My Next Word

My Next Word (c)

By Michael Casey

I’ve been thinking about my next word, or rather next piece that’ll have many words now that my 1,000,000th word is on the horizon. When I wrote my book my first book, finished on 29^th Feb 1988 The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker was the title by the way, I knew what the last word would be. Yes it sounds corny by today’s standards, but I knew what I wanted to use as a last word because it had so much power and underlined the whole story, in one word. I won’t tell you what that word is, you’ll just have to pay a couple of quid to find out, my 12 books are on Amazon, it may help you win pub quizes in the future.

Another thing about words is how one word leads to another and how key words attract certain people. I used Putin in a story a couple of days ago so now I have Russian readers, though they are probably the same ones who sent me an email boasting about a Russian dating site. I deleted it unopened, I have a Shanghai wife so that should tell them that I lean towards the Far East. I’ve also had Nigerian scammers send me emails, those are all deleted unopened. I also mentioned the word Ghost in the same story, so will I receive emails from ghosts, or will they just stay in the graveyard?

I was looking at my www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com site which isn’t this one, not unless you are on the wordpress one right now, and I stumbled on how to tidy it up. I only claim to be a writer not a web designer, though I do get web design offers from India, web designs, not Indian offers. I always cut and paste my Elevator Ad and a silly photo of myself saying NO THANKS, depending on mood. So I have changed my wordpress site and lets see if If I get any more traffic on it. There is now a Widget, which I always thought was a piece of plastic at the bottom of a can of larger, to help the beer pour more easily, in fact what it means is that its a button, so that when readers press it there is an instantaneous translation, its for lazy people, or for stupid people like me who cannot cut and paste to do a translation.

The thing about auto translate is that it is not always right, and bad punctuation, or a difference in style can be and is lost in translation. Did you know in Chinese they say Open the Light, not switch on the light, so imagine what auto-translation might do to that. Yesterday one of my bilingual daughters, they speak Chinese too if you didn’t know, said that she switches languages if Chinese is quicker than English when talking to her sister. Normally they speak English, otherwise only the cat Totoro would understand them, as the cat is bilingual.

So it would be nice if I gain more readers world-wide so all the Russians and Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese out there you can read me while they are drinking their cans of lager with its widget, just by pressing the widget on the screen, hic. If you then go to www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com you can HEAR me read 50 or so stories out of my 900, about 2 hours worth, but you may need a drink after listening to me. I still have the vain hope that an Angel Investor will finally arrive and use my writing to help teach English to the world.

Well that’s enough words for now, I have used LibreOffice Writer to put this on the page, you’ll have to decide if it has improved the quality of the writing or not. No doubt I’ll get a ton of emails offering word processor software, the only software I need for Christmas, is soft winter under-ware to help keep the cold from freezing my, my, my, well you can choose which Word for yourself.

The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer ©

By Michael Casey

Michael did not plan to be a writer, it kind of found him, like tripping over somebody’s legs at an airport while you are reading a newspaper, then you notice that the legs you tripped over are very nice legs, that reach up to her hips. And instead of being angry at each other he and she found that there was a spark between them, they twinkled even. Marybeth was an American and she just loved his accent, she insisted on having his details. And as her bag on the floor said America Judo Team Michael could not resist.

Within six months she had joined him in Birmingham, the real Birmingham in England, a month after that she was pregnant, Michael had been saving up to be married and no doubt he had saved, he has saved all his, all his, well he had saved up all his, and she may have thrown him down on the mat, the mattress. But once she joined him there she had received all his, all his, well all his all. So she was pregnant and she was so happy, her child would have a British accent, now that was really cool, every so cool in fact.

Now as Marybeth could make more money as a Judo instructor they decided that once Margaret had finished with Marybeth’s breast milk
then Marybeth would go back to her Judo school and Michael could be a Hausfrau. Besides Michael always wanted children so he was happy to be a Hausfrau, and if anybody took the mick about him being a Hausfrau then Marybeth would throw them against the garage door or through the garden fence, she was very protective that way. Marybeth just adored Michael and he was very good on  the mat too, and soon Denis arrived. They now had the perfect family with two beautiful children, Margaret and Dennis.

