And Tonight's Talk Is

And Tonight’s Talk Is ©

By

Michael Casey

Well I went to the shop and came home happy with some nice apples, our regular ones have a different skin taste, so we had to abandon them, we don’t peel apples here in England. So we have other juicy apples to keep us happy, as well as bananas which I love too. What’s this got to do with anything? I don’t know but who knows when we get to the bottom of the page, place your bets now. I got home happy as I managed to fix my computer with the Fresh start option. So life was a full fruit bowl, in passing you do know of course in some cultures they eat their fruit very very ripe, almost putrid in fact.

Then the iron curtain of pain fell, I had to hang up on my brother as I needed to lie down, so I’ve had a nap and a bite to eat. I did start watching Pierce Brosnan’s 007 but after Daniel Craig he doesn’t look tough enough any more, more pantomime that 007. In passing one of our Polish neighbours looks like a very young Daniel Craig, he had his shirt off in all the heat and my other neighbour a lady almost swooned.

Which brings me to tonight, 9^th August 2018, I spoke earlier in the day about a lodger who was like an uncle to me, it’s 38 years ago today since he died on the bus coming home from his riding holiday. Then tonight I was going to sit here and speak about Casting Bread on the Water, however when I checked my titles list I discovered an old piece which I just scanned and thought was nice, so I had already covered that ground. So I come to the table empty handed but at least the pain has subsided for the day.

So what do you do when plan A is no good, nor plan B, so you improvise with plan C. Rather like me talking to you tonight, I’m listening to Vangelis playing some Oriental music, yes I’m padding as I muse what will amuse you. However it has made me think of another idea, and that is, are we ever ready for anything? Were you ready for work this morning or did you spill milk over your trouser or skirt, so you had to grab a 2^nd garment? Or you’d have gone to work in your long-johns or frilly knickers which look like a shoe lace with a tiny handkerchief attached.

So how do you react to being shamed, as in when you spill milk over yourself at that important meeting? Do you say you have just bought a new washing machine so you want a full 10Kilo load to test it out. When you get home you’ll strip naked in front of the washing machine and watch it spin round and around, just as Totoro your cat does. And then you get back to giving your presentation to the Japanese, they love Tototo so you have covered up your mishap wonderfully.

Life is all about improvising, being quick or dead. Having worked lots of night shifts in Birmingham city centre in the days when every night I had to pass through one of the most dangerous underpasses there was, 40 years ago, I knew how to stay alert. In the actual computer room when kit fails you had to improvise too,40 years ago computers used to fail. I’m talking about the days when a disc drive was as big as a washing machine, not one digit on your finger. When DEC PDP 1170s were as big as wardrobes and had toggle switches and light at the front, just like in very very old Dr. Who.

So improvising in a computer room, or in my days at the hotel, CPNEC Birmingham, you just had to be able to cope. You would finish your shift covered in sweat, good job you had two sets of uniform. People can be stupid or too busy talking so a toddler gets its head stuck in a revolving door. My own kids were toddlers back then so I was child aware and watched out for such things. Sadly in real life parents can be too busy on the phone so the kids suffer, or so stupid taking selfies they fall off buildings.

Coping is a strange thing, some people can switch to emergency mode and do all that is needed, and only afterwards breakdown and cry. Like me when another of our lodgers died via heart attack right in font of me, just after I’d got out of bed after a night shift. Our emergency services and armed forces train and train and train again so they can protect and serve as it says on the badge in USA. And thank God for them all.

So you must understand that people doing stressful jobs have to let off steam, I of course dress as a woman and go to bars to see how many compliments I get. Others just sit and watch tv, as they eat all the fruit from the fruit bowl. So you can understand the screams and shouts if there is no fruit in that fruit bowl. Not everybody is bananas, despite what you say behind my back, you bunch of grapes you. Apples are rosy and so should your complexion be. Oranges are not the only fruit, and being squirted in the eye is no fun, but if the tangerines are perfect it really is a dream, a tangerine dream. Figs are good and can become your reason d’etre if they help keep you cool. When all is said an done a bowl of fruit is our very life, colourful and sometimes hard to unpeel, but crunchy or soft, or juicy trickling everywhere, without this fruit inside us we would break the bowl we call this earth, and all would shatter, no glass ceilings, just broken glass in space.