Here's M2 Collection of words to keep you all going
Sadly I cannot shake this back pain off, I cannot shake my bootie either
so imagine that ladies, me shaking my bootie, would you be excited?
PUKE IN A BUCKET NOT ALL OVER THE SCREEN
too many pictures put in your mind
anyway I'll give you a new story soon, but there's plenty to read
just go back a few years, or go to Amazon
WaitingMay
7, '12 9:23 AM
for everyone
Waiting ©
By Michael Casey
Waiting, we all wait, for this for that and for
anything else in between; we may have even suffered Waiting For Godot while at
grammar school, which is ten times worse than double Latin on a Friday
afternoon, two hours of Latin, I know I was that man. Waiting they say is good
for the soul, wait for your exam results, wait for the bus to come, waiting for
the girl to give in. All sorts of waiting, each of which brings out all sorts of emotions, how could waiting have
so much power over us? Are we impatient?
Do we want things now, are we the now generation?
We are the Internet Generation, my girls ask me
questions and I try my best but if I don’t know I direct them to Google, “dad you
are our Google” is what they say, as usually I do have some answer. Waiting for
the postman to bring news from some
foreign field, each letter treasured, then one day it’s not a letter but a
telegram, a dreaded telegram, a telegram means death. Sadly all over the world
this is still what’s going on, death in a letter, then waiting for the pension,
waiting waiting waiting; sons can go to war but their sacrifice is not
recognised, their wives and kids can wait and wait and wait until finally the
pension letter arrives. Why did they have to die?
Is something better if you have had to wait? True
love, sex, that car, that house, that job, does it taste sweeter if you have
had to wait? I remember my cousin’s wife telling me that her husband really
treasured their children as marriage and family came late to him, so he loved
them all the more. Perhaps fifteen years later, “the urge” as they call it in
County Kerry came knocking on my door,
waiting was over I have a family myself, my Irish cousins say I got all my luck
in one go, the waiting was over, I have a family, a Shanghai wife and 2
daughters. Now I am forever waiting for them, 3 girls in the house is fun, but
you wait a lot for them, waiting while they change or comb their hair, what’s
the nursery rhyme? Dan Dan washed his face in the frying pan, combed his hair
with a leg of a chair? Well that’s me, but my 3 girls, I’m forever waiting, but
at least it’s not as bad as Waiting for Godot.
0 Comments
A
Rainy SaturdayApr 28, '12 2:19 PM
for everyone
A Rainy Saturday ©
By Michael Casey
It’s another rainy April day, mum is out for the day so I’m left with the
girls. So we can catch up with our films on the Sky+ box, we watch Charlie’s
Angels together, it’s very funny with lots of tongue in cheek humour, one or
two jokes for the grown ups too. We like the kung fu too, we are a
Shanghai/Birmingham family after all.
My big daughter is mad for pencils, so she persuades
me to order a propelling pencil set, she uses it to draw with too. When you
have an artist in the family you have to have the right kind of pencil, the
fact that she has 500 pens, pencils and crayons already does not matter, she
must have the latest one. She was given 10 new pencils the other day by
somebody we met while we were sheltering from the rain, but that was not what
she needed, she always “needs” the exact
thing she wants. She is a great sketcher though.
As for her small sister, she was upstairs near her
beloved dolls house, it now has two bright plastic chimneys, red and blue, old
building blocks were added to make her dolls house more distinctive. I shout up the stairs reminding her to read
too, I ask what page she’s starting from so I can gauge if she is doing enough
reading. She does 70 pages plus in a day, she’s a very fast reader. Now that
she has mastered all her times tables I am a happy dad, the 8s were the
hardest, I reminded her I was beaten by the teacher, so I got mine right the 2nd time he asked me,
which was an incentive for her.
Piano practice was also part of the day, my big
daughter can play a little, but she and her smaller sister need to practice
practice practice. The piano will be a
good investment IF in the end they can both play, we did get a letter from my
big daughter’s new secondary school offered music lessons and instrument
lessons; we are lucky though because Betty from the choir gives them singing
and music tuition, all this means is that they are better at the piano thanks
to Betty. Perhaps I should nominate Betty for an OBE or something, along with the
lollypop lady.
The girls have both retreated upstairs so they must
be making stuff or drawing, I do know when to switch the tv off and to switch
the computer off too, a balance between fun and creative arts is a must to my
way of thinking. I don’t need Dr Spock’s book, didn’t he say he was wrong years
later anyway? I have to finish now, my
big daughter says she wants to write a story. We’ll turn into a family of
writers, now that would make all my dreams come true.
0 Comments
Data
MiningApr 27, '12 1:32 PM
for everyone
Data Mining ©
By Michael Casey
So you look on line and you buy a great new watch,
say its automatic, that’s one of my
weaknesses, I just love watches. I should say that I had 20 watches in 20 years
as I was always carrying boxes around computer rooms or print rooms. Once the
glass fell out of a watch so I glues it back, only I glues the second and hour
hands together, I wrote about it in The Watch and Me which you can find on my
site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com
Though today I want to talk about Data Mining, you
know where you are offered something free, but you end up paying through the
nose, or rather you are led by the nose, like an old bull because you’ve fallen
for their bull. Win a free ipod or whatever, but then you have to join this or
join that. If you’re stupid enough to fall for it you then have to provide
information. Your name and age and date of birth, where you live, your salary
bracket, how many kids you have and so forth. I get 20 plus emails a day, junk
emails that is, I am on Funny or Die so folks over there must feed in my email
so I get all sorts of rubbish from USA. Be a proctologist , be a F16 pilot,
join the KKK family discount available, pay $300 and away you go. Respect ME
and we can steal $15,000,000 from Sierra Leone just email me at my private email, it’s probably a jail,
and we’ll be millionaires together, just send 1000USD to cover expenses. The
expenses are cheap whores, recommended by the Secret Service, so they must be
good.
