Someplace Else

Someplace Else ©

By Michael Casey

Hello again, well I’ve had to decamp from the family PC to a laptop, as the mouse drivers on the family PC have ran away, our cat Totoro has no doubt scared them off. I plan to accost one of our neighbours to help me fix this problem, thank God I’m not your neighbour. I will of course pay £20 or 20 pints of Stella Artois as a reward.

I’m one click away from fixing this, only I cannot find the correct combination for a final fix. So close and  yet so far away, the  lock to the chastity  belt could not be opened. I throw in these occasional ripe metaphors to check if you are listening and have I made you prick up your ears, it’s all in the mind,  as Jill used to say, I lead you up the garden path. God bless Jill, she has her own cross to carry, she was a great lady from my computer days at Stats.

So as I sit here writing my first ever laptop piece, my 730 something  all together piece I’m thinking what would it be like to use a laptop all the time. In my imagination I’m at an airport writing between flights. If only we could go to Malta again, and be a writer on the go, which in my case normally means going to the toilet. Malta is great and you can even get Deep Heat there, which was a godsend back in 2013.

Someplace else also means a state of mind, your location does influence  what you write, as does the keyboard you use  I’m finding that out right now. I can see the gas fire in front of me, there 28 years ago I sat writing my first novel, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker, so by looking forward I am in fact looking back into my own History.

I met a new “friend” this week a Simon Pegg look alike security guard and his buddy a tattooed guy, it was as if he leant on a hedge and the image was transferred to his arms, very floral, he should be dancing with Terry Wogan. They were very nice guys they got me a taxi. I mention them because you don’t know when or where you’ll meet a kindred spirit.  I have done a few years of security as well as everything else when I was at CPNEC Birmingham so there is a camaraderie between security people, as well as many bunions,  but not John Bunion, he never has bad feet.

This room is too quiet, then the clock strikes 11.15, God always has the last word, well he started it with  the 1^st Word, though Bill Gates may dispute that. See somebody else provided the material for the last sentence, am I just a puppet, they would have to be very strong to pull a 100kilo man’s strings, and  yes I’ve lied about my weight, I’m more than  that. After 15 months I’ve loosened my monastic diet so I’ve put back 5 of the 10 kilos I lost post op and diet change. Though I do look 20 kilo lighter than I am thanks to it being tight fat and not wobbly fat.

It feels like a desert island now, the clock strikes 11.30 God always interrupts when I’m trying to write, though He would say when I’m trying his patience. I was 2 hours away from Death, so I won’t complain if He plays with Time, who am I to argue if I paraphrase Francis, and did I tell you I guessed Francis would be the name of the Pope, if only I had a bet on it.

All in all Someplace Else Has not been too bad, though I need to sort out my sitting position, then I have to backup and secure my words, before posting them online, I started as a computer operator back in 1978 so in a way I’ve gone full circle. I just  hope I can make a few quid for my girls  before the Clock strikes End. 

Pain in the Night

Pain in the Night ©

By Michael Casey

Well I just had to get up such is my pain, other pains are available, but I can only speak of mine. I’m writing this from the very edge, if I cannot get to sleep because of the pain then I may as well tell it into another story. I had my quadruple heart bypass 15 months ago now, and I’m still screaming in pain.

I was fit and healthy until the surgery, or so I thought, but without it I’d now be dead, more than likely. So what gets me screaming, the Beatles or am I a Stones man? You get a dull pain in the centre of your chest, and it gets bigger, it’s like a craw hammer pulling you apart, as I was telling the nice lady the other day. Then just for fun you’ll have a stabbing feeling right to the heart, like stabbing yourself with your pencil. This is due to the fact that you’ve been split open like a Kentucky Fried Chicken so that the surgeon can work on you.

I hope I’m not putting potential heart patients off the alternative could be death or major heart attack. I was talking to my priest, he did try and hide in Aldi to avoid me, but anyway he said that at our age it could be 3 years before recovery. I’ve just jumped out of my seat as I had a twinge. The whole of my left chest is a danger zone, one touch or even a lick from our cat would be enough to make me scream. My heart team guy said just consider what has gone on in there.

I now have a party trick, if I put an ice cube on my right nipple it is really really cold, but on my left nipple I can hardly feel a thing. I don’t have any nipple tassels so get that idea out of your head. What else can I do, I can convulse in pain and scream at the same time. Muscular Skeletal pain it’s called, I get it in my left side, though my pet name for it is BASTARD, I was recovering really fast from my bypass surgery when that came along.     