Michael enjoyed all the time he spent with his kids and Marybeth coming home and all the time he spent on the Judo mat with her, now he understood why Putin was always smiling, it must be all the time he spent on the mat with his Judo partner. Michael now had time to do some writing, it kind of emerged once the kids were having an afternoon nap he could go to the old clunky computer and write a story. He thought he could write stories for his kids, but he seemed to run out of ideas, so he thought what could he write about instead.

So Michael wrote a steamy account of his and Marybeth’s love life, he wouldn’t dare show it to anybody or publish it in a blog or an ebook. It was just for him and Marybeth, or that was the idea. When she came home one night full of sweat from hours throwing people all over the place, a Black Belt 9^th Dan can get very sweaty you know, so Michael stood outside the shower and read his first efforts to her.

If ever you share this I’ll hang you with my Black Belt, she said before she dragged Michael into the shower, it was a power shower like no other, all the way to level 9. And so it became a private very private thing between them, he scrubbed her back and she scrubbed his after he had read the latest installment of their private log. Captain Kirk’s log was never anything like this.

With this kind of lovemaking in the shower the plumber was a frequent caller, or he was until they splashed out after they had repeatedly splashed about in the shower, and finally bought an industrial strength bathroom suite, imported from Japan.

Michael’s log grew and grew and Marybeth should have had masses and masses of children, but Fate dictated that Margaret and Dennis were all the children they had. When Margaret and Dennis started  Primary school  they demanded a dog, a Labrador because they had seen a blind man in the street. Michael gave in and bought them a Labrador, and the children called it Camembert because the cheese was the same colour as the dog. The children also added optimistically that should daddy go blind then they had the correct dog already.

So life went on and Margaret and Dennis grew up big and strong and soon reached Black Belt standard, as for Michael he did not go blind, though Camembert thought he was as Michael always seemed to wear sunglasses. Marybeth enjoyed her life and her husband, even if they had to import 3 Japanese bathrooms over the years.

Finally Michael died but with a smile on his face, he had reach 10^th Dan, though not in Judo, Marybeth was consumed with grief, but after the funeral which was attend by many many Judo people, most with 50inch chests, and that was just the women. So after the funeral Marybeth sat glumly looking looking at the computer, Camembert III was licking her fingers trying to comfort her. Michael had never gone blind and all the Camemberts over the years never understood why he wore shades. So Marybeth read Michael’s log, she laughed and cried and finally had to have a shower in her Japanese bathroom.

While she was in the shower she had a funny feeling, was it Michael or rather his ghost, their love was so strong his ghost remained. Was she afraid? No Mrs Muir had her Ghost, now she had hers. So Marybeth found comfort for the next 20 years in her shower.

And when Marybeth died her children Margaret and Dennis published the manuscript, it was an international hit, especially in Japan. Obviously to avoid embarrassment it was had a pen name. The book was called Reaching Tenth Dan by Ghost Writer.

Spare a Thought for the Cleaner This Christmas

Spare a Thought for the Cleaner This Christmas ©

By Michael Casey

 Well Christmas will soon be here, though to be honest I haven’t thought much about it. So this morning while shivering in front of the computer I was thinking what to talk about today, so cleaning came to mind. I did spend 3 years at the Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC, or CPNEC, so while I was there I got to help out everywhere, I was a veritable Cinderella, though much better looking with a stronger shaving rash.

I’d be minding my own business in Reception and Anthony would ask me to go and help out with the cleaning crew, or Housekeeping, everything has a posher title in hotels. My title would be Executive Peripatetic Assistant, or dogsbody in plain English, but I didn’t mind everything was fun, and far far better than being unemployed with one then two toddlers to feed. So I’d go upstairs and help the cleaning crew, or Housekeepers. Normally when somebody asks you to go upstairs with them it is an invitation to have sex or some other kind of fun. But if you work in a hotel it means, go fetch or carry or clean.

Our hotel had 242 rooms if I haven’t forgotten, you can all double check on the website, you could even print off my photo and ask did this fat guy really work here 10 years ago. I believe Vicky still works there but in the Hacienda, which is the posh name for the staff canteen. When I was there Vicky was one of the Housekeeping staff, she is really nice and when I was teamed with her I’d try and stay out of her way.  So while she cleaned the bedroom, and placed notepads and pens and this and that in the appropriate places, and vacuumed and made the bed too, I’d clean the bathroom, sink, toilet and bath.