Surveys online are another way to data mine, then
you get thousands of junk emails, I
know, I get them all the time. When you buy things they ask for too much
information, just so they can sell you more stuff, or just collect 1,000,000
email addresses and sell them to marketing people. It’s too much, Big Brother
1984, has anybody read that book, I did at grammar school. I always say I’m 100
years old and live at the Vatican, and that I’m a Pagan. But the data miners
persist, they want to know your weight, your height, your inside leg
measurement, I even hear that they want a blood sample, a hair sample, a sperm
sample too, does my photo look so good that people want to breed from me?
Just tell them to go away that’s what I say.
2 Comments
Stuffing
TonyApr 25, '12 9:58 AM
for everyone
Stuffing Tony©
By Michael Casey
Stuffing Tony, what am I talking about, no not our
tame turkey whom we've decided to eat, nor anything else. Tony is in fact a
soft toy, he's my small daughter's favourite, the one she loves the most. He's
a white tiger, he was in fact he was her sister's Birthday tiger from a few
years ago, but she cried until she owned him. Tony is a very washed out
bleached kind of tiger. Tony has been through the washing machine a couple of
times, he was very very dizzy when he came out. Yesterday Tony got a brother,
his brother is a ginger tinger, now christened Ginger. Ginger makes us laugher
because Ginger is how English people call my wife if they cannot pronounce her Chinese name.
Tony is one of 40 stuffed toys the girls have, they
live up a corner behind the sofa which is just behind me. They are allowed out
to form a class when my small daughter plays teacher, afterways they climb back
into their Iceland bags and go to sleep. There is a problem with Tony though,
he's lived in the fast lane and lost a lot of weight. So following strict
instructions, today I have done a stuffing transplant, which is like a heart
transplant but much more important and dangerous. Today without any sedative I
have made Loony Chick donate some stuffing to Tony. I took the scissors and
make an incision in Loony Chick’s
behind, I then proceeded to remove the stuffing. I had previously made an
incision in Tony’s neck at the back, it was then a process of removing from Loony Chick and
stuffing Tony.
The whole procedure lasted 20mins, Tony now looks
very plumped up and proud, as the leader of the pride should look. As for Loony
Chick, he, she or should I say it now looks as if he’d had a few dodgy kebabs,
very slim, but at least the head still looks plump. When the girls come home
from school we’ll decide what to do with Loony Chick, should we stuff him with
chopped up old clothes, or bubble wrap? Or should he face the death sentence
and be sent to a Charity shop, I know it
sounds cruel, but since he came back from Shanghai in 2009 he’d mainly been a
cushion.
These are the very serious things a modern parent
has to deal with, luckily I know how to sew, and I have a special relationship
with all the toys. Now that Tony is full and looks like a weightlifting Tiger I
hope Ginger won’t be jealous, otherwise one of them may have to end up in a
zoo, or the closest equivalent, in one of the 13 charity shops near our house.
1 Comment
Internet
Window ShoppingApr 19, '12 8:22 AM
for everyone
Internet Window Shopping ©
By Michael Casey
Well the Internet really is such a joy, I know this
to be true, I also know it really is a
great for window shopping. If you’re stuck at home for any reason you can still
go shopping, or window shopping just for fun. We have Internet at home for 12
years now. At first I just had a blue Sky Keyboard, it’s probably a modern
antique now, but with having a Shanghai wife we graduated to a computer, you
have to talk to mum after all.
Now Internet lets your fingers do the walking, just
like the Yellow Pages adverts of old. There are major pitfalls though, you can
melt the plastic, and you can end up buying junk at the wrong price. I know of
somebody who was addicted to Internet shopping, spending their lunch breaks
buying stuff and then filling their house till they couldn’t move with heavy
oak furniture to take one example. Then you have to put it back on Ebay to get
rid of the stuff again, sometimes making a loss. So you need to be careful.
How do you go about Internet shopping? You do it
slowly and you must stay within budget, yes there are bargains, Christmas trees
at Easter and such like. Buy your winter coat in the summer or spring, I am
actually waiting for winter coat to be delivered as I speak to you, Sierra
Trading Post is a good place for stuff, as is Cotton Traders. The whole world
is your oyster so take it easy and enjoy
the Internet experience, you could even invite a few friends over of coffee and
cake, make an afternoon of it. Go to the old people’s home and rig up the
computer with a large screen or us the tv in the day room as a monitor. Then
you can begin.
Ok, who wants what? Get the sizes and narrow down
what you are after, the Internet is like a supermarket with traps, not sweets
and gum by the checkout, but other ways to make you spend more. Previous users
also looked at this and that, you even get emails saying they spotted what you
were looking at last time so would you like this. If you are looking for extra
large thermal knickers, then enter that as a Google search and you are off. I
did actually find a place that does do big warm knickers, ask my neighbour he’s
seen our washing line. Open a few windows/tabs and compare winter socks or tvs
or whatever you are after, beware though there is rubbish and cons galore on
the Internet.
