the final hurdle

The Final Hurdle?

By Michael Casey

Well I hear there is space on Fox News, so why not have a Post Card from Birmingham? Letter from America ran for 50 years, so why not a Postcard from Birmingham, a 10year contract would be enough. A 15min programme once a week, or even once a month, the 15min show would actually last 30 mins if you add on the adverts. Just so long as I finish a sentence before the ads cut it, then they could put the Ad free version on the company website.

What would I talk about? Well after 1,047,497 words so far over 30 years I’m sure I’d think of something, or I could just sit in a chair and read some of my 1000 stories out. I remember John Hurt in Frank Oz’s The Storyteller over 30 years ago, perhaps I could be him, no need for makeup I’m ugly enough already.

Would a Posh Birmingham England accent be good enough for an American audience, you can listen to my voice at www.michaelgcasey.typepad.com and there is a snippet of video on my Amazon writers page along with my 13 books. Yes this is me being Shameless, it is in effect my audition, I just hope I pass.

Strange things do happen though, such as today somebody in Singapore reading a piece I translated into Korean on my alternative Wordpress site. Though it could be somebody from the North Korean embassy. I did get 21,000 Polish readers previously too, so my Comedy or shall I say Humour writing does transcend Borders.  Though if the Scottish get their way The Borders will be Independent.

All this is side-tracking me away from what I was going to talk about. The Final Hurdle, which can be death, or it can be the thing that swings it for you when you buy a house, or get that dream job, or get the girl of your dreams. So what exactly is a final hurdle, it’s the final straw that breaks a camel’s back.

You put up with so much then one day when you’ve been on the pop, that means been out drinking heavily, and you really do need to brush your teeth in the morning you stagger to the bathroom only to discover that bastard boyfriend or girlfriend or mistress has squeezed the toothpaste in the middle AGAIN.

This irritates you so much, you storm back into the bedroom and say, my boyfriend never does that, you let the cat out of the bag because you are so angry. So all is revealed, well you are naked already, but now your girlfriend knows you are cheating on her and with a man. So she kicks you out and you have to go live with your boyfriend in a flat above a taxi booking office. Which means you are never late for work again as you get free taxis, but really your girlfriend’s 5 bedroomed house was so much better, if only you bit your lip about the toothpaste.

When you are looking for a house a home, a 5 bedroomed detached house would be great but Rupert Murdoch himself would have to be your new boss at Fox for that to happen. So instead you have to compromise, and for some it was because you compromised your girlfriend that you need a place of your own. If you use superglue as contraception none of this would happen. You superglue your bedroom door shut, or superglue the zip on his jeans. Then you’ll only have babies when you are ready.

As you look for a house there are so many things that must be on your tick list, price or the bank of mum and dad is the first one. You want to live close to your family but not so close they can hear your passion, or screams when you are watching Manchester United. We actually stumbled over a house for sale right next door to my brother’s last week.

Sadly Timing is important. Our daughter needs to attend her current school for 3 more years, it is in the top 1% in the entire country. Just by coincidence we happen to live near it. So as nice as the house next door to my brother’s is, today it’s just too far away from the school. A home has to be near a corner shop too, if you live near a corner shop even though country living is great, a long walk to a shop is too much, especially for me post quadruple heart bypass and with add on side order of Arthur my arthritis.

There are hurdles galore when you are house hunting, such as size of rooms and kitchen size. You will never guess what’s the biggest hurdle for us in our house hunting quest. Can you guess? You all owe me a pint of Stella Artois if you cannot. It’s the SUN. No I’m not a Page 3 photographer who takes pictures of naked girls, no it’s not that. Nor has Rupert Murdoch given me column in the paper either, it’s the top seller in England by the way, he’d only give me a one inch column anyway, just enough room for my hyperlink in his papers.

No, when I mean sun I mean SUN, the thing in the sky, we get loads of sun where we live, so when we look at houses we switch off any lamps in any houses we are looking at.  If we are not drenched in loads of natural sunshine then the house is rubbish. We’ve seen some really nice houses but if they are dark we just could not live ether. That is the final hurdle for us, THE LIGHT. In China South Facing apartments sell for much more, and remember my wife is Chinese too, so the Light is a major selling point.

So that’s all the hurdles I want to talk about tonight, though I’ll end on some philosophy, the greatest hurdle we all have in life is ourselves, and it’s when we have a good rhythm and don’t knock those hurdles down that’s when we have a smoother life. But speaking from my own life experience it’s when you get up from the floor with all the hurdles scattered all around you, that is when you find your inner strength, and if you are lucky you have friends and family who cheer you on, but truly the answer my friends is not blowing in the wind, its within you.