Small Things Big Ideas

Small Things Big Ideas ©

By Michael Casey

I thought I’d better write something new today even though I’m a bit tired, then I looked at an old bucket and I was inspired. Yes, my muse is an old bucket, Picasso and famous writers had dusty maiden, me I have an old bucket. So today before the girls get back from choir practice I’m going to talk about how things inspire us.

As a child I had a big imagination, no change there, me and DmC used to use a paperclip and it was a car for the Leprechauns, we drove their car through the grooves of the brickworks, you know the mortar between the bricks. We were very happy to have Leprechauns even though we didn’t even have a plastic car for them to sit in, all we had was a paperclip.

This illustrates how we and children generally can use anything they find to create an imaginary land with all kinds of everything used to create structures. A discarded cola can is used to represent The Rotunda in Birmingham, which happens to look like a cola can in reality. A fag packet can become a block of flats, a shoe box a shopping centre. An apple can become a recording studio and so on.

When you grow up you become an architect and your ideas are seen as revolutionary, because you have a giant apple as a fresh produce market, a giant book is a book shop and a giant phone, the old style phone is the new  Apple headquarters, with a slice cut out to allow light and a  central stairway to be slotted in. Now to some this may sound very avante garde if my French is correct, but really all the great architect is doing is remembering all the fun he had in the playground with his best friend DmC.

The butcher shop was of course shaped like a cleaver and the doorway was like entering via a pig’s buttocks, and the light fittings looked like a cow’s udder with lights coming out of the teats. This made the shopping experience feel more like a visit to an art exhibition.

The Public in West Brom did of course fail and was turned into a school, which proves Art should be left to real experts, not councillors who call themselves cabinet members, but know nothing about, woodwork.

Modern computer games do allow you to create spaces and so forth and these can be expensive, but do you know what are the best tools for creativity? Imagination is the best tool of all and a bit of paper and some crayons. If when you walk home from Aldi with your kids and you encourage them you look around and notice all the people all the beautiful people, what is the result?  They are observant.

They may even become writers like dad, but their minds are filled with shapes and noises and best of all with ideas. If all your kids do is trudge home resenting having to go to the shops with you, then you have missed an opportunity. Open your kids’ minds, don’t just fill them full of sugar, fill them with ideas and love and hope.

A hand-made card is made with love and skill, it keeps you kids busy for ages while you have a cuppa, or a sly pint of Stella Artois. Expand their minds with words and shapes and sounds and craft stuff, then you will have the next Laura Ashley in your home, and best of all batteries are excluded.

Reverse Engineering in Russia

As you can imagine my stuff, my writing is an acquired taste, but you'll agree you like it.

Recently Russia has climbed on board, it may just be bored Chess experts looking to practice their English.

So if I could get a column in a Russian paper, online or print that would be beyond belief.

That would be a Dream come true, as a result of all my Russian Readers Prayers, which may remind you of today's piece about Dreams and Prayer.

If this were to happen then and only then would Western Media begin to get interested in some of my one million words.

So the impossible has to happen in the East before the West gives me a break, reverse engineering if you like.

Though really it would be more like King Herod, just tell me where Michael is and then I'll give him a column. Though in reality Herod would arrange for the whole world to block all my shorts. Which sounds like some form of Constipation.

So to avoid me being Constipated please help me get a column, everywhere would be best, but in the Journal of Gravediggers and Morticians Minsk Area  5, would be a good place to start.

Here's my very first post for them.

The Dead and The Living ©

by

Michael Casey

I first saw a deceased when I was nine years old ,my father said not

to worry as the dead are the same as the living , only the laughter

has left them , the sparkle has gone from their eyes , the worry has

been lifted from their shoulders , and their voice has vanished to

eternity .

In paradise the sparkle will return for it is the twinkle of the

stars , the laughter will return too for it is the morning breeze and

the turning tides are their sides shaking with laughter .

I treat the deceased with the same courtesy as I give to the living ,

though I find the deceased are always more polite . My father also

had a few words to say about the living .

He said that the living are only the caretakers of the soul , yet

they think their existance is everything , that they know everything

because they experience many things with their senses .