Recommendations are best when surfing the web, where
surfing came from I do not know, window shopping is a nicer word. So you’ve
found your stuff, or the friends have all come over and the sandwiches are finished,
so all you have to do is to give your credit card details, then sit back and
wait for the courier to come. Now you can go window shopping in earnest, you’d
always love to live where the rich people live so you can go to rightmove.co.uk
and enter a postcode then you can peek inside through the curtains at other
people’s homes. You will all be impressed or laugh at what other folks have in
their houses, then if you like a particular house you can save the photo as
your own desktop background. I have one very nice house as my desktop
background, its near where our daughter will go to her secondary school in the
Autumn, its only worth 4 times what our house is worth, does anybody have any
good numbers for the lottery?
Once you’ve
found your new home, assuming you do eventually win the lottery, then you can
furniture your dream house from the Internet. You can pick furniture and
fittings, large screen tvs, family size fridges and so on, Indesit is my own
favourite fridge, self -defrosting too. Beds are important so you can pick your
Lecco beds, and go on Utube to see videos of beds and matresses and all kinds
of everything. You can decide what kind of garden furniture you want, pick
plants and shrubs for your dream home, plant a cherry blossom tree in a corner.
All this can be done through the Internet. You can also cut and paste
everything into a word document, so your castles in the air have a soft landing
in a scrap book.
Well my courier has not arrived yet, but I hope you
all get what you need, don’t forget to send me some good lottery numbers too!
1 Comment
All
Things Bright and BeautifulApr 17, '12 7:47 AM
for everyone
All Things Bright and Beautiful ©
By Michael
Casey
I haven’t written a non-pain piece in a while, so
I’ll try and forget the pain and write something new. We’ve just had the half
time holidays and my girls have been playing “shop girls” as they call it. They
even have a sign on their bedroom door saying “open” or “closed”. They steal my
wife’s clothes and prance about upstairs. Our eldest daughter has bigger feet
than my wife now so that’s a relief as she cannot steal my wife’s shoes any
more, but it does not prevent her younger sister from wearing mum’s shoes. There is also the
matter of the beret with silver sequins, that’s an absolute Fashion Must.
Me, I’m not fashionable at all, three girls in the
house is enough, if I gave in to them they’d be beading my eye brows, I do wear
pink on occasions, so that’s as far as I go. If I were maybe 3 stones lighter
I’d try other things, I did see a nice cord jacket in Cotton Traders 48R, it
was bright blue, Kingfisher Blue, my girls called it a “Clown Jacket”. With
encouragement like that what am I supposed to do? I did say if I win
Euromillions I WILL buy the jacket. My wife has a nice light brown one,
although as she is a woman there will be a more accurate colour name, men don’t
do colours. If you think of it its black and white, blue, green, orange as far
as men go, but women at least another 40 names for colours. As far as my hair goes,
its silver, though a friend used to say I was an old man with white hair. As
the colour of our hair change it’s the 7 ages of man.
I remember Ali saying why wasn’t it “Whitemail”
instead of blackmail. We are in the Pink if we have good health, I long to be back in the pink myself. We say we hope be back in the black not in the red
when we do company accounts, we look for the silver linings. We look look look
for the rainbow as the song goes, we may find the crock of gold, all our
troubles may be over and we can pack them up in the old kit bag. Hope springs
up within us, it is now Spring after all, and as Chance the Gardener said “in
the Spring there will be growth.”
0 Comments
Pain
Fear and GodApr 6, '12 11:56 AM
for everyone
Pain Fear and God ©
By Michael Casey
Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified.
Hugo Chavez is praying for his life we are told. So it makes me wonder when do
we, all of us pray? I have to declare an interest straight away, I've had
tennis elbow for nearly 4 months now and boy oh boy does it hurt. I cannot lift
anything, not even the kettle. This would bed bad enough in itself but for the
fact that I've ricked my back badly. In fact the pain is the worst I've ever
had in my life.
So Hugh is praying to be spared, I'm doing a bit of
praying too, but my breath is being taken away by pain. The smell of Deep Heat
fills our house, the girls retreat to the garden for fresh air. I can stand for
10 mins or sit and write here for 30mins, after that I have to lie down because
the pain is so much. I don't want to pop pips so Deep Heat and hot baths are my
tools of choice. My mother used to have bucket loads of pain killers for her
bad back but she never took them, she just used to collect them over the pantry
door. "Jeekus" she used to wince and half scream through her pain. So
I hope its not hereditary.
We all pray when we are in pain, we pray the pain
will end soon. Perhaps pain helps teaches us humility, everything sure is in
perspective when all you can think of is your elbow or your back. My back has
been playing up for 2 weeks on this occasion, how people live in pain and in
wheelchairs makes me wonder. My Aunty Mary was in a wheelchair for the last
13years of her life after a stroke, her
rosary keep her sane. We have test cases for the right to die, after my own
pain filled recent experiences I see things more fully, through the prism of
pain. I applaud pain relief experts, I have to lie down now for a bit before I write any more.
My daughter just threw "TonY" her toy at
me so I'll get up and finish. Pain can destroy us, but it does clear the
clutter of our daily lives, it makes us remember and enjoy the real things in
our lives. I really enjoy the taste of food, the experience is heightened, ordinary
food tastes like a 5star restaurant experience, and I may just be talking about
a bit of toast and peanut butter. If when I finally get better I can remember
the real values, of nice simple food, and enjoying watching tv with my kids
then all the pain will be worth it. Yes I know I'll get negative replies to
this but, I always learn the hard way which is the best way. Yes I hope I'll
never be in such pain again, but if all
our lives we live a feather bed existance then we are not really experiencing
life. Life includes pain.