Then when one room was done we’d move to the next. They have 15 mins to do each room I believe and each Housekeeper has a printout of their list of rooms that they must do. There is a buzz about cleaning rooms, mainly the friction as they vacuum and fly about the room and onto the next room. I cannot praise the crew highly enough, because I was there too. I seem to remember that me and Michael Wilson once had the task of turning mattresses over after 6 months use. Michael went back to his carpentry once the Winter was over.

I would get a message on my phone saying come back down stairs after so long and then I might be meeting and greeting millionaires, once I had put my jacket and tie back on. Because I was 20 years older than the reception crew frequently I was mistaken for the General Manager himself, if only people knew I had my hand down a toilet minutes before.

Enough of the 4 star deluxe hotels, what about your office? I have an affinity with cleaners for many reasons, but another reason being that I used to always work till 8pm. So I was there when they were doing their job, so I know the disgust they had for the people who left half full cups of coffee in the bin. Come on tip the coffee in the sink if you don’t want to finish it, or pour it cold on mating pigeons on the roof outside, I think that happened once maybe 30 years ago.

A dustbin reveals a lot about a person or the group of people who share a dustbin. I remember once a syringe was found in a dustbin where I was working, and the cleaner pricked herself so had to have an AIDS test. I think in the end it was a careless diabetic who was to blame, but please think before you dump stuff in a dustbin. I’m not asking you to gift wrap your rubbish and to leave it all neatly for the cleaners, though a little thought does make a difference. A dustbin is not a basketball hoop, and the wall around the bin should not be splattered with food and all kinds of everything, even if the cleaner is called Dana.  

Naughty cleaners do exist, they will squirt scent in the air to give the illusion they have done your room when they have not. One trick or cleaners aid is to wrap sellotape or sticky tape around a few fingers just as boxers do then prance about your room like a ballet dancer picking up any specks of rubbish, this saves getting the vacuum cleaner out. Though I would say in 95% of the time all the cleaners I have met during my working life have been really hard working mums.

So what more can I say, just admire your cleaner and if you look after her then your room will be better than the company directors. I have to finish now as I have to spray perfume around the house and wrap sellotape around my fingers, I am a perfect hausfrau after all. Luckily my wife never reads my stories, so don’t you be telling her, or she’ll wrap the vacuum cleaner around my neck and throw me in the fish tank at the Fish Market, and wouldn’t that create a big stink?

Talking to Myself

Talking to myself ©

By Michael Casey

Well its freezing here sat in my North facing chair, it’s the coldest day of the year too, Totoro our cat poked her nose out into the back yard and decided it was too cold outside, so she dashed into the house and up the stairs to hide under the duvet, she is not stupid after all. As for me I had to brave the weather to hang out the washing, a hausfrau’s work is never done.

So what will I talk about today, I’m going to talk about talking to myself. If you have read any of my words then you will have noticed that I write so that you hear me, words for radio if you like. This is because I grew up listened to BBC Radio 4, which is Speech Radio, intelligent speech radio not Howard Stern like radio or the thousands of speech radio programmes that thrive on argument as their speciality subject. I have even recorded 200+ of my stories in the vain hope that one day I can break into Radio, though having just said what I’ve said they might never give me a chance.

So what is Writing and what is Radio, you might get that as an essay topic someday. In a way it is talking to yourself, it’s just you and a microphone shooting the breeze. Or in my case I write the piece, the story and only when I’m finished do I read it back to myself, and to my girls if they are around, and then I can judge have I hit the subject on the nail or not.

Then in the past I’ll record what I’ve written. When recording the written word I have to get the feel of the written word into my voice, as the writer I know the Timing and Punch Lines, if I were to ask somebody else to record it they could miss the Qs if you like. We have a comedy show here in England which is very well written and the show is/was much loved, but do you know what the problem is? The Timing is out by half a second so I just cannot watch it, and do you know what my Lawyer sister-in-law agrees with me, and she knows a thing or two about words.