Arthritis joins in for fun, it’s a race around the track for all my pains, up down and around, which does sound like a song title. Which part of the body gets it first and where will it share to. I can be limp and then not limp at all. I can have it in my shoulders and then my hips, but never on my lips so far.

I have paracetalmol  for my heart and a slap on pain killer for other bits, the paracetalmol gives you man boobs after a bit, so you end up stealing your daughter’s bra. Movelat is for other areas and is fast acting, which is just you want as a freezing pain slides down from your shoulder to your heart. Then you have another pain, but that’s just constipation, which you get as a result of all the pain killers.

Now I am recently getting a pain in my knee and my leg scars have joined in just for fun, while you folks think I’m just a pain in the arse.

 So try and keep on smiling when you can hardly think and breath due to the pain. I’d also like to know what did they leave in my chest, as sometimes when I move I can feel as if I’m being stabbed from the inside. Or maybe it’s a pacemaker, or it’s somebody’s remote control, I’m told in the future I’ll have fun at airports because of the metal stitches inside me.

I didn’t intend sharing all this with you, but its either that or stay tossing and turning in bed, and screaming at the moon, the local wolves have started to complain I’m putting them out of a job.

Why do I see Nick's Photo

May 13th, 2016 15:04

Why do I see Nick’s Photo

By michaelgcasey

Hello, I was in a very warm waiting room for most of yesterday, so today I feel terrible and a bit dizzy. Other than that I’m still fat, and alive, which is what I say  to the girls in Aldi. Now we’ve had our fun with Robert Peston, I didn’t get an invite either, sob.
As you know I google my name everyday just to see if I’m alive, no Times Obits for me, you can see how the tides are moving by a quick google.
Now I keep on getting Nick Robinson’s photo in 3rd position, no this in not Nick in tights, though his extension has to be seen to be believed, its a dog shed with an ice cream cone flue, and he is always coughing all over John Humbries, and how he got that morning breakfast gig after all he did in that shop of his, until he was served a good pint of Stella Artois. Where was I, art tois, or are 4, you’ll soon get the five of it.
Ok, that’s enough of the bad radio4 puns.
Just tell me Nick, why are you number 3, or is that you talking a number 1 and a number 2 at my expense..

Robert Peston and Me

May 9th, 2016 20:45

Robert Peston and Me

By michaelgcasey

It’s been decided that Robert’s Sunday show needs a lift. So I’m coming to the rescue, the Birmingham equivalent of Roland Rat is there just to steady the ship, should the rats leave then that is another matter.

Big Bad Russell Grant in his wobbly jumper is not available, and did you know Russell is named after the Autumn leaves, anyway he’s really thin he just pretends to be fat to give himself gravitas like that other political reporter, the famous one whose name I cannot remember, well him anyway.

So just as I used to watch a bit of breakfast tv after my night shift in the computer room, I will now be doing my bit for daytime tv. But instead of watching I’ll be delivering a Postcard from Birmingham each week on  Robert Peston’s show go to www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com  for a sample.

Now if you believe that then you should be watching Andrew Marr instead, Politics makes you go  blind,  no wonder people vote the way they do, they cannot see the paper, it’s all a load  of BALLOTS.

Pussy the Pain Eating Cat

Pussy the Pain Eating Cat ©

By Michael Casey

Pussy was a moggy, a battered and abandoned moggy, thrown over a high wall next to a stream, expected to drown and die. Cruelty beyond words, absolute evil cruelty. They say cats have nine lives, this one must have had 99 x 9 lives.  Pussy landed in the grounds of an old people’s home, Eve spotted the sack of rubbish and scooped it up and was going to put it in their trade dustbin, only the sack shivered.

So Eve took it inside and placed the cat by the radiator in the day room, the residents looked at the wet and shivering cat. A cat was a novelty, something new to brighten their day. Something to cheer them on the long or short journey to the end of their time. One by one the residents came to look and wish the pussy good luck. I hope she survives, I hope she gets better they all prayed. Old Annie was knitting a scarf and decided the cat, their new friend would be better with it on her. So old Annie tore it off her needles and covered the cat with it. As she did so she shed a tear, the  tear fell on the cat like a splash of Holy Water.