0 Comments
Swimming
Baths and Painting EggsMar 17, '12 12:38 PM
for everyone
Swimming Baths and Painting Eggs ©
By Michael Casey
Today, Saint Patrick’s Day was new day for swimming
for my big daughter. It meant I couldn’t have a lie in, I had to take here and
her sister to the Baths, luckily they are at the bottom of the road. She’s in
the big pool now as she’s progressed with her swimming. So me and my small
daughter went up to the gallery to watch, the big pool used to have a diving
board many years ago when my brothers went there to swim, maybe 40 years ago.
So Time is catching up on me, my big daughter has my exact features, spooky,
it’s like looking into my own past as I look at her face. Though twice today
when I looked at her face at the baths and afterwards when we went shopping,
she looked Chinese to me. Yes my wife is a Shanghai girl, but normally our
girls look so Western, so it was the Gene Pool reminding me of her mixed
heritage.
Swimming finished and then there was the 30mins
delay while she changed, lads are so much quicker, so any dads out there who
take their girls out for sports bear this in mind. I should say a big thank you
to the folks at the pool who teach swimming, this really is such an important
thing. Two of my brothers swim like seals, my niece has even swum 2 kilometres; the last time I tried
swimming I could have drowned in the hotel pool, but it was 20 years after I
last swum and I was at my heaviest ever.
Girls and shopping always involves the stationary
shop, felts and glues and coloured pens and so forth. If they don’t become
artists of some sort I’ll be very surprised, so when I look at houses I always
think where we could have a studio for them, all I need is a lottery win or to
finally sell a few books. I’m in the quiet of the other room while they are
painting an egg. It’s the Easter project for year 3, whatever year 3 is. My
mother said all she ever got was a boiled egg for Easter, 9 people living in a
stone shack in Cromane Lower County Kerry, the photo is on my site, so when we
all eat too much chocolate and some think Easter is a Cadbury’s invention think
back to 1920s Ireland this Saint
Patrick’s Day.
The girls are
quiet now while they wait for the glue and the papier-mâché to fix, they always
give me inspiration for a blog, so I thank them. I hope when I’m gone they can
look back and read all these blogs, maybe 220
so far, and laugh at themselves and their dad. I’m tired now, the lack
of beauty sleep has tired me out. Mind you how much beauty sleep a Shrek like
dad need?
0 Comments
Judging
a Book By Its CoverMar 14, '12 10:10 AM
for everyone
Judging a
Book By Its Cover ©
By Michael Casey
“He’s a scruff, I don’t like him,” said the girl in
the street.
“She’s a dog,” said the boy looking at a photo of
his friend’s sister.
“He’ll never be Prime Minister,” said people stopped
in the street by Mori.
“If he lost 4stones then maybe,” said the women in
the hairdressers.
I was looking at a few covers, and I thought what
DOES make a difference? I can remember reading Dr No while I was in primary
school, I had to make a cover out of brown paper to hide the silhouette of a
naked woman on the cover, it was 1969 or 1970 and I was a very big reader. The
sex bits in James Bond were boring, but I had to make the cover for a quiet
life.
We all look at the cover when we are in book stores,
I can remember reading Tom Sharpe’s books 25years ago, the cover was a front
and back cartoon telling the books’ story.
It was a good way of getting people to pick up the book and read a bit.
Yes, I will mention my own 4 books. I decided to put my own face on the front
of them, so just what will people think of my face and my book. He looks
stupid, so we won’t buy his books, or it must be funny because he looks funny.
Will anybody think I look sexy just like Right Said Fred, and decide to buy my
cheap books on a whim or will they just think, what a loser and scroll past me on Amazon Kindle. Will my
fuller figure excite the women or even the men, or will both conclude, fat
B£%^&*. I’m sure marketing departments think about such issues constantly.
Even old JKRowling’s books were reissued with different cover so to catch an
older audience.
I could have liposuction to make me ever so sexy,
and then with new and airbrushed photos I could make it as a cover boy on my
own books. I would be fully clothed of course, with my M&S best clothes, in
sizes for the bigger man. I can hear laughter in my mind, anybody who knows me
or has ever seen me, and that may be 100,000 people, as I did work in a hotel
for 3 years, everybody would just laugh.
Laughter is the intention of all my books, but getting people to laugh
with me is a challenge. So even if you don’t want to buy any of my books, just
go to Amazon Kindle and see does your mental picture of me match any of my
words. But most of all don’t judge a book by its cover, even if it has my photo
on the front.
1 Comment
Oxbridge
and still cannot write essays? (c)Mar 5, '12 6:23 PM
for everyone
Oxbridge and still cannot write essays? ©
By Michael
Casey
I had been thinking about my latest blog here on the Daily Telegraph and on my
own site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com then I spotted the article, so that’s
why I’m writing this. My own brothers were Oxbridge, me CPNEC was my university
along with the good old OU. So I’m saddened that nobody can write, if I were in
charge of Oxbridge I’d do a Maths and an English test, and if they fail the
test I wouldn’t let them in.