What the living don't acknowledge is that their time is short and

when I lay their bodies to rest then their souls continue without

them , without their strong , without their weak , without their

beautiful or even ugly temporary form , to where I cannot say , only

that it is a better place .

Percy the undertaker placed the lid on the coffin ,the soul was free

THE BEGINNING

***********

I thought of this on a bus to work in Nov 1987 in fact its part of 

The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker  my comic novel. and yes its on Amazon

Prayer and Dreams and What they Mean

Tuesday, 31 January 2017

Prayer and Dreams and What they Mean

Prayers and Dreams and What They Mean ©

By Michael Casey

I was thinking about I should write about on my way home from Aldi and up popped Dreams, then when I got home I saw a piece of research about Near Death experiences and how they reckon your entire life flashes in front of you. I’ve known for over 35 years how when you are electrocuted all your life DOES flash by. Richard Hudson can confirm this, assuming he is still alive, he was a guy I worked with in my early computer room days, he told us after HE was electrocuted.

Perhaps torturers in North Korea will use another method in future as electrocution sounds too much like a trip to the cinema or a flick through the family album. One man’s torture is another mains or should I say man’s joy.

But what about dreams, why do we have them? In a dream you can be a hero, Heather Small is singing in the background that’s why the word HERO popped up. So in a dream you are a hero and you get the girl, or boy or both, we are living in a Liberal world after all, so in a dream you can be or do anything you want. I’ll pause there so you can have a cold shower, as they say “on y soit qui mal y pense”, forgive any mistakes with my French.

You can have high hopes, which is also a song from an American musical, you’ll have to Google all the references for yourself, I am just the signpost, but the trouble with being a signpost is that dogs come and pee on you, and cats scratch. Our dog peed on the signpost, the for sale sign post and that’s how I bought this house, which was my big dream. See life is strange, or is it just my writing?

A dream or an ambition is a good thing to have as it gives you a target, you’ll get a better flat, you’ll study for AAT or become a nail technician, or you’ll stop squeezing those spots and give up all the fast food. A dream does not have to be “one day I’ll be President” for such dreams lead only to sadness, people will hate you, wherever you are President, and even if it’s just president of the book club they’ll always be total bores like Michael Casey insisting that all his books should be reviewed and stocked with bumper sticker saying also available on Amazon worldwide. Irony and Pathos you get it all in my short pieces.

Once you have the dream, the target, are you prepared to work hard for it? Will you make sacrifices for it or do you think it will fall all in your lap. I suggest that people nowadays want things now, and don’t want to work for it, like I did and previous generations did. The Utube generation, the Geordie Shore generation think life is reality tv, well actually it is not.

The other sad thing is that once you have achieved your dream, what do you do next. Me I started writing, so I can say one thing led to another. If you don’t have an After That, what are you going to do? You won’t win the lottery and be live happy ever after. Or you could grow up with no qualifications and marry you friend’s cousin, as a way of escaping you own family. Then you have kids you don’t really want, who are dragged up. Sounds harsh, walk down your own street and see if you can spot people like that.

This is where Prayer comes in. A prayer is like a dream but with more effort involved. As you work all the hours and shifts that God sends you are sticking to your dream, and sticking is the right word, if you hold to a dream it might slip away from you, you have to glue that dream to you. Or nail that dream to you. I know cos my dream took me 10 years and more to achieve.

Now somebody once said “form a Christian family if you want a little Peace” and yes you can substitute Jewish/Muslim/Buddhist or even Doubting in front of family. The thing is though that Family is Glue and it will save you when life’s ocean swamps you. And if you are one of these families with perfect teeth and a nice dog, who have never had any trials and tribulations, all I say is I may have to pee through your letter box later and I bet you’d blame the dog and have him put down.

The thing about Perfect Families is that they are not, Money is all they love, the average Common family, and I include myself, a common family, or Common People, which may be a track by Blur from the 90s, go Google, they will look after each other, we may be muck but we love each other as Mrs Brown from tv might say.

