Influencing the Writer

I was tidying up with just the pain monster for company so I decided to give you this as well. I'll write a new piece tomorrow I hope. Pain is such a bastard, so when my boat does come in I will found a pain relief clinic, and no its not some sort of Nevada house of ill repute. I mean a medical clinic/hospital. Though that s a chance in a billion...  

Influencing the Writer ©

By Michael Casey

I was having a lazy day today, the pain monster came last night so I thought I deserved it. Last night was good on tv as The Lady in the Van was on the telly, its a famous play by Allen Bennett. I do in fact have a copy of the book, it’s on my garden wall waiting to be taken away by passing scholars, or tramps in need of tissue paper. I’m sure Allen will praise me for my recycling efforts. I bought the book cheap but never got around to reading it. Then the play was on the telly last night, the film version with Dame Maggie Smith, she got an Oscar for the Prime of Jean Brodie.

So now the book is on the garden wall awaiting recycling, but I’ll keep an eye out for the rain as nobody wants a mushy book, in all senses of the word. Speaking of words Allen was interviewed in a documentary and the foul words he used en passant, if he used more of such words then he might attract a more working class audience, if I might steal some of the style in some of his stuff. I did email him once but I don’t remember did he reply, though I do send rather a lot of emails.

As you can see I am influenced by what I’ve seen on tv or read in the Press or on the radio, but then again a look out the window can provide an idea. Though lots of material I choose not to write about. Yes really. Today I pumped into our dog walker, I asked why he and his wife was so thin, recently both of them have lost a stone+ each, or 10kilos if you are handicapped by metric. See I add a throw away line just to annoy people, or to see if they are awake.

Our dog walkers are a form of clock for me as a I look up from the keyboard as they walk past. It turns out his wife has also been doing step ups, no she hasn’t been polishing her doorstep which was big in the 50s, no she has used the step up method. And no this is not a form of contraception for tall people, love should have no barriers. I could go on and on I do have a Doctorate in BS after all, I know you know already.

I’m still chewing now I had to grab a bite so I had fish fingers a la Birds Eye, they are the best you know, with a squirt of BQ sauce on top, wrapped in a slice of whole meal bread. I am Gordon Bleu you know, and where my 3 girls, they were at an Italian restaurant eating boring pasta. Meanwhile upstairs pussy, our Totoro the 4^th female in the family was fast asleep on a duvet. I’m sure she’ll give me fleas one day.

I’m waiting for the kettle to boil now and I wonder does Boris my Eastern European Everyman understand the style, or does he think Bloody Foreigners, I’m not letting my daughter go to England, or certainly not Birmingham. They are strange people, as he rehangs his Putin calendar on the fridge, chest exposed.

As I talk to you I wonder was I really Ronnie Corbette’s and Joyce Grenfell’s love child, would that make me Gerald Wiley? Life is strange and you have influences all over the place. Coffee is warming me now and I’m glad I resumed drinking it after a year or was it two break. 50 years plus a coffee drinker. Only instant, Kenco Rappor, do you think I could afford anything more? It is my guilty pleasure.

I pause for a sentence, perhaps Allen Bennett will knock the door and proffer one. Only its just the mad christian people, knocking at my door on a Sunday, have they got nothing better to do? I have a good mind to tell them to Allen Bennett off, I am a man and I have history, I know how to swear, I find it clears the air, and gets rid of unwanted callers at your door. I bet Allen is writing all this down in his notebook, under never to be used. I hope he falls off his bicycle.

I need another coffee so I’m going to leave it there for today, I was going to add just one word after “off his bicycle” it would have been so much more dramatic. But Allen would say it was a stunt, so I controlled myself and let the crude comic alliterative possibilities alone, sometimes you have to do that or people think you are just a …

here's some photos are they worth a 1000 words, maybe I should be a model

Rearranging the furniture

well the pain monster returned, so here's something from before

Rearranging the Furniture ©

By

Michael Casey

I just thought of this title for today’s piece then I remembered that somebody once told me that SAS folks sometimes called a mission, rearranging the furniture. Obviously this is a distant memory, so I’ll leave it there before anybody comes knocking at my door.