When you are talking to yourself on the Radio, the flow does make a big difference, and so if the flow of words stops and starts like the pages of the script stuck together then the overall result is bad. Style does make a difference, do you let the words flow, do you let the Music Speak as the old Abba song says. Or do you stick the roadblock of your “personality” in the way of the flow. Here in England we’ve been spoilt by the BBC in my opinion, and if you love words like me, then if you hear a jabbering idiot talk over the music to tell you what he’s going to have for dinner or who his latest girlfriend is then all you want to do is scream, or if you are in America shoot the radio.

You do need a plan or an idea in your head before you start to talk to people, but once the ice is broken you can slide along without falling on on your ar ar, well on your lack of ideas. This is where reading and listening comes in, if you have talked to many people then some of them has rubbed off on you, so you have a greater awareness of life. That’s why working in a hotel is such fun, as well as incredible hard work.

Radio brings you straight into people’s private space, people listen with their cat, in their bath, in bed, holding hands, or just cosy in front of the fire. So if you make a little effort, then you soon become a friend, it should be about sharing something, then Radio is at its best. I know this as I started as a Radio listener maybe 50 years ago. Radio is a Conspiracy, of laughter or even of Music with David Mellor, a conspiracy of many many things. 

As we all know con spire, is Latin for breath together, so we should be having a close relationship with our radio, almost making love to it, though making love to a person with the radio on is even better. Radio is not some shouty  person you would gladly let drown at the bottom of your bath, radio is intimate, that’s why you hide under the bedclothes with it.

Christmas 2016 and More

Christmas 2016 and More ©

By Michael Casey

Suddenly Christmas is approaching fast, I believe in keeping Christmas in December so as its 28^th Nov I think I’m safe in talking to you about Xmas. Xmas is not X   mass, it is Christmas, the X represents the Cross after all. So what does Christmas mean to you. If you are Jewish you have Hanukkah or Eid if you are Muslim, and there is Diwali for Indian families. We each have those special religious and family times. Luckily here in Birmingham we celebrate all of them at home and in our schools, so kids get sweets on more than one occasion. We even have white British teachers dressing in saris to get into the spirit of such occasions, but that’s enough about my sister.

So what about Christmas? In Ireland back in Kerry and beyond people keep a candle burning in the window to help guide the 3 Kings I believe, if I’m not  totally correct I’m sure somebody will leave a comment for me, maybe the priest in Cromane Lower near Killorglin. Christmas is innocent and all about family the first family and then our own.

It’s from the Kings that we get the idea of presents at Christmas. So you might say  Christmas invented or spawned  Amazon and Macys  etc. If you work with a big crew of people you might spend a week’s wages buying 40 little presents for all the people you work with. So you give 40 presents and receive 40 little presents in return, girls are more likely to do this than lads, lads will just go down the pub and give and receive lots of liquid presents, certainly that  was the case in my computer room days.

But for girls it’s a day of reckoning, she did not give me a nice present last Christmas so she’s getting a really rubbish present this year, I could name names but I won’t. And so hours are spent deciding what present to give, assuming the person is worthy of a Christmas present this year, or have they been excommunicated from the presents list, naturally everything done in the true spirit of Christmas.

When you send Xmas cards, a tradition brought to us by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, or was it Christmas Trees, you really do need to research that for yourselves. My point though is that there Are nice really nice cards with the Baby Jesus on, or Caravaggio prints, by the way Andrew Graham-Dixon wrote a book and has a dvd about Caravaggio, it’s  a great Xmas present. Where was I, yes cards, you have nice ones for your holy friends and maiden aunts, then there are the drunken santa ones for the lads in the office. There are also rude ones for the girls you really fancy, not forgetting ecards with dancing elves where you can insert your own face.

Christmas means shopping, blame the Kings for that, and as you dash backwards and forwards or even forbackwards and backforwards everywhere have you ever heard the Lindisfarne song, Winter Song. In  it there is a line “Santa is in his module, he is an American astronaut, and Jesus he got busted for befriending the wrong sort”  So as you think of the real meaning of Christmas, or any other high religious festival, do you notice the beggar in the street? Your wrapping paper costs more than a packet of biscuits that’ll fill her or his belly for a day.

So this Christmas and perhaps more often than that, I’m not asking you to give the beggar money, which you’ll say he’ll spend on beer, or she’ll spend on drugs. I’m suggesting and I’ll not even use a stronger word than that. Can I suggest you give a packet of biscuits or a banana or two or a 19p bottle of water to your member of the human race. Just randomly share something with the lease of my brethren.