Which brings us back to prayer, a dream is an extension of yourself, but Prayer is an extension of God that reaches into us.  You can get your 5 year old to draw a cartoon of it. House, roots into earth this is Dream. House, roots into God, and God is everywhere, this is Prayer. Perhaps I should copyright that as a Tee shirt idea, and then I make my first 10 million. Ha, how do you copyright God. 

We are his copyright after all.

Help With your Homework

_{Help with your Homework} ©

_{By Michael Casey}

_{If you have been following my words then you will know there are several teachers in my family, I even did a bit of English as a Foreign language teaching myself, and I do have a Shanghai wife too. Any billionairesses out there who want English lessons and who can come to Birmingham for a month do get in touch.}  

_{Back in 1998 I did in fact teach somebody for a month as my house guest. Now what I really want to do is talk about essay writing.  My big daughter has done her mocks and the next few months she has to revise and then write essays galore. So tonight I’m going to give you a bit of advice, its up to you if you take it.}

_{First of all Cut and Paste will get you a FAIL. If you have to write an essay on sausages all you have to do is Google Essays on Sausages. Your get a ton of results I imagine, what you then do is read 10 of them. You will then be a sausage  expert, or I can introduce you to Big Sid the butcher who is in The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. This is simple basis research.}

 _{In the old days you would have to lift encyclopaedia which were as big as paving stones and weighed just as much. At Primary school, the encyclopaedia were on a shelf just to my left and I did have to look through them  to research projects. Nowadays there is the Internet, and you can always buy lots of sausages from your local butcher and he’ll  tell you loads of stuff. Then you’ll write the perfect essay on sausages.}

_{If you know how to interrogate Google then you can get the best and varied results so you have plenty of reading material. Remember too Fake News is not just confided to Facebook and other social media, you can get dodgy information  about sausages  on the Internet, that’s why you need to cast your net wide.  Remember an intro and then facts, detail and proof followed by a conclusion, and end with a good quote.  Now its a very long time since I wrote a serious piece. I like to write humour, comedy even, but the format does have similarities with serious essays.}

_{In an essay you have to write in an interesting way about the given topic. In the study period of 1 to 4 years you should have built up a knowledge of your subject, in my case I know all their is to know about why Stella Artois makes me fart if I  drink 17 pints and forget the cheese and onion crisps. In your case you know all there is to know about Shakespeare’s Sonnets, so you will start with a few lines from a Shakespearean Sonnet, I used to love her lots until she gave me the pox from washing all her socks, which is Shakespeare’s last but one Sonnet, then he died suddenly, nobody knows exactly why, perhaps a research student will find out.}

_{After the opening quote you will answer the question about Shakespeare with depth and  knowledge, as much knowledge as you have for Manchester United and the record goal tally of Wayne Rooney. With as much passion as you have for Man U and the girl behind the bacon slicer in the deli you will pour out your knowledge onto the page. You will give every ounce of your being on the page, you will sound like Will Shakespeare’s agent, as I was when I wrote an essay back in 1975.} 

_{Nothing will be missed, the end result will be a masterful essay, and as a reward the girl behind the deli will give you a free slice, of your favourite something.}

_{If you have revised well you will have the knowledge to answer anything the examiner throws at you in all of the subjects you are studying. You are prepared, the subject knowledge is in your head, and if you have mastered essay writing everything  will look perfect on the page.}

 _{It is just like flower arranging, you may be a 240kilo Russian weight lifter, but when you write your essay on Choral Singing, or Farm Management or Nuclear Fusion, with hard core Chess as a sub subject, whatever it is your words on the page are as beautiful as the flowers in the vase you keep by the picture of your dead mother.} 

_{Anything is possible if you have revised and you know all the tricks of essay writing, you can even Google “the tricks of essay writing” for you are  ready and your mother in Heaven will throw salt in the eyes of the examiner just in case your answer on Choral Singing was not quite good enough for a A. For I’m sure Russia mothers are just the same as Irish mothers,  they never give up.}

