Sweden Calling

Sweden Calling (c)

By

Michael Casey

Well I've just done my daily check of readers over my 4 sites, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker is the main site by the way, it's named after my comic novel, all 600 pages of it. To my surprise Sweden is reading me, just after losing to England Sweden is reading me. So is that a good sign or did the Finnish and Norwegian cousins recommend me. I have the Slavic cousins already, Lech, Boris and Gregorgi from Poland, Ukraine and Russia, so should I invent Scandinavian cousins as well? The idea does appeal. But what would I call the cousins? And would they always be nudists and be ever so polite, speaking multiple languages better than the English. Not to mention always free climbing mountains as ropes are so very uncool.

Bjorn, Magnus and Sven now what would I do with them? Well maybe I'll just have to go to the Sauna and sit naked and cogitatate. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi would sit beside me with a barrel of lager hidden in all the steam, obviously I'd feel inadequate compared to my Slavic friends. They would drink straight from the barrel while I like a girl would have a 1 litre tankard, as the steam surged all around us. Clean living cousins, from Scandanavia, in the war against the Nazi bastards a great uncle or something was working behind the lines and under the covers travelling everywhere, and naturally he'd have to hide from those Nazi bastards. And as it was so cold in Scandinavia, the Scandinavian branch of the Slavic family was born, or should I say Bjorn.

So that's the beginnings of an idea, would Lech, Boris and Gregori accept them, what with their perfectly groomed beards and pressed trousers. I suppose Bjorn, Magnus and Sven would have to prove themselves. So the six of them would go for a hike and climb a mountain, with just a backpack each of a small barrel of larger on their backs. No ropes, they were Scandinavian cousins after all. Rather like Clint Eastwood in the Eiger Sanction, but obviously much much tougher. So they all go  free climbing and get to the top of the mountain, then they get drunk. Lech decided lager would not be enough so he had brought the 2018 batch of new vodka freshly stilled in Warley Woods, instead of lager.

Now getting off a mountain when you are still hung over is a very difficult thing to do, but Scandinavian cousins had thought of that. So they had brought micro parachutes with them, they were cool Scandinavians, they would jump off the mountain into a Fiord. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi thought they were joking till their newly discover cousins just did it.  Bjorn, Magnus and Sven were gone.

5 hours later Lech, Boris and Gregorgi got back to the cabin where dinner was waiting for them. Bjorn, Magnus and Sven ever so politely apologised, you see they just had to be in time for Sunday service. Bjorn was the organist after all, and Magnus a lay preacher, Sven was man who collected contributions. So they had to get off the mountain quick. No time to make love on any mountain, though that’s how it all started in the war, they had to pray.

Lech, Boris and Gregorgi obviously forgave them, blood is thicker that mountains after all. So Sweden if you are still reading this would you like to join the family? The Michael Casey the fat, silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England family, the comedy of errors, sometimes typing errors. I have to go clean the toilet now, the wife insists, then I’ll be flushed with success. 

Bee Gees on a Beach in Birmingham

Bee Gees on the Beach in Birmingham ©

By

Michael Casey

Well England won  2 nil, Sweden forgot how to put an attack together, a bit like losing the build instructions for an IKEA product. My daughter saw the match in China town with her Maths Viz friend, we have high hopes he gets into Cambridge such is his skill with high and exotic numbers. Though when she told me where she saw the match I told her about my old company’s high and exotic numbers. Which brought more joy that any World Cup match.

You see it was our  work’s Christmas party so the company issued beer tokens, 2 pints each. This was very kind of them, especially as the nature of our work, and the fact this company could out drink anybody, and no this is not an empty boast. I was the sole shandy drinker in the company, rather like an accepted Leper. Dom, God bless him used to look at me with amusement, and say “A Girlie” as he poured my pint maybe 30 years ago now. A Girlie being a pint of shandy, which is half lager and half lemonade. Tragically Dom died as a result of a fire. So whenever I think of a Girlie I think of him. Some bright spark, who shall remain nameless decided to photocopy the beer tokens. We the staff needed no encouragement to drink excessively, but with beer tokens galore, the beer flowed even more.

The following week the bar bill was to be settled, but instead of say 400 free pints, beer was cheap then. The bar presented  my old company with a bill way way higher. Which my company promptly refused to pay. So an entire company of experienced drinkers were banned from that bar. Which happens to be where my daughter and  her friend watched the match today. Such sweet memories. So like a nomadic tribe my company packed their tents and decamped to another bar, 50 yards away. We had to be close to the office after all, we could not leave the Chinese Quarter, which was very pubescent at the time.