Now for me and yes I really mean this the best thing I get every day is a goodnight kiss from my daughter, and I’m still alive 2 years on from my unplanned quadruple heart bypass, yes my Arthur my arthritis still brings me much pain, and my bypass has left lingering pain too, though I DO have perfect blood pressure. And I have Ckd  too, but compared to the beggars in my street I am such a lucky lucky man.

There is something else I receive most days which is of incalculable value, it’s a God Bless from the beggars in the street when I give them biscuits. And maybe just maybe it’s those God Blesses which will decide whether I get into the Final Party. For whatsoever you did to the least of my brethren you did unto me. Merry Christmas, Eid, Diwali or Hanukkah to each and every one of you.

And to those of you who have no faith at all I can say is, can I have 17 pints of Stella Artois and a packet of cheese and onion crisps, and if you pay instead of hiding in the toilets when it’s your round, now that would be a Christmas Miracle.

Media Trained

Media Trained ©

By Michael Casey

I was reading a piece about Michael Parkinson the great and best Tv chat show interviewer, google him if you don’t believe me. What he said chimed with me, especially as my eldest daughter is doing her exams and will be choosing her A levels which will then lead to her career. In her case she has decided on being a Doctor, she is even thinking of being a pathologist. I did quip that at least she would not kill anybody.

What  Michael Parkinson was talking about was how  there are Mickey Mouse degrees and everybody wants to be in the Media. In other words  Andy Warhol was so so right, everybody wants to be famous, even if it’s only for one series on tv. If we look back we have Jade Goody, who was famous for being famous, as the BBC reporter said at the time of her tragic young death.

Now as a writer do I want to be famous, am I consumed with lust for fame? I may be consumed with lust for words, and for the wife, but do I want to be on tv and in magazines and have a column in a glossy magazine found on the floor of my local hairdressers. The answer is NO. Or should I qualify that, I want the world to read my words and make some money to give to my girls when I die, I could bore you about all my aches and pains, let’s say I’ll take the money but stay anonymous. I could be John Doe on the Radio, which reminds me about my daughter wanting to be a pathologist.

It’s said that Media studies is a waste of time, get a degree in English would be a far better idea. By the way my niece has a 1^st in English and has just done her Masters, so I’d say she’d be perfect as a trainee in a newspaper , though I would say give me the job instead, before I end up on the pathologist’s  table. 

So how do people get on with Media Studies? Well I studied horoscopes and how their place in society reveals so much about the ZZ9 strata of society. You  would not believe how the socio-ignorant believe such drivel, and Daily Mail readers especially, but let’s leave it  there before I upset too many white middle class women.

We had a whole module of the place of football in society, it was a compulsory add on to accountancy for beginners. There was an optional add on for 2 credits about Press Releases and Football. If you could use as many mixed metaphors in a paragraph you would get a citation from the course tutor, and he was very very coarse, he was a rugby player previously, he was always muttering about the Art of Course Rugby, which this writer read nearly 50 years ago.

A Media Course may ask you to write something in a variety of ways, objective or subjective, pro or anti, helpful or deceitful. Rather like the way politicians are, and they are the same the world over, trying to surf the waves and run with the tide.

Now once you have passed your Media training from the University of taking the mick, whose fees are so low that they are always full, almost like an American University where if you pay the fee they let you print off your certificate from the comfort of your own home, without having attended any classes. So what do you do next?

You send out your CV, which is shorthand for Completely Vacuous, or resume if you are an American. Resume should really mean you resume or restart your education after having wasted 4 years studying Kardashians and  watching E! tv for 80 hours a week. Miaow I hear you say, but you know I’m telling the Truth, and it Hurts.

You take a selfie in your kitchen cos that’s where the light is best, and you add it to your completely vacuous CV, then you send it away, only you didn’t notice that Totoro the cat was sat on the fridge with her tail dangling behind you. You look like Davey Crocket, E! laugh when they see your photo, but you are a good looking  20 something so they give you an interview, so you end up doing animal features for the next 20  years.