_{I think I’ve more or less covered everything, study, practice, read wide, never cut and paste, and make sure to tell your mother you love her, whether she is Russian or Irish, mum’s like to hear it, especially if they are dead, then they can boast to the Angels just how clever their 240kilo sons are, now that they have opened a flower shop, to take their mind off Nuclear Fusion, which they  teach at University.} 

_{For Variety is the Spice of Life.}

Lessons in Listening

Lessons in Listening ©

By Michael Casey

This should be about the World’s events this Jan 29^th 2017, but there are enough people talking about it so I’ll let others do that. I will say though, and you all just knew I’ll say that I’d just say. I live in Birmingham, my parents were from County Kerry Eire, and they came here in 1944 when the war was on. My wife is a Shanghai girl and we have 2 bilingual daughters, one of whom dreams of being a Doctor, the other may be the next Julie Walters or a PhD in something else. My best friend is a little Indian guy who has a PhD too, if you hang around with clever people you appear clever by association, oh by the way my friend’s family were from Calcutta.

I’ve started a new paragraph so you can skip the 1^st if you have low tolerance for major news stories. I decided tonight to write about Listening, obviously we all listen every day, and you can guess what my last sentence might be before I’ve even started on tonight’s piece.

So why do we listen? To get what we want and to give what we want, we listen. Can I have a Cadbury’s Crunchie please? And Neil in the corner shop, who is Indian, will give you a Cadbury’s Crunchy. He also give you your change. Every simple interaction in a shop is about asking and receiving, we do it all the time when we go shopping.

When I’m in Aldi I’ll ask the crew where is this or where is that and they will tell me and I’ll go away happy with my precooked in a Kiln Salmon pieces, and they are delicious by the way, and I don’t explode the salon in our microwave any more. Life is all about asking and then receiving. Seeking and then finding, doors are even opened for us, such as fridge doors in Aldi. The religious amongst you will have spotted the Biblical reference.

The point being that by being courteous we have a smoother Society, I listen to you and you listen to me. I know from experience that listening does make a difference. If you work in a 4 star deluxe hotel for 3 years as I did then all day every day you are listening. You are there to please the guest, if you do its good for the hotel and they come back.

Ours was a new build, I even had my interview in a porta-cabin. The thing we are taught and learn is that people like to be listened to, it takes no effort and does make all the difference, especially when they are complaining wherever you are working. If you let people blow off steam then they calm down sooner, ask any Police you know they will agree.  

The week I started at the hotel was the week my dad died, I went to visit him on the Tuesday the 2^nd day of the new job and he died on the Saturday, so Joy and Pain all came calling in the same week. The hotel and Jonathon Walker were very kind to me. I had spent years visiting my dad every single day in the old people’s home and there I listened to him. It’s now 15 years since he died.

You are company for your old dad or mum or aunty or the old cantankerous woman in the flat above. Listening and sharing a cup of disgusting tea DOES make a difference even if its just that you appreciate a good cuppa after your sacrificial cuppa you force yourself to drink with the horrid lady upstairs. There are millions of people the world over who appreciate a kind word, or help finding white bread on the shelf in Aldi when their eyes are too old, or they don’t read English.

For me listening isn’t just about being charitable, its about being Irish, as having Irish blood means I enjoy a story, little wonder I’ve ended up as a writer with one million words on the page. I did spend decades talking to my dad enjoying all the stories even if I’d heard them many many times before.

Listening to BBC Radio 4 is all about listening as its speech radio, not music or background music. I smile when I see kids heading for cramming courses nearby I want to tell their pushy parents to buy a radio and glue the dial to BBC Radio 4. Its worth a 2 grade improvement in itself. Why waste your money on a crammer, best of all when 5000 people apply for the 500 places at grammar school. In passing our local school is in the top 2% in the entire country, Discipline makes a difference, as does Listening to the Teacher.

The greatest thing we do in life is listening to another person, and when we listen our defences are lowered. If you can make somebody laugh then barriers come tumbling down, they want to listen to you because you make them laugh, you make them happy.

We appreciate each other and then because we have listened we can love. If you like making love is the perfect act of listening, which may explain why real ugly comedians have the prettiest wives.