Which brings me back to my Bee Gees, they are singing as I talk to you  I thought they deserved a spin. Though they are a bit mellow, not because they are singing a slow song, but because I’ve got drops in both ears, prior to having them cleaned out. It may help the Tinnitus I’ve acquired, which may or may not be due to too much water in my ear. If I stopped washing my hearing would be better, but you wouldn’t want to stand next to me, you’d stand far away and shout at me. And all your shouting would deafen me, so it might just be best to stick to email or posting my thoughts here.

The good tracks are coming now on the Bee Gees double album, outside its very sunny and quiet. Everybody watched the match here in England, my wife said the roads were deserted, and everywhere was quiet as she stormed the shops. Now the next match of the day is on. Russia v Croatia is happening now so everybody is watching that. England v Russia at the next stage would be interesting to say the least with another poison attack in Salisbury area. Though all in all Russian World Cup has been excellent, fantastic people, as usual people, all people are let down by Governments.

So as you read this you will know the final score, one football match in a day is enough for me. Birmingham feels like a beach, majestic in the sunshine and my fuchsia are sprouting like beans in my front and back gardens. That’s the joy of sunshine, everybody feels happy and are talking to each other. If you add a great win, with a wonderful goalkeeper what could be better? Pardon, I can’t hear a thing, all I can hear is a gentle banging on my front room wall. It’s my neighbour I’ve got the speakers too loud, all the cotton wool in my ear and so on.  

  

The Joys of Text

The Joys of Text ©

By Michael Casey

Well I must be on a roll, I read back Do What You Can which I wrote earlier tonight, instead of watching the Brazil match, and I really enjoyed it. You see it’s only when I finish a piece and read it back in its entirety that I know if I’ve hit it on the nail or have I missed it. If you like I choose a target to write about and fire my words on the page, not quite like a blind man or a blindfolded man, but rather I’m in a tank with limited field of view. So when battle is over, or when I’ve ran out of words,  as I step back or emerge from my tank I see the battlefield. I can see the results of my hour’s labour, and each piece usually takes an hour.

It’s then that I enjoy my text, my words on the page as I read the full thing back to myself for the first time, it’s the afterglow. Just as after a workout in the gym you feel so good, as you stop and head for the pub, or enjoy Stella in the changing room. By which I mean a can of Stella Artois in your gym bag, not unless you have a close relationship with Stella your gym coach.

Words are real fun, as I read it back I can feel if I have made my point, or have I failed. Failed is too strong a word, remember what I write about is randomly chosen by me. So if I pick Pain Relief Gel, I’ve just looked at my tube of Movelat  in front of me , that’s why I’ve randomly chosen that to explain my point. So if I chose that then there may not be as interesting a story to tell than if I told the story about being trapped in the toilet on the Paris to Calais express. At least I remembered the French for Help I’m trapped inside the toilet.

So the random choice of story effects the quality of the story, I hope the quality of the writing is always high, by the way my pain killers don’t add or subtract to the writing. I might stop to slap on the Movelat gel, by the way buy shares in that, otherwise I’ll carry on writing till I die, or till a North Korean Army girl spirits me away to her flat above the undertakers. I always tell my Shanghai wife I’ll run away with a Korean girl. She just laughs and reminds me she turned down a millionaire for me. Yes, Love is blind and stupid, or maybe we are each other’s punishment  from God, discuss all you philosophy students out there.

As you can see surreal ideas are a joy to me, it’s like finding another can of Stella in the back of the fridge when you thought it was empty. Or a cake in the cupboard when you wanted something to go with your coffee before you finish writing your thesis. I am of course a PhD, but you guessed already. Maybe the  Novichok was in the back of a fridge, the bad boys hid amongst the least of our brethren in Salisbury. But we will never know.

The thing with words is that you can build and rebuild with them, they are Lego, and Lego is never ending and Danish. Which is not Legover in a Danish, that is something entirely different. The sprinkles would get everywhere. As I write this I  realise I am Ronnie Corbett’s and Joyce Grenfell’s bastard son, am I turning into Gerald Wiley again?

I also like the fact I can mix the sacred and the profane. Would you listen if I was too sacred, or too surreally profane? I think not. But if I add a spoon full of sugar then the medicine does go down, please stop calling me Julie, call me Julian, Sandy does all the time. Sandy does what all the time? Never you mind it’s nearly time for bed. I’ve given you two tonight, maybe I’ll give Sandy 2 tonight as well. Two mugs of  cocoa, what did you think? You are all so easily led. The ink still hasn’t dried on my PhD, I paid 2.99 online to the University of Donald Trump for it.

