Having a Cold

Having a Cold ©

By Michael Casey

I have a COLD it is December after all, but you had the Flu jab so you should not have a cold nags my Shanghai wife. The Flu jab is not an exorcism I try to explain, but I have to explain what an exorcism is, there are still a few missing words in her English vocabulary. I do have to look after myself more as I am more like a target for infections now, such is the state of my body. Still extremely gorgeous and more good looking that George Clooney, but only if he was 70 pounds heavier as the Americans say, with surgery scars on chest and both legs.

As I have a cold I need a new roll of toilet paper besides me to blow my nose into and to cough and spit into, yes I am Steptoe personified, you can google Steptoe and Son for yourselves and then buy the shows from the BBC. Let’s just say he was 75 and needed a shave and was a rag and bone man in Oil Drum Lane, he could at least multi-task, by doing the washing up in the shower while he washed himself, saved water too, maybe he was an early Green party member, while he washed his member.

While you are being disgusted by Classic British Comedy, let’s get back to my cold, I am wearing at least 7 layers and 3 pairs of socks to keep to keep me warm, I am of course wearing my slippers too, or rather a pair of Clarks trainers that I wear around the house only. My first trip to Shanghai to meet my Chinese family was so cold, the weather not the welcome, that I wore 3 pairs of socks then too.

So when I bought a pair of new shoes in a shoe shop in Shanghai I had to first remove several pairs of socks in order to squeeze the new shoes on. The staff all had old coffee jars full of tea, which they kept on the shelves, and had a sneaky drink when customers were not present, and for some reason they thought I was strange, they would not have know who George Clooney was even if he was stood next to me.

I’ve been drinking lots of hot water, diluted with coffee, tea, and green tea throughout the day, I have sucked loads of Soothers and Lockets too, so much so I needed to brush my teeth several times as well, George Clooney’s smile would look as bad as Steptoes compared to mine, me his lookalike would look better than him.

The thing about having a cold is that your voice is so deep, I was playing Barry White earlier and as I sang along I realised he sounded like a choirboy or Michael Jackson compared to me. I did sing into the toilet roll and dance around the living room singing you are my first my last my everything to my Shanghai wife. She just laughed and poked me with a wooden spoon telling me to open the kitchen window to let the steam out and all my pollution as she did not want to catch my cold. Yesterday she gave me some exotic vegetable, Ki I think it was called, she told me it was good for me health, all it did was make me FART.

I can tell my cold is getting better as the snot rate has lessoned, my nose is dripping less, like a tap which has been turned tighter and the drips lessen and the echoes in your bathroom fade. My nose is rather red, Rudolf is quite jealous and left some dung on our roof, but I will sell it for £5 for 50grams, if anybody is interested do let me know, it grows red in the dark, as does my nose.

I have to have another hot drink now,then a hot bath, the theory is the heat will chase the cold away both inside and out. Then I’ll go to bed and not be able to sleep as I’m too hot, you need to be cool to sleep, so I may open my bedroom window and sing Barry White songs to the stars, now that’s cool.    

Three Times Repeat Method

Three Times Repeat Method ©

By Michael Casey

Well we just watched Groundhog Day again on tv, it’s such a great film, it’s always better on the BBC because then there are no adverts to ruin it, just the film on its own. As you know the reporter’s life is repeated until he redeems himself. So it made me wonder about my own life, and maybe you all think about your own lives when you see the film.

When you are learning something for school you may have used the 3 times repeat method, it worked for me for my French and Spanish, maybe it could work for you too. Or the little bit often method, my brother told me that 45 years or so ago when I was starting on my exams, no doubt your kids have just done their mocks. So you will have given them advice on how to study.

You can apply this methodology to lots of things, such as kissing girls, boys, teddy bears or just your old cat. I’ll just leave that to you imagination, as I say this Lionel Richie sings, make it last forever. See I can’t even talk to you without somebody injecting their opinion into the mix. But what I wanted to talk about is how Life is not a straight line, and it cannot be rewound so you have try and get it right the first time.

