no.4 m4 stories

no.4  m4 stories

Return of the BlogNov 12, '11 5:36 PM

for everyone

Return of the Blog ©

By

Michael Casey

I’ve been away from my blog for a couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get folks to go to www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and sample my wares, I’ve been using Facebook and Linkedin to try and whip up interest in my work. Amazon Kindle now has 4 books of mine waiting to be discovered. I’m Michael Casey, not the Michael Casey the monk who writes religious books, nor Michael Casey the DIY expert, just look for my fat face on the covers then it’s the right Michael Casey.

Poetry is a big big thing, Facebook poetry section has almost 22,000 members, I have written 2 great poems in 20 years, other than that the standard on Facebook Poetry is very  very high, better than my other attempts at poetry. However as somebody once said my general writing was in itself poetic, so I’m trying to impress the Poetry People with my other stuff.

Today is End Of The 11+ plus day in our house, my 10year old daughter did this exam this morning, if she passes she’ll go to King Edwards Grammar School. I can remember my own 11+ and the deputy head teacher whispering to me, “if you’re stuck go on, don’t waste time.” So did I cheat? I did pass and I did go to one of the best grammar schools at the time, 1970s and all that. Nowadays there are fewer and fewer grammar schools, if my daughter fails there are still two good              ex-grammar schools just up the road from where we live. I suppose its discipline that matters the most, if you are in a school where the other pupils are badly behaved then you and the rest of the class suffer. So really I don’t care where my daughter goes, and pass and fail does not matter, so long as she is happy.

We are celebrating tonight with duck and pancakes, my Shanghai wife is a good cook, she just had to “steal” some leeks from our local take-away friends so that we could celebrate. End of the 11+ study regime, 2 or 3 hours of extra study every night for months, folders from a Chinese friend at Birmingham University. The folders are now in the boot of our car and will be returned, however in 3 years time they will no doubt return for my younger daughter. In Glee the other week the Chinese character got an A- , which was a F as far as his family was concerned.

That line made me laugh out loud, but if you have Chinese family or friends it is so so true, there must be 20 PhDs at least who attend the Birmingham Chinese Church, so their kids are all off the scale as far as studying goes. I used to think look at all those PhDs, then there was one emptying the dustbins, he wasn’t a PhD, no he was a Professor. I must also add they are amongst the kindest people I have ever met in my life.

So I’ll finish by saying my half Chinese daughters, are A++++++++++ in my heart.

0 Comments

Grammar or Style my reply to a Linkedin pieceOct 25, '11 11:25 AM

for everyone

I was probably the last person in England to be taught grammar, early 1970s. It is rare for it to be taught now, but Google away and contradict me.

Grammar is scaffolding for language, just as gossip is the glue that binds communities together.

People who are fixated about grammar etc, are stupid as New Yorkers might say. Its the message

that matters, sure if the words are so badly written that nobody can understand that does matter.

Its very American to go on courses to learn how to write or go to Journalism School for 4 years.

I'd say don't waste your time.

Me I listened to BBC Radio4 for 20 years before I picked up a pen, its speech radio with drama,news and so on. So from 10 to 30 I must have heard thousands of plays and so on. Then when I picked up a pen nearly 25 years ago I had a good start, but it still took me a year of trying before I said to myself, I can write.

Style you either have or don't have, you can steal somebody elses or over analyse every book you have ever read. My own experience of Eng Lit is that it kills what you should be reading.

enjoy the book first and then think why you loved it afterwards. If the passion is there, then  make love, don't ring your priest first, just make love. English should be such  a passion, I'm told I have a good style, I hope because its funny, but you cannot analyse a joke, its either funny or its isn't. Humour does depend on the delivery, its the way I tell them was what one  great Northern Irish comedian said.  A favourite uncle only has to purse his lips and we all start to smile, then when he says something we are in stitches. I know from my hotel experience  at CPNEC I could raise a laugh, why, because I was practicing all day every day 12 hours a day, with such practice I had to be good. Just as a singer practices and reaches her peak, so does a writer. Bad style or bad writer, say like Dan Brown, can kill enjoyment so you cannot read more than a page, yet we are all different, some people think Dan Brown is great, I do not. I'll leave you with that thought. My stuff is on www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com and The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker my lead book is on Amazon Kindle with 3 other books of mine, just look for my face of the covers.

