The Bicycle Removal Firm

after last night's piece I remembered I had this one in my quiver

 

The Bicycle Removal Firm © 

By

Michael Casey

                 

                Today's blog is inspired by what I saw through the window.

And what did I see? Well you may have all seen The Quiet Man with

John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara. In it a spare bike is “carried” by somebody already riding one. It no doubt takes great skill.

It wasn't that I saw but something much more intriguing, I say a man on a bike carrying a mirror under his arm. Not the newspaper, but a  real mirror, a 3.5foot  one under his right arm. He also had it mirror side out, so no doubt several car drivers would have been dazzled.

Later on as I sat here at the computer I saw him again, this time he had an ironing board under his arm, at least the legs weren't sticking out.  He just pedalled past. I was wondering what would happened next. I was thinking it was nearly time to collect the girls from school when he came walking past carrying a heavy bundle on his shoulder.

As we walked home I told my girls what I'd noticed, I always try and teach them to be observant, such as seeing the new trendy sign over the help the aged charity shop today. And as we walked home why the policeman had got out of the panda car near the bank, to go to the cash point and then

go to Subway for his sandwich.

 I explained to my girls  that the  man on the bike must be moving house,  but he didn't have a car so  he was DIY moving with the aid of a bike. My mother once put on all her clothes and then walked home to Cromane Kerry because she had no suitcase so she wore everything. Her mum had belted her for her stupidity, this would be in the 1930s. I encouraged my daughter to use the bike man as a  story for her next English lesson, she said it was  not her style.  Then as we closed the front door, who did we see? The man  on his bike with a mixing desk under his arm, my daughter laughed, but her  little sister had the last laugh, she'd found the chocolate biscuits.

So what can I say, I hope that if ever we move house, if ever I sell my 3 books then I hope we can at least have a van to transport our things. Or perhaps I could self upgrade from a bicycle removal service to a  bus removal service, I do have a bus pass after all.

www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com 

The Pain Bicycle

The Pain Bicycle (c)
By Michael Casey
We'll all here again, riding the bike called pain, wishing we were still in bed, not a word being said. But the pain returns, the pain returns like a thief in the night. Stealing our happiness, destroying our calm, hurting us to the very core. SCREAM we scream again and again, hoping the pain will disappear but it does not. It just moves about, from one spot on my body to another, I'm like a child's toy, see if she can move a lever without making the light go on and the buzzer go off. But this is real too real to mention, SCREAM, I have to get up, it seems as if the very act of lying down brings on the pain. There is this pain and that pain, pain in the chest and pain in the heart itself, then a pain in the side, skeletal muscular pain, pain in the legs from where the veins were harvested to  go in the heart. The list goes on an on, if only I could have a boring old headache. SO I'm here writing about it, what more can I do, once I'm so exhausted I start to fall asleep, and then I'll sleep though the pain. Ah well I'll trying going back to bed now, see if I sleep or SCREAM. So please have patience  with you old and sick relatives, hold their hand and kiss them on the cheek, one day it will be your turn, so just try and love them, and pray for them and me too.

Return of the Voice

MAY 21ST, 2016 10:30

Return of the Voice ©

By michael casey

I hope to resume my recording career in a day or so, ok, I'll pop a mike in an old plastic container placed on the corner of the computer desk, then I'll open a pdf and read it aloud.  It’s not as posh when you explain it. I have recorded over 200 pieces, my kids say I sound like a newsreader or a narrator, I hope to record everything I ever write, it’s my legacy to them.

I was too tired to record any for months but now I'm strong enough to record. Recording 5 in a day was my limit, I may be able to double that number eventually, but never more than 10 in a day. Its a more tiring process than you could imagine, as is the actual writing itself, a casual observer may think I'm very fast and no effort is involved, but its like after Hussain Bolt has run a race, I'm as knackered as he is.

When you read aloud, if you get it right you are adding an extra element to the words on the page, the words you have written yourself. I even read somewhere that one writer went on a presenting/narration course. Otherwise he would have sounded verbally incontinent, the um and ah and pausing in the wrong place. As you all know I did my presenting course back in 1998 and I later worked at CPNEC Birmingham in 10 simultaneous roles for 3 years.

So I can talk, the tricky bit is finding where to pitch your voice. If you in a hotel then you lean in verbally and you may adopt the tone of the guest, you may say wee if they are Scottish for example, or if they are highly educated you pitch your language to try and match theirs. I met somebody once at the hotel who was a little condescending, so in my reply I used concepts at his level, then I paused and said my brother did Economics at Cambridge, he looked at me and said, I believe you.

We have Ping and then we have Pong, your speech reflects this, we also have our parent's voice or our teacher's voice, or even our gutter voice, all of which we use as the occasion needs.  A voice for all occasions, but sometimes we can still be wrong footed, how would we talk to the Queen for example? I hope I'd treat her the same way I used to treat everybody in the hotel, with courtesy  without being on bended knee, and in her case we'd talk about horses, or rather ask her to forgive my ignorance but please talk to me about horses, having a dad who was a blacksmith would be the opening conversational gambit.