Yes you can practice and its great when you improve, whatever you are doing, baking cakes or hitting a ball with a bat, but I know now you are all now thinking everything I say is a metaphor for something else, all I’ll say is that your Priest is always available to hear confessions.

So what would you practice most, me I’d love to go bowling often, I am rubbish at it but its the only thing I enjoy even though I am terrible at it. Because every throw of the ball brings a different result, I suppose some love Roulette for the very same reason. You can have a beer and a snack as you hurl the bowling balls down the lane.

Its years since I’ve been but the romanticised memory lingers on, just like the memory of that first kiss. The reality may be that she bit your lip accidentally and you had to go to hospital for 2 stitches in your lip. Rather like the Royal Princess accidentally cutting Ed Sheeran’s face last week. One thing was planned but another actually happened.

I’ve sidetracked myself so let’s get back on track, what is so important to you that as you lie on your death bed wishing you had done something better. Would it be that house you wished you’d bought in the first place, or would you just smack that boring bastard of a boss in the mouth.

I’ve had a couple of really bad bosses in my life, so I can understand if any of you out there in Czech or Poland or around the corner from my house in Birmingham think you should have smacked him in the mouth. Though speaking as your virtual priest, I have to advise you to love your enemy and turn the other cheek, and fart in his face.

Hopefully if you had good parents as I did then you are on the right track from the start of your life, as you grow older you realise just how right they were. Apart from the things you disagreed on, but you should be wise enough not to dump on your own parents, give them the illusion of being demi gods, Long Life to he who honours his parents was in the Bible after all.

Then when you are their age you will realise they were right all alone, age brings wisdom, or rather the convergence of thought. Thought is a circle in families, you’ll discover this for yourselves. I’m sure as my dead family members are looking down at me, the angels and the saints are saying, he is exactly like your dad. Which in a way is the greatest compliment a dad can receive, though he may have to be dead and buried before he hears it.

At the end of Groundhog Day the reporter has finally achieved humility and wisdom and he wakes up in bed fully clothed with the girl of his dreams and they live happily ever after, that’s if they didn’t freeze to death in the snow. He has learnt how to be a nice person and how to play piano and ice sculpt, not forgetting French poetry.

So I hope we can all become more like a fictional reporter in a film and then we’ll have a happy life. I do have a book of poetry on my book shelves, and I do know a little French, so perhaps I have a head start. There is a piano behind me too, and its freezing outside, so if you read this piece and and again it’ll mean that one of us or all of us is having their own Groundhog Day. But if you get stuck repeating yourself then just remember the three times repeat method, and a little bit often, then you’ll really enjoy yourself whether this is a metaphor or not.   

Metaphor this

I  stumbled over this from 5 years ago

Metaphor This © 

By

Michael Casey

Well first of all I have to confess I am using Arabic Typesetting  as my font type. I stumbled over it recently on my Word settings, I’m using a very old copy of Word, If anybody wants to sent me a new super duper version of MS Office I’d be over the moon.

Tomorrow I pray MU beats Spain, and that Sir Francis Drake can bowl everybody over, I just want Sir Alex to get what he deserves. It will be a game of two halves, one whisky and one bitter, but I’m sure at the end of the day, all will be equal in love and war, and as Bill Shankly said its more important than that.

So MU will be fighting their corner and especially when there is a corner I hope Rooney can reach for the stars and fly us all to the moon when he gets one or three in the back of the net. No doubt their will be lots of kissing between men, because that’s what they do wen they are happy. And perhaps folk will be doing The Lambert Walk, people will be cock a hoop all over the land, in London and in Manchester too, even here in Birmingham you’ll hear all the screams of delight, in the privacy of bedrooms and in the bars, for scoring is scoring is scoring, either with a line of white, or with a  boy or a girl, for when you get what you want you are always happy and over the moon. And IF things go down the drain then we’ll all be as sick as parrots even Joey in the Red Cow who sits on a perch and says “shut the bleeding door”. I’m fit to burst with all the emotion and with all the tension, its enough to give me the runs, and I do hope I get back in time from the bog so I won’t miss any action. I may have an each way bet on the result, I can even play both ends against the middle and make a killing. But realistically I hope Manchester United give it to the Spaniards so we’ll all be done proud, otherwise we’ll all be as sick as parrots and have to drown our sorrows.