How can somebody 18plus not write a good essay? I
was lucky because Frank Brown from County Tyrone was our lodger and he donated
a radio, an old Bush radio to me and my brother. You all remember the Bush
radio with the marzipan strip carry handle and the saucer size tuning dial, and
don’t forget the domino size frequency buttons, and the huge battery inside.
That radio was part of my education, we used to listen to The World Tonight,
Douglas Stewart reporting, followed by The Book at Bedtime. I can still
remember falling asleep during the Ghost and Mrs Muir. I must have spent
20years listening to Radio 4 constantly, and it was only then that I started
writing myself, and it took me a year to get it right. Now I have 4
“masterpieces” on Amazon Kindle.
So why can’t students write? Is it too much cannabis
or other Class As, or alcohol.No of course not. Is it too much time playing
computer games? Too much sport or sex? Or didn’t they have to write an essay a
week in English. We had to write an essay a week for Mr Noon, here’s the title,
now go write two pages. We had a book list of 40 books we had to work our way
through too. I was a natural reader, I read nearly everything on the shelves by
my school desk in Primary school. I continued reading through my Grammar school
days, then on through my twenties. Does anybody actually read nowadays?
I’ve done a bit of Esol teaching, I’m available
right now too, but with Esol you encourage people to listen to Radio4, to
practice ten new sentences a day, to read the free newspapers on the bus, to
watch BBC news. Lots of simple things can help a foreigner pick up the
language, one of our family friends is off to Oxford in the Autumn, her English
is perfect, just like Helen Bonham Carter yet she was not born here, she is
Chinese. So the obvious point is why can’t people born and raised here do the
same.
Essay writing is all about a beginning, a middle and
an end. You have to prove your argument too, why was this important, why is
History really about Geography. History is Geography, because one leader wants
to steal the other country’s resources, Hitler wanted living room, Napoleon
wanted to conquer Russia too. In a History essay you’d make the bold statement
and then you’d give proof, Facts, Detail, Proof, Latin as I once wrote down on
a piece nearly 40 years ago. Once you
have proved your point you can then give lessons for the future, the past shows
us the way NOT to go again, a do not enter sign. History repeats itself, is
another phrase, we all chase the blonde who’ll slap our face, but still we
follow her. Monroe is, was, and always will be a honey trap, History shows us
many Monroes, if we could control ourselves and keep our hands to ourselves
then we’d learn the lessons of History, and we wouldn’t need living room, just
stick to our own girl in our own bedroom.
It would be nice if people read and listened to the
radio, I fear I’m the final generation of radio lovers, radio is great if only
those Oxbridge students listened to radio then they might be better at writing
essays. Or they could pay me £xx an hour and I’ll teach a few classes. I’d
teach them to love words, to adore words, no not as good as having Monroe in
your bed, but at least you’d pass your exams, and that would keep the Dons
happy.
excuse my convict haircut
0 Comments
Only
2 quid each my 4 booksMar 1, '12 11:30 AM
for everyone
New for National Book Week
my "ouvres" or books in plain English now
at a lower price of £2 or $3 or 2.70 something Euros.
Tell all your friends.
2 Comments
Alistair
Alcohol and MeFeb 26, '12 4:46 PM
for everyone
Alistair Alcohol and Me ©
By Michael Casey
I’ve just watched Alistair Campbell’s Panorama piece
on Alcohol. I found it too understated. He should have actually shown people
covered in their own pee and sick, bleeding too. Yes there was a little of that,
but it was too cold, a programme an Oxford Don would have given
Wednesday May 23rd 1979 it was 3pm I’d only just got
out of bed, I’d been on night shift, I worked for a Market Research Company, we
deal with Alcohol sales. Quick Quick screamed Mrs Madden, she was our lodger
from the house next door, so I tucked my shirt in and ran next door. It was
Andy, her husband and loveable alcohol. He was on his back and gurgling. So I
tried a bit of CPR, I realised quickly tah an ambulance was needed. I ran up the
entry and banged on Mr Dixon’s door, he had a phone we did not, nobody did in
our area at that time. Quick get an ambulance I shouted to Mr Dixon, I
frightened him a little. His son was a policeman, yes, all those Evening All
jokes, but it was an ambulance we needed.
The ambulance arrived and I had to open up the doors
so they could come through the house. They tried the black bulb with face mask
attached but it was too late, too much booze and 3 previous heart attacks now
was the death chime for Andy, the loveable drunk from the catholic club down
the road. I helped put Andy on the chair and he was taken away by the ambulance
lady and a man. My brother came home from school while all this was happening,
then I looked down the road and I could see my mother coming up the road with
her leather shopping bags full of food for us the 5000 her large family. So
they had missed it, I had had to deal with it. It was then I cried, you don’t
cry while its going on you are too busy, throwing the furniture out the way so
you can try and do CPR with Andy lying flat. But it had been to no avail.
Our other lodgers were nearly all Born Again
Alcoholic, so I’d say to Alistair Campbell, tell it as it is, squalor with a
Capital S. Get up, go to work, go to pub, go to bedsit, get up, go to work, go
to pub, home to bedsit etc etc, occasionally have a wash. I can tell many tales
of alcoholism, I’ve seen it at close hand, as you can imagine none of us Caseys
ever became drinkers. I think I used to average 24pints, no not a week, but
maybe in a year. So what do I say about alcohol, yes enjoy it, Jesus’s first
miracle was water into wine after all. Don’t be a Puritan, enjoy a beer or two,
but also remember me a half asleep 20year old having to do CPR after getting up
after a night shift.
