Ken Dodd, Steven Hawking and Me

Sir Ken Dodd, Steven Hawking and Me ©

By Michael Casey

Well Ken Dodd died, I did ask you all to pray for him the other week but God decided to give George Burns a break from the Paradise Club, so Ken was called to the stage. The smoke from George Burn’s cigars was getting on Gabriel’s wings so George was ushered to one side. As for Steven Hawking, he’s just had the shock of his life, God does exist.

Einstein was there to greet him by blowing a raspberry, he was wearing a Told You So Tee shirt. I myself did look like Einstein when I was in hospital overnight, as I said to a doctor, The Einstein look without the Intelligence. I was also unshaven and bedraggled, but today after visiting my Pakistani barbers I now look like a 60s astronaut, my hair, not my age, though I am docking with that age this year.

My barber was happy he has had his religious batteries recharged after being on Pilgrimage, not the Haj but a smaller version, he did say the word but I’ve forgotten it. I was looking at his picture of Medina on his barber shop wall. So I mentioned I’d been on a Christian pilgrimage. Though if you go to Lourdes you also get food and alcohol and cafe life.

Now back to Ken and Steven in Paradise, will Steven Hawking get a suit just like John Travolta’s and start dancing all along the Yellow Brick road. Personally I think he will, he’ll be dancing till he drops, which is forever if you have reached Paradise. Drop splits and high kicks galore, he’ll kick his specs into orbit too. Though I think he’ll keep his own teeth and not favour the Trump sparkling white teeth.

You make me feel like dancing to the tune of the Old Grey Whistle Test. Limbo dancing too, because he is Free at Last, Free at Last. I’m sure he may even try Pole Dancing because he was a fan of Stringfellows after all. And it is Einstein’s Birthday today too.

Meanwhile Ken is giving his first 5 millennium show, which thankfully for the angels lasts but a blink of an eye. God does have a sense of humour after all, he even has all the Depeche Mode albums, well that’s a rumour I heard. Ken is given a haircut and American Pearly White teeth, as a lesson in humility, perfect teeth. But God does have a soft spot for Ken’s humour so he gives him A Big Bang stopwatch to time his act with. It is graduated in billion year markers, Ken is so touched he sings better than Andrea Bocelli for 3 million years, which is 10 hours on God’s time scale as God does like Ken.

So what am I talking about today, have you all cracked the code?It is as ever simple, I am a simple man, ok a simpleton, I’ve said it before you all say it. What I’m talking about is Freedom, freedom from pain, from old age and from prejudice too. Steven Hawkings is breakdancing with Einstein while God sniggers in the background. They both know nothing about Physics, its just a magic trick the Angles invented when they were not playing the harp.

We should all laugh and dance and fight for fun and life throughout our lives. We should never let people say you cannot. You are ugly with bad teeth and hair or marooned in a wheelchair. We can all do our best even if only baby steps are all we can manage. We have the right to be whoever we want to be, look at the stars and not at our feet Hawking said. Though if he had time for Oscar Wilde he would have said I may be in the gutter but I am looking at the stars.

Never let people look down at you, you are and always will be as good as anybody, as my mum would and did say. Break those chains of ignorance and spite that can occur, just because you are different. If I can become a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham then anything is possible. Everybody has a talent, even if it just making tea, or just the sympathy. So go out and dance and amaze people.

As for me I’m hoping the Guardian gives me Miss Hanson’s column now that she is in Heaven too, if I show them the size of my back list their eyes will water. And I can go on for hours just as Ken Dodd did, and I don’t mean the singing. So I have high hopes as the song goes, and if I say my prayers tonight perhaps Steven Hawking will ask as his free wish for a new arrival in Heaven, that Michael Casey get’s his column.

Though he might suggest it is stuck up my Black Hole till it disappears. Though I could pole dance from the column, and maybe that would impress him. Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer and Pole Dancer in shades from Birmingham .

Hope does always spring Eternal.