So words are toys we play with in the pram of life, toys can be thrown out of the pram and hurt people. Words can wound, hurt and malice and lies are the deadliest toys. The voice we adopt can sooth a child's scraped knee, far quicker and better than any bandage, so we have to voice our concern and voice our love, then our children return to their play, for we are the sound of love, music to their ears, banishing all tears.

Rushing for The Toilet

Rushing for The Toilet ©

By Michael Casey

We all do it, except the Queen, she never uses the toilet at all, it would be too undignified. In actual fact she has a commode in her Rolls Royce, I know her Royal Chamber Person, I met him down Costco where he buys the toilet paper for her, it’s the one embossed with a Crown on it.

Toilets are part and parcel of life, from a very early age, that is once you are potty trained, and potty training is a whole new experience for any parent. We start in nappies as we call them here in England and as we grow older we have trainer pants and then we wear underpants as we call them in England, ask John Major. Then as we get older we get incontinence pants and finally adult nappies. It’s the circle of life as the Lion King will tell you, though nobody would roar at him if he sprinkles when he tinkles as we say here in England.

In China and here in our Shanghai/Birmingham house we had split pants, which are pants with a split in, or trapdoor as cowboys use to wear in Westerns. They allow quick emergency access/escape for bodily fluids. Though we gave them up very quickly here in Birmingham

We were lucky our girls only took 2 years each to be potty trained, it really does save you a lot of money once the kids are potty trained. You have to have a routine, it’s like cricket with the wicket keeper behind the stumps. You have to remove the nappy fast and throw it into a bag, then wipe and place the new nappy on the clean posterior. The soiled nappy is removed from the home post haste. You should do it all in under a minute, quality parent teamwork.

So the child grows, and you have to hold them over a plastic pot which must be emptied and cleaned fast, you don’t want pooh smell everywhere. When you first met the love of your life, you may of dreamed of being naked with her/him you never dreamed that 9 months after you did what you did that the consequence would be the smell of baby pooh  everywhere for at least 2 years. So think before you do, do  do do and do do, or there will be doo doo everywhere, for 2 years at any rate.

As you grow going to the toilet on your own is an achievement, you feel so proud. When you grow up, your mum and later your wife will tell you off for watering the toilet seat and the bathroom floor, obviously it was not you it must be Totoro the cat.

And so it goes on, till you get older and you need somebody to help you with toilet duties, it always seems to be an older fat woman who looks after you in the care home. These ladies are angels, as are all carers and hospital intensive care staff. I know I was looked after by a Pilipino lady in the QE after my quadruple bypass, they had said it would be a triple but it ended up as 4 grafts.

As you grow old you divide time by units of toilet, when did you last go and when will you need to go again. When you go out you divide distance by where is the nearest toilet, and can you hold it long enough till you get back home. 

You scan the landscape like a soldier, not looking for the enemy but for where is cover for you having a sneaky pee in the street. You have to be careful or you can be arrested and charged with exposing yourself, when really it is relieving yourself. A friend once got arrested for street peeing after a Friday nights drinking, he was charged with exposure, double exposure, but you can work that one out for yourself.

You have to be very inventive if you get called short, and nowadays with all the public red phone boxes nearly all gone you cannot even pee in them, whatever  has happened to BT, they should have a dial a pee service. So on it goes. If you have cKd or  other such things then you are a victim to your bladder, I know I am that man. I wish I had no such knowledge of such things but I have. I have knowledge of lots of things which I hope nobody will ever have to suffer, but I am sure of one great thing, I know how to spend a penny.   

And the next thing is

And the next thing is

By michaelgcasey

Well I launched my 10th book on Amazon Kindle yesterday, Undiscovered Words 2016,

so I’ll be starting on no 11 next. I don’t want to start it with a piece on Pain so let me just say,

Arthritis and post bypass pain is a total pain, and ckD on top. That’s why I try and write humour,

otherwise I’d just be crying. Had to explain what shorting is to my girls,not the stock exchange one

but where Totoro the cat has knocked the wires and you get a noise. I told them to google shorting

It’ll open their eyes. In my dreams I’d love to meet a Legal Secretary, then I could dictate my comic

novel Tears for a Butcher. OR just send a usb stick with me dictating it, then  by return email I’d

get the text back typed nicely. Legal Secretaries go at 100WPR so in a couple of hours or 3

I’d have an entire chapter done. So if I had access in 4 months I’d have

Tears for a Butcher done. As for the girls, they’s have the dubious honour of hearing it first.

I could not afford to pay them. You could even broadcast the audio, as work in progress,

So much for my dreams. Chips and sausages with the family tonight was a nice change from

my monastic diet. So I’ll say goodnight and hope the pain doesn’t keep me awake, its such a lottery

Undiscovered Words 2016

May 17th, 2016 17:51

Undiscovered Words 2016

By michaelgcasey

Undiscovered Words 2016  my 10th book is launched TODAY  on Amazon Kindle
Undiscovered Words 2016  so please buy it. It has me as a chef presenting the dinner as a
front cover ASIN: B01FT0PQYK
Thank you
and thanks to my computer man for fixing my computer. Otherwise I’d not be boring you all with more books.

UNdiscovered Words 2016 cover art

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.