Though you have to pretend you are straight/gay/trans or whatever to keep in with the management. In the end you just end up confused, but confused is the new grey, and as the Monkees sang there are only shades of grey, or gray if you are American.  

Would I do a Media course if I were 40 years younger? No but I would read even more widely. I would read more newspapers, like I do today, 3 or 4 different ones every day and 2 or 3 news stations  on tv, and never never forget good old BBC Radio 4.  Read and Listen and Talk to everybody, rather like I did in my 3 years at a 4 star deluxe business hotel. This is I believe is one of the best ways to learn how to talk to people from all walks of life. 

Or you can be totally vacuous and marry the boss and get him or her to let you have your own podcast.

Hopelessness and Prayer

Hopelessness and Prayer ©

By Michael Casey

We all pray in our own way, sometimes really meaning it, and sometimes we are so full of hopelessness we cannot even pray at all, or not the kind of Prayer our priest or rabbi or imam would recognise as prayer but luckily God accepts all prayer.  Curses and oaths and tears, lots and lots of tears, and slamming doors or kicking the furniture or throwing plates against the wall, all these do happen in our distress.  Luckily God is a furniture restorer, God is good with glue too, the kind that works on all materials, Love is his glue.

So why am I talking about this tonight? Well house hunting is a very emotional process and it does make you curse when your hopes and dreams are dashed. You were a nanosecond late and so you miss your chance to get a nice house. It can be that competitive in certain streets, you really do have to put notes through letterboxes saying “ I want to live in this street, sell me your house” The householder just thinks it’s a Pizza Company wanting to buy your house and turn it into a pizza parlour, you get so many leaflets for pizza after all.

Your head is down you team has lost that match and you skipped class to travel to watch your team, now you’ve lost 2 days study time, and if you don’t pass you’ll not get into the best university. All because you followed such a dumb team, and you are dressed in green and orange the team’s colours. So on the bus home, you could not afford to fly, so you are on a bus for 20 hours and are trying to revise. God help me and I’ll start going to church again just please help me revise and pass the test.

A Chinese girl gets on the bus and she sits next to you, she is just too pretty, how can you revise when she is just too much temptation for you. You try and hide behind your physics book. Thanks God, you really do have an evil sense of humour, then the girl taps on your physics book to tell you she likes the colours, and are you Irish perhaps? You laugh and try and hide behind the physics book, you look upwards, God if you were here besides me I’d smack you in the mouth. Somebody ahead causes the bus to do an emergence stop, so the Chinese girl is flung against you.

Just like Physics she says as you  both move apart reluctantly, God what are you trying to do to me you think, but God is like Physics he moves in mysterious ways. The Chinese girl spontaneously squeezes your muscles, I like strong men, you are chewing your Wrigleys and nearly choke on it. Yes just like physics you reply trying to look into her eyes, and not any lower.

I like Physics too, I’m doing my PhD, adds the Chinese girl. Now God really is taking the Mick. So you know what MC=4C means, you say, the Chinese girl explains it. God has answered all his prayers. So they spend the rest of the journey talking Physics. She gives him a master class in Physics, he was in despair and with no Hope at all and God had sent him a pretty Chinese PhD student in Physics.

At the end of the journey he was at least A minus as far as the test would say when he took it. Though for the Chinese girl this would be a disgrace and her parents would ashamed of her if she got such a low mark, distinction or nothing. The Chinese girl had decided she would make him her husband, though she only told him boyfriend, she did not want to frighten him after all, Chinese make decisions very fast after all.

Now some would say this tale is just beyond belief, but speaking as somebody who spent all his time, 3 years every single day visiting  the seniors home hoping against hope that dad would stay alive, then where did my own Chinese future wife appear? And yes I really was vetted by a Chinese Ballerina from the Birmingham Royal Ballet.

So do say some prayers when things are utterly hopeless, besides the fridge next to a photo of your dead mum might be a good place to pray from. Though I will tell you all  the real answer to MC=4C its Physics  in a way, it means Michael Casey equals 4 Chinese people, because I used to weigh as much as my wife, my mother-in-law and my 2 infant children, which gives you  MC=4C. You can try that as a chat up line to your Chinese girls in your Physics class. And if they don’t become your girlfriend, tell them they will make your Panzi friend cry, and the will tell you what Panzi means.