Shopping in a Foreign Land

Shopping in a Foreign Land ©

By

Michael Casey

Well I’ve just come back from the Polish corner shop, I got tomatoes and eggs, their food always seems fresher and tastier, a few pennies more but always worth it. Since before last Summer 2017 we switched our supermarket as my daughter wanted better food prior to the exams. No I was not starving her and keeping her in a cage before, but a change was due and my kidneys could need help too so we switched. So we go to the posher supermarket for bulk items and as ever the Polish shop for other stuff, it saves me from crossing the

main road and being a large target for speeding drivers.

So now you know the background, what about the shopping experience as all those sick making magazines on glossy paper boast. I’m not going to be a supermarket magazine posed on paper in a boring world wide useless style. MIAOW, yes I detest that style of writing, I would not even call it writing as its all so samey. I’ll bore you with my style instead.

When you are in a store with foreign language everywhere its an experience, an adventure. If the language is European or Latin based you have a clue, but if you are in China, as I’ve been, then it’s a whole different ball game. Or maybe you are in Japan, or Korea, what then?

Or what if you are Chinese and you are shopping in Birmingham?

Food labels have pictures on and that’s what saves us, we like the picture so we buy the product. In Polish shops everything seems to have a EY on the end, MayonaiseEY or something similar. I’ll double check later when I look in our fridge. But beware pictures are worth a 1000 words but, National tastes are different. So a Polish tongue is different to a Chinese tongue, and I’m not talking about French Kissing in the USA either. I’m talking about how different countries have different tastes in food.

Some food appears so bland compared to say Birmingham tongues, and I’m not talking about Pork Scratchings either. Or one countries tastes is so salty, and nobody’s chocolate can beat Cadbury’s, come to Birmingham where it is made just a few miles from where I am sitting.

In Germany, in Frankfurt where we visited back in 2007 the food in our Offenbach hotel was great, and the little restaurant next door had Licher lager, which I’d love to try again,even though I’m not much of a drinker. My book Still Smiling 2017 has a cover photo of me in Offenbach. Also next door was a little supermarket where we’d buy a few things just by looking at the pictures. So pictures do influence us.

Obviously when you are in France wine features big-time, as does Fresh Produce, so you have a feast for your eyes. There is a different smell in each different shop too, whether abroad or in a foreign produce shop here in Birmingham. This again is part of the experience, you love that shop because you can drink in all the smells.

Just as a bar or restaurant anywhere that has not been cleaned just makes you want to turn around and leave. I also have a 20 minute rule about places, if they don’t serve me in 20 mins then I walk out. They obviously don’t want my money, and their customer service is zero.

So you buy your stuff and then you have to pay for it, using your foreign language skills. Luckily all the girls in the Polish shop have some English. I even handed a usb stick with some stories and Polish translations to one of the girls to help her with her English studies. But getting back to the checkout. Once there you have to pay, and if you are in France or China then it can be quite a test, but luckily electronic tills display what you have to pay. Though on my first to Shanghai in one back street place an abacus was on the counter. Far quicker than calculators.

You leave the shop juggling your purchases because Theresa May who lives on the corner always steals all the plastic carrier bags, so you juggle your way home. Once home you randomly open a few things, those you don’t like go into the cat’s bowl. Luckily Totoro will eat anything that comes out of a plastic packet. In fact Totoro will beat Hussain Bolt down the stairs any time of the day or night, once the sound of plastic beckons.

So by trial and error you develop a taste for seaweed, or mayonaiseY or however Polish people spell it. Or the local fizzy pops, or their biscuits, you even get addicted, so you always go to this or that foreign shop just for your food fix. But you never learn the language, so they always speak to you in Mandarin or Polish or Albanian. So you develop fantastic sign language skills and end up dating a beautiful Korean girl. And then you practice each others tongues, and you and work that out for yourselves…

New Year’s Special Offers © something from 1 year ago

New Year’s Special Offers ©

By Michael Casey

On my way back from the bathroom, and cKd dictates a fair few visits, I was thinking about Resolutions as today’s topic. I thought it was the obvious one which is being used the world over, it is still only 4^th Jan 2017. Then the postman arrived and I had some junk mail, so I was derailed into writing about that. If by then end of the piece you think I should have talked just about Resolutions then cast your vote, by buying all15 of my books on Amazon. If you want Logic, go talk to Dr Spock or is it the other Spock?

