Thank you readers

Just  A QUICK THANK YOU TO THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN READING

THANK YOU

I DON'T know why my readers have suddenly spiked but thanks.

I'm having a pain day today, my post quadruple bypass and my arthritis pain, but others have suffered much much more.....

I always try and write humour to lift people's spirit 

iF YOU WANT MORE OF ME JUST FOLLOW THE LINKS
 

www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com  to hear 50+ stories 

YES ME READING ALOUD MY STORIES JUST SCROLL DOWN, in my posh Birmingham accent

 

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

9 ebooks and 3 Printed on Paper Books

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

Thanks again

if ever I sell some books we'll move house fast...... 

 

I remember you a soothing piece we all need

I remember you (c)

by Michael Casey

I remember you/you threw a cup/I ducked and it broke the window/you threw flower at me /it hit my head and spread all over the floor/the dog came in to bark and leave  paw prints all over the floor/the cat came in to leave paw prints everywhere/ the dog chased the cat and together they left marks everywhere/up the curtains and even on  the ceiling/you threw an egg and missed me/it was baking a cake on the kitchen floor/the cat ran out and slipped on the egg yolk/it was no joke for she was covered in flour and egg/the dog came afterwards with flour and egg on his tail/you threw milk at me next/was it yorkshire pudding a la kitchen floor we were a making/you threw raisins too was it hot cross buns we were a making on the kitchen floor/I laughed and you cried we slide on the floor/ arguing no more/we made up on the kitchen floor/ and 9 months later without any yeast/ everything was self raising/the family was appraising our new baby's looks/made on the kitchen floor by two cooks.

*****this is from a couple of years ago

the heart bypass scar is from this year, so positive thoughts accepted always

 

Let there be light

Let There Be Light ©

By Michael Casey

Let my tears be my words

Let the candle light be my eyes

Let the flowers in bloom be my lips

Let their scent be my blood

Let the wind be my breath

Let clouds be my mood

Let children’s laughter be my hope

Let widows’ sighs be my conscience

Let a stranger’s prayers be my delight

Let the bees be my wisdom

Let the trees be my strength

Let my patience reach to the stars

Let me be always remembered in your prayers

Mood Music

Mood Music ©
By Michael Casey

It’s been a few days since I wrote something, so here’s something new, for those of you in Russia, Portugal, Spain as well as the USA and here in the UK. I’ve been looking at my stats so I know where you are. Stats MR was in fact the original name of the company I worked for before ACNielsen bought us up. Music was a big part of our working life.

We had a Ghetto Blaster which we put on top of the computer, which were as big as wardrobes back in 1978, yes that long ago. Then we’d hit play and the music played all nightshift long, I’m still playing some of that music. Depeche Mode and REM were introduced to me over the decade plus that we had to work nights. Before Dark Room beckoned, and no Dark Room was not a band, it just meant that both the computers could be trusted not to crash and the printers had an auto stacker.
Music does get you in the mood, or make things more palatable, so a bit of music while you work does help. Arthur Askey had Workers Playtime on the Radio you can google that for yourselves. If the job is dire, and you can pick your own definition of dire, then listening to music does cheer you up and make time pass faster.

Supermarkets and Hotels and even lifts, or elevators if you are American, have music, as Life without Music is like being in a mortuary, though I admit I have not had that once in a life or is it death experience yet. The energy and the bounce of music is the pulse of Life itself and so its presence is like our own blood circulating.

They say that music helps study, and no it’s not our kids saying the Beatles or the Stones or Cream helped them study, literally. It’s the sound of music, and I don’t mean Julie Andrews either, it’s the sound of music that does something to our brain. So we are more receptive and happier, they used to say whistle while you work after all.

My brother did have Cream music help him get into Oxford, and then the same music through the same speaker got another brother into Cambridge. As for me, I have the same speaker, now nearly 50 years old, and I met Eric Clapton, I only went to Oxford on the train.

My own daughter listens to Classical music and other strange sounds on her phone, which is her excuse for being on it so much. However she recently got 100%, 100% and 96% in Chemistry, Biology and IT. So either Classical music works or she’s very clever, though my teacher brother always says to his students make sure you sit next to somebody clever.

So all in all music is company, it does soothe the savage beast. When my brother went to work at a coal mine in Newbold Vernon for a year, a gap year before they were invented, before he went to Cambridge, I was all alone in the homework room, and it was music which was my company.
Folkweave was on then I seem to remember, as was Radio 2 with all kinds of everything.  Music is a friend as is radio itself, it’s in the room with you, it’s in bed with you, it’s even in the bath with you. And if you are lucky enough to love a musician you’ve both got rhythm.

The BBC is finally Unleshing all its Juicy Bits, or so it thinks

The BBC is finally Unleashing all is Juicy Bits, or so it thinks ©

By Michael Casey

I am so ------ing glad, I’m so ------ing glad, I’m -------ing glad, I’m _____glad, I’m so glad. No I’m not Eric Clapton singing his hit from the Cream days. No I’m just glad the BBC is releasing all its juicy bits to the world. To be honest only the PC brigade would be offended by any of it at all. Anybody who the BBC is “protecting” would just say “what a ----“ or other such words. Or probably not even notice, because those shows were just so funny. The Joke was on the ignorant ______   person who used the “offending” words.