Well I hope the new CIA computer program understands all of this, otherwise them may come and render the side of my house, which could do with a lick of paint, then when its ship shape I could flog it, I shudder to think what those guys in Langley are thinking now.

Cheerio Michael Casey www.michaelgcasey.wordpress.com 

Dead Symbols

Dead Symbols ©

By Michael Casey

I was wondering what to write this Friday night when my eyes drifted to a bucket, and that was that. I have an idea, bucket list,  then kicking the bucket, then dead symbols. Castro died this week so I have plenty of ideas, but first of all I need a bath, just as all bodies are washed before burial, and yes the undertaker charges for it, I too need a wash, maybe I’ll die later. If I don’t finish this you’ll know what has happened. After my bath I’ll watch the Blacklist before finishing off tonight’s story. Splash.

Blacklist was very good as usual, I used to love James Spader in Boston Legal, so Blacklist is 180degrees different. As for me I am clean now after my wallow in my bath, I did steal my small daughters Lush bath salts, so now I smell really nice, in fact the rest of the family have removed their gas masks. Totoro just climbed up the chimney to get away from my smelly feet.

So now now while I listen to Gerry Rafferty I’ll resume my conversation, I know it’s a bit one sided but we can pretend, this is Radio after all. So this week Castro died, I mentioned him in my first book, but only as a guy who smoked long cigars. You have stage managed and real mourning when a dictator dies, Baptista and the Cuban government were corrupt and needing removing. That was replaced by another corrupt regime, the Castro regime.

It does seem ridiculous to me that folks queue for hours to file past a photo of the leader. No coffin to be seen, closed or opened, just a photo and a flag. Later there will be an urn to admire before the ashes are buried. Thousands or hundreds of thousands will file past. The local bus driver was probably more worthy of such tears.

In North Korea the stage managed grief when somebody dies is even more impressive for all the wrong reasons. Then we have Russia when Lenin is still not buried, the wax looking Revolutionary is kept in his glass coffin like Snow White. I think Mao has been kept too, so they can be adored. They say God is dead, but people have to worship them in their glass coffins. Snow White is worth keeping in her glass coffin, me and the dwarfs were devastated when she ate that apple, but when Prince came along singing Purple Rain we just knew he would wake her up, and he did, so Snow White joined his rock band.

The leaders have to be commemorated so they build statues and enormous things, I just don’t know what to call them. Luckily skateboarders use them to do their tricks on, their is actually a tour taking in North Korea and Russia where you have to do tricks on and over these monuments to these perfect perfect leaders. Its called the Revolutionary Tour, skate with a dictator.

In America land of the free you can buy the perfect souvenirs to remember the beloved dictators. There is the Fidel Castro toilet brush which has his face on it and a cigar like handle, his bushy beard is really good at cleaning your toilet. You can get candles to help you chill out, you sit them around the bath, actually I had some while I was in the bath just. You have Mao, and The Great Leader and Lenin, each has a revolutionary scent that helps your relax. A bit like mace or tear gas, or maybe it was just my old socks.

The dictator who did the most damage always has the biggest monument, think of Mussolini and Hitler, they had monuments galore, Hitler even had a place just to have his parades. Its as if he’s went to the future and seen Ben Hur and told his builders I want one like that. Dictators are just so ludicrous.

Donald Trump will have to deal with North Korea very soon, I heard that he has a new idea. Trump will send all the cheeses of the world to the new Great Leader in the hope that all the saturated fat will kill the Great Leader. Queue 10 million people crying in the street that’s if they don’t starve to death first. Though if the plan fails Trump hopes that the Great Leader will have so many spots he’ll hide in a cave and accidentally set off all his nukes, and end the crisis in one fell swoop.

What about me when I am dead, will there be any monuments? No, the wife is thinking of putting me in the blender and feeding me to the cat, I am so fat with too much meat on me is what she always says. I’m sure Totoro will enjoy eating me, with a straw from a bowl no doubt.

So its time for bed now, I forgot to say watch The Great Dictator, Charlie Chaplin always knew what to say.   

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?