Lazy Sunday

Lazy Sunday ©

By Michael Casey

Well we’re having a lazy Sunday, kind of, I wrote a piece about Jeremy Paxman earlier today and I’m going to double up and talk about something else now. For any foreign readers and I can get up to 100 a day I should explain that Jeremy Paxman was for 25 years the Rottweiler, the toughest Political interviewer in UK. 

So since I wrote that piece I’ve been doing a bit of research on the computer, all will be revealed later, no I’m not a nudist, well I am but don’t tell anybody.

So today we are having a lazy Sunday. My wife, or the witch as me and my girls call her, is doing her homework in Mandarin, my small daughter is reading, or trawling judging by the amount of books she reads. 

Her bigger sister has finished doing swat thrusts in the garden, this really frightens the squirrels, the magpies just laugh and the local cats just feel sorry for Totoro our cat, living with such strange strange people. Totoro for her part just swears at them in Chinese, she is such a clever cat after all, she does have a Japanese name too. Grannie had said that my big daughter was a bit porkie, which makes us all laugh as she is so thin by Western standards.

So now I’ve been told off for letting the kettle boil over and whistle too much which disturbs small daughter’s reading concentration. I was not even in the house, I slipped out to buy eggs from the Polish shop, their eggs are so good by the way and so yellow. Big daughter comes down to make her peppermint tea before disappearing again, she’s studying, 10 more years and she’ll reach her target, Dr Casey. Chinese people always say you should have a Dr in the family, or an accountant, grannie is an accountant in Shanghai.

I look for a stray biscuit to feed my Muse, only they are not there, small daughter has liberated them. Totoro had discovered how to open all our cupboards so we had to tape them shut, but it was not her who had freed the biscuits from the cupboard, I did once actually find her in a cupboard once, before we started taping the doors shut.

Spotify has radio station mode too, so I’m listening to Tom Petty as I talk to you, I’m sure Paxman is listening too as he sits in his chair in his study and practices his casting with his pole, he may even have photos of politicians on the floor and he tries to scratch their faces as he practices his casting. It might be a nice way to spend an afternoon while he waits for his tricycle to have its slow puncture fixed, it just hisses too much as he trundles along with his fishing kit in the trailer behind him.

All the hissing might encourage him to do Panto, Greville from Strictly Come Dancing has been pestering for 3 years to come off the fence and be a Panto star, there is good money in it after all, more than the BBC ever paid Paxman. If the old James Bond, the one whose name I forget, if he can be a baddie in Hot Fuzz then why of why cannot Paxman do a bit of Panto. It could be just the thing to spark his dull life along.

So it’s just gone past 5pm now it’s been a sunny Sunday, we are all quietly contented with our day, despite not winning the Lottery, if only we won, we’d love to live in the Toblerone house, a house we spotted on a property website, it has so many triangular shapes in it, hence why we call it the Toblerone house. It’s nice to dream even if we’d need all 6 numbers before we could afford it, though social housing like the White House is very nice, that’s how Joe Biden described where he lived.

At this point in a story I read back what I have written to see how it reads, or rather how it sounds. If I have a good sound I finish or I may add a sentence or two more. Otherwise it is the end. I just need to visit the fridge and have a slice of Cajun chicken from Aldi, it’s very nice.

Though Totoro our cat recognises the sound of plastic wrapping paper being opened and is faster than Kim Jun Un to the cheese plate, like a whippet or faster than Hussain Bolt she bolts down the stairs and gets her big eyes out. She wants some, and she does have such imploring eyes, so she always gets her way, rather like a wife or somebody else’s wife, be careful out there in readerland.

So it seems like a good place to finish now, maybe I should go to the Finnish Sauna I might meet Jeremy Paxman in there but that was the previous story, or it could be Jeremy Corbyn cleaning his slate, again.

enjoy the photos this really is me, i was in a dark computer room for over 20 years hence the shades, 

Paxman's Pants

Paxman’s Pants ©

By Michael Casey

I was just taking a gander at the newspapers when I came across Paxman being interviewed now that his Autobiography is coming out. How does an Autobiography Come Out, is the book Gay, or does it mean it is being revealed, so does that mean the Autobiography is a Flasher of some sort.

I always said if I wrote my autobiography I’d wait till my siblings were dead first so I could not upset anybody too much. I am the near youngest of the brood, then what happens it’s Me who could have bit the dust first, is it God’s way of saying Don’t write the autobiography, God the greatest Literary Critic.

Though I am writing my 11^th book now, so what sort of sense of Humour does He have? I was once told by a female priest that she thought I should write short pieces, and that’s what I do as I approach my 1,000,000 Word. Or did the priest have a short attention span or was she in league with the Lord.

So there is Paxman dressed in his Toga at the Woodcock Street Baths and Sauna in downtown Birmingham, a slave throws water on the coals, while a scribe write down his every word. An old woman in a piny wiping her snotty nose on her elbow, gives him his change with a dirty look, the look is free, the sauna is 6.99 plus 2 quid for a once spotless towel. It was used once by Arthur Dent, the motorway builder.

So Paxman tells how he was bored for 25 years, the slave looks up interested, bored does not mean bored you fool, can somebody whip him, no don’t bother he’d enjoy it too much, just put more water on the coals, I want steam. Peter Gabriel looks up from his position on the floor, and starts singing. Paxman gives him a withering look and Gabriel runs away crying, he’ll go back to Genesis.

If only he was by a river bank, with his rod, no slave nothing to do with punishment, though Rod Stewart music IS punishment.  Perhaps Paxman should use the word pole, a carbon fibre 20 metre pole, no you clot a pole not a Polish Pole. Why are slaves so one dimensional, you can’t get a good one for love or money.