If one person, just one person reading this has 2nd
thoughts about alcohol and/or any other addiction then Andy’s death won’t have
been in vain.
0 Comments
Spring
FamilyFeb 26, '12 11:14 AM
for everyone
Its really nice here in Birmingham, I had to go up
the road to buy bread before we all had breaksfast, we like Warbuttons best,
the orange wrapper one. After breakfast we knew we'd have to go out and buy
another loaf, so that job was left for me. 2nd trip up the road to Iceland I
had to buy eggs as well, JJ is going to be cooking. The other family highlight
is choosing a mobile phone for our biggest daughter, she'll be off to
grammar/secondary school in the Fall as you folks Autumn. So she'll need a
phone for safety and "grownup" reasons. The costs are stratospheric,
no wonder only the President can afford a Blackburry. Though some of the
electronics are very nice the Iphone 4S et al. The built in cameras are better
than regular cameras too. It woud be a nice present to win in a raffle. Then there
is which tarrif to have, pay have you go with a nice phone. Me I don't
even have a mobile, two cocoa tins with
a length of string attached would be fine by me. Or smoke signals, like Red
Indians, or I could just use telepath.
Telepath could be fun, though I could get my face slapped too.
0 Comments
Am I
a girl? Feb 24, '12 9:57 AM
for everyone
Am I a Girl?
By
Michael Casey
Am I a girl? I just bought some hand cream from
Superdrug. I have cracked skin and its almost bleeding, eczema perhaps. The 3
girls in my house use lotions and potions on hands and faces, they said I
should get some, I'd not bothered for years so finally I bought some. There's
so much choice, I nearly bought baby oil stuff, finally I spotted a product that boasted to work fast and was
clinically proven and best of all was it was only 3quid for 400ml. It does
smell a bit like woodwork glue. So I can call myself a carpenter and not a
girl.
2 Comments
To Be
a Writer or 2B a Preacher?Feb 18, '12 6:00 AM
for everyone
To Be a Writer or 2B a Preacher ?
By michaelgcasey
To Be a Writer or 2B a Preacher (c) By Michael Casey
When you start writing you think you are the bees
knees, then everybody says you are total c(*&, which makes you cry and you
want to put your head in the oven, only its electric so you end up with a tan
like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters.
Then you join a critics club where you all sit
around and try and destroy each others ego. So this makes you so angry that you
join a gun club. Your anger finds an avenue so you end up in the Olympics
shooting team, and all you really want to do is write.
But still you want to write so after 3 Olympic golds
you get bored with shooting and return to your first love. So you write about
assassins, you are an expert on shooting after all, no Pulitzers but you do
have 3 Olympic Golds. You get fed up of writing about sad and lonely losers who
get a gun and shoot people, or about high powered 007 types. But you are such
an expert, and the money rolls in.
You discover God and decide to be a preacher, and If
they don’t believe you could shoot them. You find a niche and become a great
and good preacher, you write all your own sermons and they are good, but 10
pages isn’t as good as 500pages of block busters. But it is a beginning. You
get married in your own church with you doing your own service. The Church of I
Forgive Myself Ministry. You have a few kids and seduce your secretary on the
side, and her sister is so hot too, so you cann’t resist her, and you get her
pregnant in the office behind your church, and then there is the cleaner.
Preying is your speciality, not praying. You have your mid life crisis and run
away, emptying out the bank accounts while you leave.
And if only you sold all your books on Amazon
Kindle, none of this would have happened. But it does give you an idea for a
new book. No not your own life story, that’s always boring for a writer. No
you’ll write about stamp collecting.
End
Well folks I really do have 4 things on Amazon
Kindle, only 8dollars each so go take a peek, you can try The Butcher The Baker
and The Undertaker first
then maybe I’ll become a writer, a paid one.
Or do you guys want me to be a Preacher, with a
Birmingham England accent?
0 Comments
And
Today's Blog IsFeb 14, '12 6:58 PM
for everyone
And Today’s Blog Is ©
By Michael Casey
I was wondering what to write about today, I had
already mentioned Dickens the other day, so what should I write about. I have
put Dickens picture as a desktop background to inspire me, though I do change
my background every couple of weeks. I normally spot a house I’d love to live
in and it becomes my desktop background, even though it would take a lottery
win to live there. It’s always best to live in hope, to dream of the nice house
and now with a mahogany desk like Dickens’ from which I could talk to the
world. You can get some really really nice desks, just google and you will be
amazed. We have the bog standard computer desk which you get from PC World for
30quid, but should my dream come true I’d really go to town, it would be a
sensual experience to be in front of your desk as you write/talk to people.
I had to have a cigarette just then as my
imagination was working overtime, though the cigarette was in my imagination
too. Perhaps Rupert Murdoch will give me a slot in the Sun when he visits over
the weekend, just on the website, I do have a Chinese wife just like him….
Inspiration for writing comes from everywhere, the girls were baking cookies at
their Godparents house this afternoon, they returned with cookies all wrapped
in plastic and sealed with a ribbon, very professional. This could be a subject
for a blog in itself, David and Fran are very good to them. I could blog about my shamrock which seems to
be killed off by the very harsh freezing Winter nights, and now one week later
they are so forlorn. I could mention clover, which is similar to shamrock, but
I mean Clover the spread from Iceland which is ½ price at the moment, a good
spread on top of crumpet is so so nice as the Clover drips down your fingers.