2 Comments

Just Say No to Warren BuffettOct 22, '11 6:22 PM

for everyone

OCTOBER 22ND, 2011 21:41

Just Say No to Warren Buffett

By michaelgcasey

Too many wars broke America. Too many arguements amongst politicians broke America, too lax tax laws broke America. Lending money to folks who had zero credit rating broke America. America is divided, just watch Fox news having a discussion programme, 50% don’t bother to vote, and the rest are divided. So 26% of the country tells the other 74% what to do. Politicians need to grow up but they won’t. And Still folks naively vote Tea Party. In then end you have to negotiate. I feel sad that USA has reached this point. Perhaps we need the spirit of the 60s again, when we all had hopes and dreams. Spending billions to get elected is obscene. USA can be great again, but it needs to start from the bottom up. Don’t complain about China, especially when China is bailing everybody out. USA has to recapture its spirit again, they need to start today immediately, and never never never put their hopes in any politician, change USA one person at a time. Its not a spiritual message, its a love yourself back to health and strength then USA can be what it wants to be.

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Red CarpetOct 22, '11 7:27 AM

for everyone

The Red Carpet ©

By

Michael Casey

I was just reading the Daily Telegraph, its my paper of choice, they had a photo selection on the continuing celebrations for Paul McCartney and his new wife. This time it was in New York, the red carpet was rolled out, though I couldn’t actually tell from the photos was the carpet actually rolled out, a la Oscars. But the theme is the same, you are important, so the red carpet comes out, I’ve just had a look at Google for the history and Wikipedia says something but remember Wikipedia is not Gospel, look me up and see how inaccurate it is.

A  red carpet makes us feel important, as does a fawning flunkey, Dickens captured it all with Uriah Heep, and no I’m no Dickens expert, I just know 2 sentences about everything, which is one sentence more than the average guy, if I’m lucky. Or if any of you are old rock stars then Uriah Heep was a ROCK band. A new carpet has bounce and as we all know it’s the underlay that makes the difference, and more importantly than that it’s the carpet fitter, the bloke with the gripper  who turns  a house into a home. I saved up and had all my house done 6 months after I moved in, that’s 25 years ago now. It wasn’t red carpet but I felt important, I  was bouncing around my house, my red carpet home for weeks afterwards. Now years later and I’m married with girls in the house, we had to replace a chair so when the square yard it had sat on was revealed after decades of darkness the square was pristine and bouncy, as bouncy as a bouncy castle. So my girls enjoyed the bouncy square until the new chair arrived.

If you stand while you work as I’ve done in several jobs then a touch of softness underfoot is so so welcomed, whether it be red white or blue. I used to stand for 12 hours a day walking on marble in the hotel, CPNEC. We did 4 12hour shifts, the first day off I’d hobble down the stairs at home, I needed recovery time. So if ever I get the red carpet treatment, I will really enjoy it, but I do hope it has masses of soft underlay.

Red carpets are noisy they shout and scream at you, I am George Clooney, worship me, me I do actually look like George Cloony, google “michaelgcasey” and then hit images. Oh I was a bit economical with the truth during that last sentence, but  I do look like the Welsh news anchor on the BBC, well my wife thinks so. Yes, where was I, on the red carpet, would it make any difference if the colour was changed? I think it’s the concept of an outdoor carpet, we could have wallpaper on the outside of our homes, that would be extravagant, here in UK we have Blue Plaques to show/honour famous people and where they live. Just up the road from where I am talking is The Birmingham Oratory, and it has a blue plaque, John Henry Newman lived there, if you go a few hundred yards further up the road there is a blue plaque for JRR Tolkien, I doubt if there will ever be a blue plaque to me, MichaelGCasey.