Now a cat knows what Love is, so Pussy as the cat was christened, felt the love all around her. After a month Pussy was back to her normal self, and having a Home as a home was great.  Pussy was like Goldilocks trying all the chairs and beds for comfort, the residents in the home had new focus now, a cat was something special. The Love between them grew and grew, you don’t have to be a genius to know that people, old people need love too, a gentle kind of love, a patience kind of love, the kind mentioned in the famous Bible passage about honouring your father in old age. 

Pussy knew which resident needed an extra bit of love, so she’d sit on their lap or on the armrest of their chair. Pussy purred and the residents smiled back, it was a symbiotic relationship. The mood lifted with Pussy around, Eve loved her residents they were her life, watching them as they slide to their death, she really loved them, now Pussy shared in the loving.

Georgia was an old West Indian lady who must have been in her nineties, she had loved to laugh, she had been full of stories, but now the big C, cancer was attacking her. She had regular pain killers, a supply of morphine which Eve administered, Eve hid her tears from Georgia her smile was her armor. Pussy could tell, an animal can always tell, so Pussy decided that Georgia needed extra special treatment.

Pussy sat on Georgia’s lap and purred, it was cat prayers, the cat was not sitting on the mat, the cat was sitting on the lap. Georgia sang from her heart from her very soul, quietly ever so quietly, she was old and in pain, but she still believed with all her pained heart, so she sang spirituals. Pussy purred the chorus. There were only two of them but they were a choir.

We all know about the power of love, Jennifer Rush has sung about it, we have all been moved by song. So the rest of the residents watched and were moved. If only they knew the words. They gathered around and listened, badly singing the words, out of place and out of time. It was like a scene from the Studio Ghibli film, Ponyo, where the old people live under water.

Love and Hope and cat purring, Pussy was a conductor, the residents were the choir, old Annie clattered away on the knitting needles. They would make old Georgia better, she had to live at least until she got a telegram from the Queen for her 100^th Birthday, nothing less would do.

Eve went to Mass and told her friend Undoopa from the Shona choir about the events in the old people’s home. Undoopa was intrigued and said if Eve wanted to invite her to tea then she’d be more than happy to come. So next Tuesday afternoon Undoopa would come.

Undoopa arrived with her sister Sondoopa in tow, Shona sisters stick together. After helping with the resident’s tea they went to see Georgia, Pussy was there purring away. Then the singing began, Georgia’s quiet prayer accompanied by Pussy’s purring. Now a Shona sister is a strong and powerful thing, one is dangerous, two is like an earthquake.

LOUD very LOUD singing erupted from the Shona  sisters, at first Pussy was scared, but then the cat became a lion and began to roar. It may have been because Pussy had a  lick of the morphine, but whatever the reason this cat was COOOOOL, for 5 hours he sang with the Shona sisters. Love and Hope and Pray erupting from them like a volcano, the residents rocked in their armchairs, banging spoons on their trays. Georgia smiled more and more. The bastard cancer would never beat her spirit, she was on fire and the whole of the brigade would never put her out.

Georgia was so happy, the Shona sisters said their goodbyes, then Eve shared a bottle of Baily’s Irish Cream with the residents to calm them down from their high. Pussy got the dregs from the bottle, this cat had got its cream and licked it.

Now the Shona sisters prayed for Georgia every day, then when they were singing at a wedding for Fr. Cownley they told all the rest of the full Shona choir. So as they were all there they jumped on the bus and went to the old people’s home.

40 Shona singers with drums too invaded the old people’s home, Pussy fled to on top of the bookcase. But the sound of the low like distant thunder singing encouraged Pussy to sit on Georgia’s lap as usual. Then the women began to sing with drums beating too. Now how this worked I do not know, I am just a writer not a doctor, but I do know that love is the best medicine, my own dad came back from the dead 20 years ago, after we had picked hymns for his funeral.

So the sound of music mixed with Shona love cured Georgia’s cancer, and she went on to live till she was 110, she got her telegram from the Queen and 10 more, making 11, Georgia always said as she was West Indian she’s need 11 cards, enough to make a cricket team.

As for Pussy the cat, she lived till she was 30, the residents loved her so much they willed her to keep on living. None of the residents seemed to have any pain after the Shona had cured Georgia with their Christian singing, Eve said Pussy ate all the pain, she wasn’t a mouser she was the pain eating cat.