addresses on, so always write to the organ grinder and not his monkey. The power of words is an important thing to teach your daughters.

Now I have sent many emails to many people advertising my words, they are for sale for all readers everywhere, just go to Amazon Kindle. I realised too that my words would be good as a teaching tool, I was an Esol teacher and I do have a Shanghai wife as well. 

So I will continue informally asking people to invest in my words. They can always forward my emails to all the people they love to hate, and then maybe my Time will arrive. Or maybe I should just buy a new watch.

The Letter

The Letter ©

By

Michael Casey

A letter is a thing of beauty, a hope, a prayer answered. It’s also a joke. I can remember in 2^nd year running out of money on the school trip to Romsley, it was a geography field trip that lasted a week. I must have sent a note home. I got a reply from my brother “ After an all-night sitting of the Security Council, it has been decided to send you 1 pound. I wouldn’t say it’s quiet around here without you, but they are holding the SALT talks here. I bought ice lollies for myself and a couple of friends.

A letter can be a plea for help from a relative, send money or say some prayers as I’m sick, at deaths door. I was expecting a letter myself, and the contents of the letter were very important, so I was relieved when the big white envelope came through our door this morning.

Relief is the word. A letter can have such great importance, an email does not have such strength. Maybe it’s because a letter has a physical side to it. There are the stamps that tell you if it’s from home or abroad, you can recognise the writing on the envelope. There may even be perfume coming from the letter, it’s your old Aunty from Chicago, or you best friend from Australia.

Letters have to be opened and the paper taken out and unfolded, it’s a process, it’s better than just a click. The handwriting gives a lot away too, though in my own case I type everything as my penmanship really is terrible. Then you read the news.

You might be getting Shamrock for Saint Patrick’s Day from your aunt in Ballyheigh, or a crisp 10 shilling note from your uncle John in Cricklewood. I remember buying a tortoise with the money my uncle John sent. That was 50 years ago now. But you always remember letters.

I do love emails too, but today I’m just talking about letters. A letter is like a photograph, it can be touched and looked at, it can be read and reread. You are not going to login and read and reread your emails.

A letter shows you really care, it costs money to send a letter, stamps are so expensive now. Though in defence of email you can send photos and video or your latest book via email.

But letters are a thing, and things can be loved. You may have your long dead mother’s prayer book that you can look at and it reminds you of all the love she had for her brood. And letters are just the same, you cannot love something in cyber space.

So surprise the ones you love and send them a letter or a postcard, sent with love. 

A more interesting photo, prize for the one who has the best caption and/or knows what I’m doing.