Having dictated 20 pages to the scribe Paxman has a dip in the pool, before emerging like god from the water. He is peckish now after all the sweating, normally it was Politicians sweating, but those days are over, Paxman is so humble now, he could form a humble club with Donald Trump.

It was outside the Woodcock street baths that I bumped into Paxman, he did ask for my autograph but I refused, but I said I knew a good pub, The Churchill and he could bring his Black Dog with him. He was going to use a big word on me but he knew I was dictionaryless,  I probably couldn’t even spell serendipity let alone know what it meant. Go on, but not the Churchill, my Black Dog is not with me today anyway.

So I took Paxman to the Trader in Old Forge and Singing Anvil and introduced him to Wayne the barman, I suppose he’s named after John Wayne intoned Paxman. Actually I am replied Wayne as he took Paxman downstairs and showed him his cellar. Paxman returned 20 minutes later with tears in his eyes and holding a tumbler of 70  year old whisky, that’s unbelievable he mumbled humbled as if by almighty God himself.

Now that I’ve got your attention maybe you’ll listen to this business idea, Paxman looked up a freshly opened bag of pork scratchings in his mighty palm, anything anything I’m at your disposal. Wayne winked at me as I broached the idea. David Beckham has retired from advertising  for Marks and Spencer, so would you be interested in advertising  their pants.

photos

so if Paxman sees me in the street he can run the other way.

  

Tidying Up

Tidying Up ©

By Michael Casey

If you have kids then you know all about tidying up, I can hear the wave of comments being directed to me here behind your computer screen, or on your phone you are reading this on a phone. It all starts when you and your lady give in to Passion, Barry White is booming in the background, then 9 months later the tidying up begins, and does it ever end?

The trick with babies is to learn how to remove the nappy fast and wipe and replace in under 60 seconds, the soiled napped is flung into a plastic bag and removed from your house. It’s a bit like cricket or baseball where the ball has to get to the catcher as soon as possible. In sport this helps you win a game, with nappies or diapers as you call them in USA, it’s to remove the pooh smell from your house before the dog grabs it and buries it at the bottom of the garden. The dog’s nose is 1,000,000 times more sensitive so to the dog a nappy full of pooh is like us being dunked into a cesspit.

A baby has more luggage than a film star, 9 months previously it was a quiet intimate moment, just you and your man and Barry White, alone in a treehouse, he did say he was Tarzan and you were his Jane after all. Now the baby has luggage galore, and why did your friends all give you so many cuddly toys. You sneaked out in the night and left them on the door of the children’s home. So this is what happens when you let him play his Barry White music, you are his baby but he gives you a baby, and a ton of stuff.

You spend years tidying up all the baby stuff, the nappies, the toys, the clothes when will it end? Never, once a parent you are always a parent, my own dad still called me BOY when he was 80, and I was around 40. As your baby grows there are less nappies and the big day arrives, they are potty trained. You are so happy it’s like your team won the FA Cup or Superbowl, or Trump won the election, one of those is absolute fiction, we’ll find out in 7 weeks time. 

You ring your friends and arrange to go out for a drink, it really is a Cosmic event, potty trained, on a par with housetrained for your 5 Alaskan huskies. Our own daughters were 2 when they were finished, and we were so happy, you save a lot of money and your home smells so fresh now.

Your kids grow and they discover Drawing, so you have crayons everywhere, and pieces of paper everywhere. You fridge has turned into a colourful magazine, it’s impossible to find the door and get milk for your coffee, instant coffee with milk but no sugar, yes folks we are really disgusting in England, that’s what I drink, and tea too.

You walk across your living room to the sound of crunching, to the sound on slipping. You slide and slip on wax crayons and paper, your girls think you are Moon Walking, so daddy really did teach Michael Jackson to dance. I used to work in a print room and was allowed to bring home scrap paper, so you can imagine the state of our house.

Tidy Up are words that ring around the house for years, it’s like Autumn always in the house, or The Fall because  of the leaves of paper everywhere, multi-coloured paper that goes swish because of the sweets hidden amongst it. When I try to complain, I’m told I did stand by the now disguised fridge and pray for a wife and family, so blame myself.

The years progress and books are discovered, if you have teachers galore in the family what do expect as presents. I used to buy books from a remainder shop and give them to my nephew and niece, my niece now has a 1^st in English and has just done her Masters. The books I got for her, well 10 years later my brother returned them for his nieces. Books everywhere, a staircase is a perfect bookcase, and in the dark you never know what monster will jump out at you on the stairs. Or in my case slip sliding away, or things that go bump in the night, or me sliding down the stairs like at a Carnival, books as surf boards.

The girls had read everything from the local library, they could practically tell you the position on the shelves where the books lived. Ask your librarian friend if you don’t believe me, just look me up, as they always say.

I tamed all the books in our house by buying 3 bookcases from Argos, ha, see if they can fill those I thought, only my girls read like dredgers, they trawl and read everything. 3 full book cases, a few hundred books. So then I decided to take the nuclear option, I bought an Amazon Kindle. The floorboards in our house rejoiced, high fives everywhere. Saint Jeff Bezos rejoice for you have done well, you will go through the eye of a needle, just give Trump a push through first, God loves everybody after all, apart from the Inland Revenue perhaps.

I should write more but I have to tidy myself up after 3 days of pain, then once shaved I’ll take my walk and stop by Aldi to buy a few things, the fridge is so tidy it’s almost empty, I have to get chocolate for my girls. But before that I have to tidy all the shoes that are littering the house, how can women have so many shoes, and why do I always trip over them? Mind you there is a nice red pair of high heels, I may wear those to Aldi…..

   

a picture is worth a 1000 words they say I've reached 920,000 words now