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC 

So where I live the Amazonian rain forest comes straight though my letterbox, no not a scene from Jumanji, but we DO have a swirl of paper coming through the letter box. Letters and junk mail, not to mention fliers for fast food and taxis, you would need a taxi because you could not walk if you ate all the fast food on offer. Does the pizza place have a brother who owns a taxi firm, because some of the pizza places are 3 miles away, you would need a map just to find them.

Buy one regular pizza and get a free can of fizzy pop, buy a family sized pizza and  get a 3 litre monster bottle of  your choice, cola or lemonade, that’s the choice, 2. There is a 3^rd brother, who is a dentist, he just loves his big brothers to bits, without them adding to the tooth decay in the city he wouldn’t be living in such a big house. It’s him who bought the 3 new taxis for his big brother’s taxi company, and gave his other brother cash to buy a third pizza parlour. Brotherly love and tooth decay go hand in hand. He is rewarded for his kindness, his wife has tanning studios above the pizza parlours, why waste the spare upper room.

Wood burning stoves are very popular where I live, they weren’t but a 4^th brother discovering the amount of junk post he was getting and knew it was perfect fire starter material. So after he got his own wood burning stove he had a brainwave, or rather as his wife was doing her nails she joked you should go into business like your brothers. Tell everybody that a wood burning stove as well as being very trendy was perfect for burning all the rubbish post. Kill two birds with one stone if you like.

So a 4^th business was born, and brother number 4 and his wife soon moved into a house near his dentist brother, this proves just how much junk special offer post there is where I live.

So everything goes along swimmingly, but there are two certainties in Life, and they are Death and Taxis, sorry I mean Taxes.  So the brothers got over confident, and “forgot” to pay all their taxis, sorry I mean taxes. Suddenly the pizza and taxi companies  were under new ownership, the tanning business too. As for the 4 brothers they moved to avoid the taxman, they say they went to Spain, anyway someplace hot, where Arthritis doesn’t raise its ugly head.

The Four Brothers became a big brand, it was cosmetic surgery on the cheap, the very cheap. There is lots and lots of money in Vanity after all, and no leaflets needed to be delivered. The pizza parlour brother retrained on the computer, he became a whiz at marketing, no longer scattering ingredients on a pizza base, words on a page was all he needed. The taxi brother set up spam servers, delivering the message everywhere, no need to drive about in the dark.

The only dark he used was the Dark Web to hide their money from all the taxmen the world over. The four brothers did think of moving to Ireland because of the low taxis, sorry I mean taxes but their wives overruled them. Sunshine was their priority, Cromane beach  in County Kerry. was great but not as hot hot hot as where they were hiding from the Revenue.

So this New Year 2017 as you sit in the damp and cold think about the four brothers and be jealous. Though it did all end in tears, a retired Revenue worker was drinking a pint of Mild in a bar in some place hot and guess what. He overheard the lot, and texted his son who worked for some place, ok I’ll tell you, his son worked for the cops, the Police. His son had always loved computers and aged 14 he had hacked the Police computer they had given him a job on the spot at twice his dad’s salary.

You can guess the rest. Death and Taxes are dependable, even if pizza and taxis stick to your teeth, no matter what the fliers say.

  

Sweet Sixteen

Sweet Sixteen ©

By

Michael Casey

Well today 10^th Jan 2018 I’m starting on my sixteenth book, as I start the tally is 1,230,000+ words, or 3600+ plus pages. I don’t watch the tally like a speedometer, but as it’s there I’m telling you. Sweet 16 will be the next book to amuse or bore you all with. Online I’ve had 58,000 plus readers, when I was on Google+ I once had 300,000 but I did not believe it. What matters is book sales, but sadly nobody buys a book as they can read me online, maybe I’m just too innocent like a sweet sixteen. But I can direct the world to Amazon in vain hope people do finally buy my wares. Or you can all just google me, michaelgcasey the fat silver haired writer in shades. Don’t be confused by others with the same name.

Well it’s 10 to 10 and the wife is out visiting some new Chinese friends while on her trip to Shanghai over Christmas. So like the good housewife I have heated the bath water so she can have a soak when she gets in. She is the breadwinner now, I am derelict now, well some say that or assume that. Though I still have some useful functions.Like a discarded toy you discover and realise it’s still worth keeping, that’s me I suppose.