Today’s piece is about literally rearranging the furniture. I have a space under the tv, so I’ve filled it with a very old DAB radio, one of the first from when they came out maybe 15 plus years ago. Its covered in wood so it looks liker a piece of furniture as did the old radiograms years ago. I did have a lovely radiogram 30 years ago, but its lost with time. One of my first memories from maybe 55 years ago is of an old grammar-phone which was a nice piece of furniture, when it broke it was thrown into our back garden I can remember playing with it in the garden.

So have you ever rearranged the furniture? Or altered it? Another memory from 45 years ago was when my brother came home from Oxford and painted an entire room white. The doors, the skirting boards, the bed frame, the wardrobe, the dressing table and the chair. I was like sleeping in a dentists or a science fiction film.

When you get your first place you try different positions for the furniture, a different look and feel is achieved by having the furniture in different positions in the room. And yes I know what you are all thinking, so I won’t say the obvious. But John Lewis God Bless Them do do great carpets, its worth the investment, and with good underlay you get a great bounce. Boris will you leave the room, this is radio not top shelf, whatever that is.

Speaking of shelves though, if you are a reader of books not Kindle books, then a few shelves are always useful. Good old Argos has cheap but nice looking bookcases, bookcases not bookCaseys. Again it all depends on your budget or if you have relatives to give or donate furniture to your new place.

A wedding gift list might just be a bed, a good high impact mattress, Boris I told you to leave, so leave, and a table and chairs. It can be Ikea or any brand you like where you assemble the furniture. How about having an assemble furniture party. You are creating a family through marriage, so why not have friends around for a DIY party, at the end of the day everything is ready, all your furniture is there.  

I like rocking chairs myself so I had an armchair on rockers when I bought my suite for my home all those years ago. As I look outside in the street the base metal rocker is lying rusted in the street awaiting the scrap metal man to take it way. I think my eldest daughter may have have been conceived in that rocking chair. And after she and her little sister were born they loved that chair so much. It must have lasted over 20 years, and has lay rusting in the garden till now.

Yes buy quality furniture, as my dad used to say if you buy cheap you buy twice, so save up and wait and then indulge. Boris, leave the room. Which reminds me, good locks are a must, and bolts too. More importantly you want to feel relaxed and free in your own home, so by thinking a little you can get extra enjoyment just by having things just the way you like them. If you spend your time in front of the computer then a nice chair is important, by pure luck the cheap one I have just got not only is comfortable, but it looks nice. So I get a good vibe just by looking at my chair, which may or may not help improve the writing but if you are happy you are more productive, productive Boris, PRODUCTIVE.

On the shelf beside me there is now more space, mainly for Totoro our cat , because the radio has been promoted to under the tv in the other room. It may sound stupid but arranging the furniture does may a difference. As does cleaning out the mess two daughters and a wife leave in the bathroom, when all their lotions and potions are cleared away, you feel so happy. Then Totoro the cat jumps through the window while you are in the shower washing your assets, this frightens me to death, is she auditioning for the SAS? 

some like it hot

As you know Some like it hot was a film with MM in , and Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon where they dressed in drag to avoid the Mafia. Obviously the perfect part for me, not my usual cross dressing but rather I  could be MM, my surgery scars look like my seams in my nylons.
Don't all groan , I am an actor too, well on paper anyway.

Thanks for passing by this week despite all the football to entice you away. Indonesia turned up today so hello to them and Russia again too. I still want to get my stuff on radio or 5min slots on tv, talking straight down the camera as I recite a story or 2000. And yes I want to be paid, and yes I DO  think my stuff can be used to HELP teach English as a 2nd language, because it is NOT boring. Some day some of you may buy a book or even all of them. Rupert Murdoch where fore art thou, a media deal, a media deal, a house, a car and a puppy dog for  my wares. sob sob sob, somebody fetch a tissue.
Not unless that was you in Indonesia, if only all my dreams could come true, and yes I did think of several jokes just then, but I'll leave them in your imagination, just like a Trojan horse.
I forgot to say the house I like is still for sale, so Rupert if you have a few pounds left I can be bought, its on B17 on Right move see photo below. My dad used to say you don't get if you don't ask, as well as talkis cheap but money buys bread, or my Rights...
and thank you to Putin my lone Russia reader from today, Donald always grabs more to look at, he spikes everything.