In the Czech republic the tv showed the old government stuff and the average viewer just mocked, because it was so puerile, I remember watching with Dr Lubosh, watching and laughing out loud, this was in 1998. I imagine the BBC would say they couldn’t show such material as it would offend. By not walking on eggshells the BBC behaves like a bull in a china shop.

If you show the non PC material, you let people see just how stupid people were in their attitudes, mockery is always the best medicine. Ask Mel Brooks and his Spring Time for Hitler in the Producers.

I once had a piece called Internet Story banned by the BBC because the last line in the story  said “and send me $10” which was the tag line to a joke. The BBC said it was soliciting money. So I am very wary of their judgement. The other big idea of the past was to ask an Award Winning Writer to do a drama course before he could submit to the BBC.

Obviously ------ing bad language can offend, of course it  -----ing does, and I should add I have randomly chosen the number of blanks in this piece so ---- does not mean ---- nor does ---------- mean ---- or vice versa, I hope I had made that crystal ------ing clear or should I say  totally -------------ing clear as Lenny Bruce said down the club last night. Lenny is a total ----- a total ------   ------ he spilt my pint of Stella Artois and didn’t say sorry, nor replace it.

I just hope the BBC sets the price point right, and then they will be laughing all the way to the --------ing bank. If you let the general public laugh at your crown jewels, and if you let them ------- download your most sensitive and erotic bits, by which I mean your classics, your dusty classics, which are so wonderful to see. 

Then you are a bit like an old whore coming out of retirement to reveal you have the body of -----ing ------- -----. Then everybody wants your treasure, so the -----ing BBC is happy and the public is crying with laughter, though if it were Round the Horne it would probably be banned, as the PC crowd would think it was some sort of Karma Sutra, whatever that is. 

Saint's Day

Saint’s Day ©

By Michael Casey

Today is the feast of Saint Martin de Porres, 3^rd Nov 2015, I introduced him to my daughter a few months ago when our cat went AWOL and only came back when full of fleas. Totoro had gone walkabout, or rather climbabout as cats do. My small daughter was distraught, the cat was her heart’s desire and she and her sister had only got the cat when my heart had broken.

It had been a kind of joke a year ago, almost to the day now. I said if I had a heart attack they could finally have a cat and if I died they could have a dog. So they immediately went looking at cats and dogs on the Internet. In a matter of weeks I had a totally unplanned quadruple heart bypass.

So some saint must have been looking after me, or God really DOES have a sick sense of humour just like in the Blasphemous Rumours song by Depeche Mode. So the girls got a pet, I had to keep my word, so Totoro joined the family. I did pick him or her as she turned out to be, from a photo of 4 kittens from a litter. I chose the pretty one. Totoro turned out to be a ninja cat, who loved climbing trees and catching fleas.

Which brings us to Saint Martin de Porres, I told my daughter if she prayed to him he’d bring Totoro home to us. Well Tororo did come home to us after a day or two, and Saint Martin got a new admirer. I’d shown my daughter an old religious card, it was in my mother’s old prayer book, the only memento I have of my soon to be dead 20 years mother.

We pray to this saint or to that saint when we need a favour, when we are at our wit’s end. It amuses or bemuses other Faiths, and is a great source of comedy. It you are old enough you may remember Milo O’Shea and Yootha Joyce in Mi Mamma, in one episode several statues of the saints are thrown out into the landing because the Pope had said they may not be really saints after all.

Prayer has it rituals, I was an altar boy for 8 years and a reader for 5 years, so I had a front row seat to all the candle carrying and smoke shaking. It is theatre and it can be totally spellbinding. Ironically enough it’s the Requiem Mass which is the nicest, Lazarus being brought back from the dead. Jesus wept for his friend. Even though Lazarus would smell by now Jesus insisted, he brought his friend back to life.

So by using the avenue of a Saint we ask for favours. You’ll ask your mum or your aunty, or a friend to help when you really need a favour. So we use a Saint, though in my own case I can at times scream for the saint called Painkiller, arthritis and post quadruple heart bypass are horrible bedfellows.

In Europe and South America I believe you have a Saint’s Day which is like an extra Birthday, the saint after whom you are named gives you an extra day to celebrate. I’m all in favour of this. Christmas, Birthday, Saint’s Day as well as Pay Day which is a tradition too.

There is a great psychology behind prayer via a saint, it’s like picking your fantasy football team, with no shouting at the team doctor, and then they all work for you. You can see the passing and the build-up, and then a final pass and chip and volley and it’s in the back of the net. GOAL!  The process of prayer is what makes you relax and calms you down. Then you have to accept what is.

You have to work out for yourself is prayer to this saint useful, is any prayer useful to any god, is there a God anywhere? I can only speak from my own life experience. Padre Pio I believe has intervened in my own life, if you read Padre Pio and Me you can judge for yourselves. If you feel humbled by what has happened against all the odds then we are perhaps in the realm of miracles.

The question is do you Believe, or do you wait till you have put your fingers in the wounds.

Happy Saints Day Saint Martin de Porres.