I had to go and make some crumpet just then, or so I
will tomorrow, as I neglected to buy any crumpet today, I just used my
imagination, yes I use my imagination a lot, I’m dreaming of a nice new job
where I can be useful and have fun. Well it’s time for bed now so I’ll dream of
Rupert Murdoch giving me a job, though I’d write for anybody, soul for sale, no
I just like talking to the world as I did in my concierge days.
0 Comments
Dickens,
Christmas and all that (c)Feb 5, '12 11:08 AM
for everyone
Dickens, Christmas and all that ©
By Michael Casey
I was reading a gushy piece in the ads so of course
I hated it. I switch off if I read gushy stuff. If I meet pretentious people I
hate them immediately too. Style is a very difficult thing, my own developed
and that’s what I and readers are stuck with. People nowadays do have a smaller
attention span, and if you watch satellite tv then you will see what I mean. It
really is a bad thing, no wonder Americans go to cinema in droves, the tv is so
bad and with all the adverts on top, heaven help us.
Now reading is a very personal thing, as is soaking
in the bath with just you and your thoughts for company, or maybe a radio in
the background. I used to stop up late to finish the latest Alistair MacLean, I
read all his books 30 years ago, some in one session till 1am or 2am. I love
radio so I spent 20years plus listening to Radio4 too. Finding a book you like
and an author too is great. I read all the Sherlock Holmes books when I was 10
or 11 so I was a fan. I watched the new and great tv series set in today’s
world, so I rushed back to the books, sadly after over 40 years I just could
not read them again. Sometimes its best to keep the memory and not go back.
Dickens is big, we all love A Christmas Carol, I
have even cried while listening to it on the radio after Midnight Mass, I think
we may have had to read some in grammar school, Oliver Twist or something. My
own view is that students should be given a week or two to read the set text
before starting to do English Lit on it. English Lit can kill a book, we did
Over the Bridge by Richard Church, all I remember was that he wanted a piano,
and was he ungrateful for all the hard work his parents had to do to provide
it. Correct me if my memory after 40years is wrong. Over my shoulder we have an
electronic piano, so I’m smiling as I talk.
Dickens used to be serialised before his work
appeared in book form, nowadays we all blog and then hope people go to our site
and then read more and final buy a book
or two. The modern method of writing would I think appeal to Dickens, he could
travel and perform and after a busy day
blog away with his thoughts ablaze, a strong drink on his desk. If ever
I get lucky I’d have an old fashioned desk and a big sturdy chair, and space
for a pitcher of orange juice right
beside my computer screen. I’d have a
nice old fashioned clock on the desk too, so that I could time how long
it took for people to comment on my newest blog. 200years from now I’ll be
dust, but perhaps my great great grandchildren will still wonder why my hair
was so white and why did a Shanghai girl marry me.
I hope it’s a great story just like Charles Dickens.
0 Comments
Tree
StoryJan 31, '12 2:18 PM
for everyone
Tree Story©
By
Michael Casey
I had a tree at the bottom of my garden for maybe 20
years, it was a Laburnum tree, or Golden Chain. My mother had one at the bottom
of her garden for years and years, I don’t know where she got it from, but
every May it was glorious, golden chains of flowers, really really pretty.
When I got a house of my own I decided that I wanted
a Golden Chain or Laburnum of my own too, so I
took a sapling from my mum’s garden and planted it at the bottom of my own garden, I think I
must have taken the 4 foot sapling on the bus to get it to my house. After a
year it flowered, glorious and yellow, a sight to behold, a perpetual memory of
my mother who had green fingers as far as her elbows. She could dive into a
hedgerow or into a municipal garden while on holiday in Weston-Super-Mare and take a cutting then throw it into a
plastic bag with a bit of water and then take it home 2 weeks later where she’d
plant it and it would grow for her. Anybody else would have a dead plant, not
my mother, she passed on her green fingers to my eldest brother who has a show
garden.
Trees grow and twist and bend as they grow,
wonderful shapes and patterns just like a contortionist at the circus, but so
much better. So the tree always reminded me of my mum and her love for all her big
family. I also have Shamrock growing by the wall outside my back door, again I
brought it to my home from the family home, and again it reminds me of my mum
and my old aunty from Ballyheigh in County Kerry, it was Aunty Mary who had
sent us some maybe 35years ago. So plants and trees are a token of Love, I’m
sure everybody can remember planting something with somebody, together
something was shared and is special because it was shared together.
Yesterday I cut down my Laburnum tree it had
outgrown the space there was for it, I don’t know shall we dig it up and
replant or just scatter seeds all around, and have a scented blossom plant grow
on the grave of the Laburnum. I’ll consult with my two daughters, we can wait a
month for the cold snap to stop biting at our ankles and then we can decide on
colours and smells. Having said all that a Cherry Blossom tree would be nice,
just like they have in Japan, after all we are a Shanghai family , and we do really have Japanese
neighbours just 2 doors away.
Flowers and plants are really expressions of love,
learned men and poets and gardeners will explain it far better than me. My
mother’s parting gift was white flowers all over my sister’s front garden, our
mother had died and a few weeks after she had died white flowers popped up all
over my sister’s garden. Mum had sneaked up to the house and planted seeds, so
after her death they were a smile from Heaven. And Nature itself is God’s
smile.