When you are 16 you are naive and full of hope, though I must say in my own life I was 10 or 11 when I grew up. Because I grew up in one way I retained my child like innocence in another way. My sense of imagination and hope, some would say it was a defence mechanism, I’d just say you adapt to what’s around you.

When you first go to work you follow one person just like a bird imprinting on the first thing you see. I can vaguely remember a guy called Steve Jay Callaway, he’d be 70 now maybe. My brothers at home scolded me for quoting him all the time. Steve this and Steve that, I seem to remember he wanted to become some kind of preacher. Though he could be dead or in jail now. If you read this Steve I’m sure you’ve had a nice life, but frankly you wouldn’t want to know me now.

As you grow old you are not as naive, though I was naive in another job, and that led to tears on my dad’s birthday. I know who they are and maybe if ever my words are famous I can tell the whole tale. Basically its about prejudice and abuse of power. See I bet you are intrigued now, but I’ll let it be till my 27^th book.

When you earn a few pennies you rejoice and I hope you help out your mum and dad, or at least offer. It’s the thought that counts, if you don’t even offer that really is where the child has abused the parents’ love and care for them. You don’t have to hug and kiss, the love can be far far deeper, but do remember your parents, and never treat them as cleaners in a hotel where you never pay the bill.

They say the greatest joy is in giving, not spending 1000 on a new phone, then giving your dad a 5 quid tie, which he’ll never wear, so you wear it yourself. I once bought my dad a made to measure suit, there was a Jewish tailor in Smethwick who made it for him. So we should all praise the tailor and remember him in our prayers, and my dad too who’s anniversary looms.

My dad used to come home from the pub at weekends with cheese and onion crisps stuffed into his sports jacket, I can remember pulling them and his snotty handkerchief out as we all tried to get the crisps out. This innocent memory sticks with me over 50 years on, it is sweet. Yes I have many more memories, more than 16, more than 1600 even. Perhaps I can boast that each word is memory, so is that 1,230,000 plus memories?

We should all try and stay sweet and sixteen, I always say I am 20 in my head, though my birth certificate is nearly 3 times that, and as for my body, well that’s battered and gives me plenty of pain at times. If we try and maintain a young outlook we are happier, even if there is lots of pain in our lives.

I’ll finish with a story from 50 years ago. I was climbing the old air raid shelter and slipped, so I landed on the bolt that held it together. It went right into my left buttock. I put my finger in the hole and fainted. My sister just laughed, she remember this tale exactly as it happens, and she was 5 or 6 at the time. Dad took me to hospital, the same one I’m going to next week for a kidney scan. I sat on my belly for 6 hours before finally a few stitches were put in. Then we came home and dad distributed the cheese and onion crisps. It was a Sunday and Bob Hope was on tv, with a kid in a cage in a film.

When my big brother came home from Oxford I had to show him my bum and the 2 feet of plaster from my waist to the back of my knee. And he laughed at me too. I had to sit side saddle for months till it healed, it could have been over the summer holidays. Maybe that  explains why I used to sleep on my belly, until my quadruple heart bypass and now I can only sleep on my right side.

All this is sweet and innocent mishaps in a family, so I hope my readers everywhere know that this the first story in my book Sweet Sixteen really is a bum story. 

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC

15 Down my 15th book is now live on Amazon

15 Down, my new book,

     is now LIVE on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B078XG36R9/ref=la_B00571G0YC_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515614825&sr=1-2 

so please buy  it.

Its 93,000 words or so, about 200pages on my pdf.

Or tell your local media all they need is me reading my shorts on the radio. I would eat my shorts but Bart Simpson has stolen them after somebody ate his.

So I have 12 more books to write to meet my daughter's request of writing 27 books to match the 27 dresses in that film.

Which could be 6 more years if I continue writing at the same speed and  that would be another 1,232,000 words so doubling my total and reaching 2,464,000 words.

By then you would all be wishing I was dead.

See you later, I may have a new story by Midnight GMT,  it will be the 1st for Sweet 16, which will be my next book, 17 Again will be the 17th. If and when I write them.