Ok, I’ll really go to bed now, thanks for reading my rubbish, feel free to pay for it on Amazon, 16 books worth

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

 

ok, please  yourselves as Frankie Howard once said in Up Pompeii

Do What you Can

Do What you Can ©

By

Michael Casey

Now I’m not one of these people that is impressed by things, and I am suspicious of loud, happy clappy people. I distrust them immediately, and when they say they want to “help” I know really “help” means help themselves and fleece me. Salespeople can be like that, others are as honest as the day is long, but the default position should be distrust especially in very large ticket purchases. You have been warned now think for yourselves.

I’ve sidetracked myself, but its very hot in Birmingham and the UK in general so your common sense might not be working, we had the worst Winter in 20 years maybe and now we are having the best Summer in 40 years maybe. Now in the heat as in the cold my body makes me vulnerable, which I hate, it’s not old age rather its my diseases. But my brain is in fine fettle, and though I always have a Buster Keaton look, it’s a way of seeing if people are lying to me. Then like a fat sumo I pounce, or rather waddle. I may look like a bouncer, but I do have a brain, far better than the micky mouse university you went to. Give me strength.

All of this has nothing to do with today’s piece, but I’m sure I’ll weave it together by the time the satnat takes me to the bottom of the page. I WAS impressed by just 4 words I read yesterday in the Columban magazine yesterday. It’s not a magazine for Columbian football fans, nor drugs dealers. Its a missionary magazine, and no not about missionary position for sex workers or those seeking to improve their love life. The Columban magazine is about religious missionary work all over the world by the Columban Missionary Society. I have their calendar on my wall for years, and occasionally I send them a donation.

Now what 4 words impressed me so much, Do What You Can, those 4 words really impressed me. I love you, are 3 words that should impress all of us and lead to great things, and creation, and creation of families. But when we grow up we may be told to Do What You Can. If you are Harry Kane you may score a hat trick over Sweden. That is doing what he can. As for you and me, we’d score 6, Harry can be such a slacker sometimes. Gareth has to promise that Harry can try on his waistcoat if he gets a hat trick, that’s his motivational method.

Doing what you can, means being honest about your abilities and using them to the best of your ability. Hopefully Harry will be given Gareth’s waistcoat because he’ll perform to his very best by doing what he can. If he was a dancer he’d be doing the Can Can because that was doing what he can can can.

Whatever your skill, use it to the very best, just as my dad said 45 years ago. I have no education, I cannot tell you what to pick at O Level, but do what you like, but do your best. This was his mantra for all of us, and I suppose it worked as one went to Oxford, another to Cambridge, a third is a great teacher, and me I am what you see before you. A fat, smelly, silver haired writer sweating in the Summer of 2018 sun, wear his shades in front of the computer as he adds to his 1,333,000 words over 16 books on Amazon.

What about the other side of the coin, what does doing what you can mean then? Doing What you Can, means doing the best with the material you have. If you can draw then draw in a notebook, even if all you can draw is match stick men. If all you can do is sing, then sing, or if all you can do is dance then dance. Whatever you can do, then do it, and never let any bastard belittle you. I saw a documentary on the tv about a musician and how his family broke his guitar and crushed his spirit, but he never gave up. That man was Eric Clapton.

We are not all Eric Claptons and we may never have any such talent. All we are good for is opening doors, as a doorman. I’ve done that, so there is no shame in that. Or all you are good for is cleaning rooms, I’ve done that, there is no shame in that. I’ve cleaned toilets and then chatted to millionaires minutes later. No matter how humble your job, you still have worth, so do what you can, where you can. You may not climb any ladders. But you may start as a humble receptionist and by your hard work and talent become a General Manager, just as my friend Robin did. If you see a General Manager with orange hair in Birmingham then that’s him, say Michael Casey says hello.

The point of all this is that doing what you can, it’s better than saying I’m nothing, I can do nothing. You can be a cheerleader, you may have to stay at home because of illness or infirmity, but you can be the reservoir of love and hope and prayer. Even stuck at home, you can do what you can. Theresa taught us that, and no not Theresa May, I’m sure she’d appreciate prayers, and shoes with poisoned knives in, just like in James Bond. Or a cabinet maker, if you know anybody good with woodwork, especially halving joints, and I’m not talking about Columbians and drugs. I’m talking about doing what you can.Which seems to have brought us to the bottom of the page. And sometimes you have to slap your own bottom when you are at the bottom of a pit of despair or self pity. Or roll up a copy of the Columban magazine and slap the bottoms of the Cabinet, then you’ll force them to do what they can.