3 Comments
EbooksJan
30, '12 12:06 PM
for everyone
Ebooks©
by Michael
Casey
Just read DT, a bit about Ebooks. First I must
declare an interest, I have 4 for sale on Amazon Kindle. Now to ebooks, I’ve
seen a few people on the bus reading them and I have to agree they are great.
Its so simple to upload, and then away you go. Getting folks to go and read
your stuff is another matter entirely if you are a writer, but the technology
is so sexy, and just like the article said its instantaneous. In Roman days it was orgies on tap, now you
have books on tap, satisfying the brain instead of any other organs. The
ability to read everything ever written, and in such a small package; only the
rich could read and own books, then we had Gutenberg and the printing press, it
changed society forever, as will the ereader.
We all watched Star Trek when we were small and we
were fascinated by the gadgets, just what did Ohoora have in her ear. Now we
have delivery men and women with an electronic
signing form, the gas man has a computer to take readings, in the near
future all readings will be sent down the line. So ebooks will dominate, but
yes I too like the feel and touch
of book, the smell too, just as the Romans liked the feel and touch
of their pleasures , as readers of books we all like a nice book, something to cuddle up with, but
let’s leave the Romans to their vices.
Mr Trout my old History teacher at grammar school
advised reading Don Camillo and I did, it was a wonderful experience, I found a
nice book shop in Blackpool while we were
on summer holidays and I got all
the books. I rediscovered them 30 years
later and I have an omnibus to the right of me, I’ve ½ read or should I say
reread it. It really is such a joy, I read it in English , but you can also
find it published online too, who knows in the future it will be an ebook. The technology for ebooks will I hope make us
cherish them more in the future; I have
The Outline Of History by H.G. Wells on a shelf to my right, a present from
when I left primary school, perhaps my grandchildren will have ebooks and
ereaders on their shelves.
1 Comment
Chinese
Mother I live that lifeJan 28, '12 8:10 AM
for everyone
Chinese Mother I live that life ©
By
Michael Casey
I was just looking at the Daily Telegraph when I
spotted a piece about a book Chinese Mother, I scanned it and thought, I don’t
need to read this I already live this, I have a Shanghai wife, so for 13years I
know all about Chinese things. The work ethic, the saving ethic, and the
religion ethic, what did he just say the religion ethic? Yes the religion
ethic, if and when you meet a Chinese Christian you will be amazed. I don’t
know if they are all converts or just how many generations of Christians they
are, but I do know when they believe they really believe.
I’m a Catholic
from County Kerry, 1st generation born in Birmingham, but my Faith goes
back 100s of years, from the nipple for
generations, very very poor but a faith so rich, see photo Cromane Kerry. Now
when you visit Chinese church you may see a lesson going on, lots of adults
doing Bible study, the students in their 30s and 40s may all be PhDs, 12
students as many as there were disciples with one teacher, who is of course a
PhD too. Once we were at a meeting, and the great thing is there is always food
afterwards, just imagine that. Anyway you may ask is he a PhD and the answer is
yes yes
yes and yes, you notice somebody empting the bins, is he a PhD, no not
him, he is a Professor, Andrew may smile if ever he reads this. The point is
they are committed to what they love, their love of God, just being average is
no good, just being good is no good,
being very good may be acceptable, but being the best of the best is
their target, it’s the norm for Chinese Christians. That’s why they study Bible
so much, we have 3 or 4 Bibles in our house 2 in Chinese, and one is bilingual
Bible, my kids are encourages to study it every day. I’m classed as the pagan
because I don’t daily read the Bible, I just remind my convert wife that I have
heard the Bible in Mass for over 50years now. I did used to read it on Sundays
too, but that’s no good for a Shanghai wife, I am a pagan, I may as well be
wearing wode and dance around the garden naked. If I can’t pass A level Bible
studies with an A******* then I’m useless. This really is the standard Chinese
Christians try to attain.
In other aspects of life Chinese people want to be the best, computing for example;
we had a problem on our home computer and we ended up with a totally clued up
kid come and fix it for us. The point to all this is that we have to emulate,
compete and try and be better than them, and yes it can be done, we just have
to raise our game. I’m fortunate because my Birmingham/Shanghai daughters have
a head start because of a nagging, lovingly nagging mother, I’m the more relaxed one in the family. This
of course means that I’m classed as useless, however my girls have inherited
the love of writing from me, or it could be from their Chinese granddad and a
Political Editor Chinese Great Uncle. In
the end though it’s the Love from everywhere, from Ireland from China from
Birmingham from Shanghai, THIS is always the key, without Love there is
nothing, there is a famous Bible passage that states all this. If I were
Chinese in a nanosecond I’d quote the chapter and verse of it all this, I think
its Paul’s letter to somebody or another. I’m no Bible Scholar after all, I’m
just a writer looking for a publisher.
*******
Joe Biden emailed, he said now that the lady from GSA has given him some money
he could afford to get new sunglasses. I didn't have the heart to tell him I like large size folding Ray Bans, but I'll accept cast offs. My ray bans lasted my 9 years, they were unclaimed lost property. But I'll accept Uncle Joe's old ones, I had an Uncle Joe too. So If a photo of me appears in aviators, they belong to Joe Biden. I was thinking of asking Donald Trump for a pair of Ray Bans large size folding, but the White House won't talk to me, they are too busy packing.
This is Totoro our cat, I said they could have a dog if I died or a cat if I had a heart attack, weeks later unplanned Quadruple heart bypass, hence Totoro the cat.