Michael Casey

 

 

Noises all Around Us

Noises all Around Us ©

By

Michael Casey

I was wondering what to talk about tonight, and it is 9.45pm so I need to hurry on if I’m going to write anything tonight. Then as I’ve got a ringing in my ear, and I can hear my wife screaming in Shanghai dialect to her friends on her phone I thought maybe I should talk about noises all around us. Yes my Ukrainian and Polish friends it’s as scientific as that, I am the English teacher making myself groan, oh please Sir no that, can’t we just write about Cadbury’s chocolate? Please Sir, we’ll even do an extra 300 words if you left us write about that, I beg myself.

No my Mexican friends, my Canadian friends and all points on the compass, tonight we talk about noises. And if you are my friends in Kuwait who send me emails about horses, you too have to talk about noises. Even if they are just noises in your head as The Cranberries are singing to me right now. Zombie, zombie. And no, no writing about Farting, yes I know it’s a noise but gentlemen don’t talk about such things, and ladies certainly don’t.

I don’t want a 300 word intro about bathroom noises. Not after yesterday when my daughter lost something down the plughole, it’s too sore a topic a subject in our house right now. I will help you all, I was an Esol English teacher for a year after all, though with a Shanghai wife, I’ve been giving 20 years of English lessons in the home as well.

Before I side-track myself I want you all to close your eyes, trust me, just close your eyes. Nobody is going to steal a kiss, or pinch your bum, beside you are in an army barracks reading this, so I imagine that kind of thing does not go on in an army. Not unless you are in a bar tidying up after closing. Close your eyes and listen. What can you hear? Me, I can hear trapped air in my ear, with The Cranberries singing softly in the background, the shouting Shanghai wife in the next room has stopped for the evening.

But what about in Singapore? Can you hear a tap dripping, though I expect not as water is so sacred in Singapore. Can you hear the distant noise of music, or the crash and bang of your neighbours screaming and fighting. It’s a sign and sound of passion if there is a bit of fighting, the screaming ends and then there is the silence of passion. Proof arrives 9 months later. Then there is the sound of babies crying.

In Spain you may hear your neighbours practicing the Flamenco on the roof, why don’t they just wear slippers when they dance, or use virtual reality to practice with. Technology and Flamenco, there’s an idea for the Tech conference in USA this week.

If you are my next door neighbour you will hear me typing very fast and talking to Totoro our cat, punctuated by me getting a drink or going to the bathroom. Normal sounds if you live next door to this writer. You’ll also hear me suddenly screaming as a spasm of pain arrives unwanted and unexpectedly. You may also hear the sound of slapping, no not the wife slapping me for being naughty. No just the sound of me slapping pain killer gel, Movelat on various bits of my body. 

Rather like the Lederhosen dancers slapping each other. What my next door neighbour thinks of the sound, you’ll have to ask her. Perhaps she just thinks I’m Kinky and Strange, I know just as you my readers the world over do. You are so cruel to me, listen to my bitter bitter tears now, as they slash onto my floor.

The sound of the kettle boiling is a nice sound, it is so welcoming, so full of sharing, we’ll all have a tea, or coffee for me, and hot chocolate for Micha. 

Wherever you are in the world a kettle with a whistle is best, come in you are welcome, enjoy Egypt’s coffee or tea, in Italy too a nice drink to match the view.

Grannie’s toothless singing rings out as you study for your exams, she’s put a hot drink besides you before she disappears. The sliding slippers flip and flop into the distance. She always told you to do your best, please yourself with what you studied. Her singing ends, the flip and the flop fades, and then one day it ended forever. Now you are a Professor, you still have a hot drink on the corner of your now enormous desk, with a picture of grannie in a silver frame. Sometimes when you are over tired you can hear your grannie singing and hear the flip and the flop of her slippers fading into the distance.

Sounds do fade, but memories do not. I can still remember my mother chiding me, and scolding me, she’d hit me with the mop if I walked on her clean floor. I can still member all the love, all the laughter. I can remember the drinks after we’d all watch a film together at the weekend. 

I can clearly remember her saying that ending of the film was “far-fetched like sh** from China” if the ending of a film was rubbish. This means beyond belief I should perhaps explain to my Chinese readers wherever you may be in the world. It’s like a Shanghai audience saying the film ending was so bad it was “far-fetched like sh** from Birmingham” So all of us can laugh together because I ended up marrying not just a China doll, but a Shanghai girl. And as everybody knows Shanghai sings, loudly. 

So goodnight wherever you all are, whatever are the noises in your world, have a PEACEFUL life.  

 p.s. you just missed the sound of me slapping on the Movelat to take away my pain, its not funny at all...