Surreally yours

Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham the one in England

p.s. no naps and not so much pain, I think the suinshine is good for me, I must be a solar cell

 

Process and Routine

Process and Routine ©

By

Michael Casey

What? Process and Routine, what kind of story is that? Well settle down we only have an hour before the England v Belgium match, so get a drink from Lech, Boris and Gregorgi and I’ll explain it all. Though before I start did you know there is a Lech Polish lager, I saw it in the Polish shop last night. I knew there was Lech vodka, he makes it in Warley Woods with Boris and Gregorgi, but now I know there is a legal larger called Lech.

So what’s this about Process and Routine? Well yesterday when I fixed my computer again it was only because I followed Process and Routine that I was to fix it. If you follow the Process and have a Routine you can fix anything. If you panic then you are dead. So you have to go through the options logically and then you’ll come to the answer. I suppose it’s Logic really, something I think they should and must teach kids in school.

Why do soldiers train, why do acrobats train? Why do Politicians lie, and why are Bankers well Bankers. Because that is how they hone their skill, but too much honing can be very bad for your eyesight. Going back to basics, if you just try things hit and miss you may get all the right answers, especially if it is multiple choice, as did one student I know of. But realistically it is only by following the Process that you get good results. That’s why doctors and lawyers ask questions sequentially. Watch the Grenfell enquiry to see the proof of this.

Now as I used to work shifts most of my working life, before the delights of ill health meant I could annoy you all more frequently, I always had to have a Routine. Up, wash, eat and out the door to work. Then home, eat, wash and then sleep. I spent 14 years working night shifts and enjoying the delights of what that did to my body. So there was no time to relax and stay up late when it was a work day/night, I had to be at that bus stop and get the bus to work. Otherwise the evening shift had to wait for me, or they were supposed to anyway. Ditto if the night shift did not arrive on time then I’d miss my bus home, so I was part of a mechanism, a rickety clock that ticked and tocked. You cannot imagine just how tired you get when you work so many night shifts, some of them 12 hours for a few years.

Now if part of the computer broke, and it did often, this was 40 years ago remember, you would have to improvise. You’d transfer files via the scenic route as we called it. Copy files to a tape on systemA then to systemB then finally systemC. Instead of just doing one direct transfer, that’s if I remember rightly, Dave Eaton will remember should he stumble over this, just as much as he remembers Elaine cleaning the windows in Collins. You’ll have to read my play Shoplife from 1988 to understand the reference. You do have to do the occasional bit of research if you read my stuff.

The point of this though is that we all need to be able to improvise, if its raining what do you do? You put a plastic bag on your head, you may look stupid, but if you’ve just had your hair dyed what other choice is there. You lock yourself out, and only Mr Obnoxious has a key, will you stay on the landing all night, or suffer him, and it really is suffering, but you brown nose him so you can get into your flat. The point being Life is a learning curse, or should I say curve. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, then you are cursing your life, which is something a female priest once said to me. Now obviously I am perfect.

So if you have a routine your life is easier, and if you follow a process you can correct any mistakes along the way. I’m not saying be a machine, everything so orderly and routine, like a North Korean parade, oh when are the nukes going to be shipped out to Russia, Donald? But if you have a routine life is tidier. I’m trying to get my kids to put the marg and ham back in the same slot in the fridge, otherwise only the cat could possible find the ham, I never could. But it does make all the difference for family harmony, same as not using dad’s razor to shave your legs.

Now if you look at your own kids or friends at University or wherever you are, even in Indonesia today, what do you see? Are they clued up enough to react when they need to? Or are they clueless? Simple things like keeping your eyes open, watch for that toddler about to put its head in the revolving door of the hotel, or for a person with love and hate tattoos on his knuckles in a 5 star hotel. So things stand out, you should be following that person and ringing the martial arts security crew. Then Sandy says it’s only Julian the vicar, he used to be a bad boy with tats before he saw the light, he’s giving a lecture on Religion in the Business environment today in the Corybn suite.

And on it goes, I could give more examples but the match is on, I’ll post this in half time.Belgium man, Belgium, which as you know is the biggest curse of all, that’s if you have read The Hitcherhiker’s Guide to the Universe. So use Process and Routine and expand your Universe, feed your mind, or else it really will be Belgium man, Belgium.