So will I ever be smiling from the red carpet walking arm in arm with my three girls, as they talk in Mandarin as we walk the red carpet in Shanghai, my books  translated and filmed, the top show in China, probably not, but if anybody has any carpet going spare, my living room now needs a new carpet, any colour accepted.    

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Inner LaughterOct 16, '11 5:20 PM

for everyone

Inner Laughter ©

By Michael Casey

Our smallest will be a year older this week, she’s a natural comedian, we wonder where she got it from. Her Shanghai grandfather was a comedian, and I try and write comedy, though I choose the word humour mainly, and no not as a get-out clause. So how can a 7 year old be so funny, is it in the genes or is it because she feels so happy and loved that the laughter just runs out. Her humour first showed itself back in 2007 when we were in Shanghai visiting the Chinese family, she would have been 3 and a half then. She picked up chopsticks and mastered them during a family meal for 30 or 40 in a restaurant. The Shanghai cousins begged her to say something, so finally she did “A fan pi, A fan pi” she said which meant “A had farted, A had farted” laughter rippled around the room.

She dresses up as a princess or in traditional Chinese costume, she lines up 40 teddy bears and teaches them and takes the register. She parades around in my wife’s shoes, bracelets and necklaces clicking as she walks. Faces are pulled and accents put on, English and Chinese. She crosses her legs like LULU, the Chinese interviewer not the Scottish singer, and holds her clipboard and asks questions. Dolls houses are her joy, she got a Slyvestan family dolls house as a Birthday present last year, I hope I spelt that right. Anyways, that wasn’t enough so 2 or 3 shoe boxes were converted into dolls houses, and sweet wrappers were turned into wind blinds. Other items for her dolls houses were manufactured by her and her imagination.  Then she decided to try her hand at writing stories, I’ve been doing it for nearly 25 years, her Shanghai grandfather also did a bit of writing and then there is the Shanghai great uncle who is a political journalist, so its in the blood. When I read a piece of hers the other day I was amazed by the style she had, it will be her who makes money from writing before I do. Her Irish grandfather was a blacksmith and he’d be so proud of her. Pride and love I suppose that sums it up, we should all let our small daughters have freedom to use their imagination, but remember to hide your shoe boxes.

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Resignation PantomimeOct 16, '11 10:03 AM

for everyone

Resignation Pantomime ©

By Michael Casey

Oh sorry Sir, I was caught with my trousers down, with my hand in the till, or was it on the bosom of a secretary or some other members wife. Either way I did nothing wrong I can assure you, it didn’t mean anything it was only sex, great great  sex but nothing dirty or squalid. I did put the Ministerial red box under the bed and out of site. So why all the fuss, it wasn’t as if she was from another political party, she was true blue, true red white and blue, and as for her sister that just happened it wasn’t intended. And now both are pregnant and its against their principals to kill the baby, what amount of Child Tax credit will they both get. Do I have to leave my grace and favour home? Can’t I stay there, there a great creche nearby. I’d be able to push both bastards in the park and the little bins will be great to throw away all the nappies, and Ministerial papers. Perfect, so why can’t I keep my job. &*% the public, I’m better than them anyway, what the *&%$ do they know about politics, all the nuances and so on. So I have a Swiss bank account and friends  from all over the world, but that makes me an even better Minister, if the public how much blood I’ve sweated for those ungrateful B&%$£. They’d be making ME Prime Minister, and as for the S&&%$% in the press with their zoom lens, so what if I went to a late night store smoking a joint and looking for contraceptives. If I hadn’t to leg it away from the press I would have had protection and both my girlfriend and her sister wouldn’t now be pregnant and selling their story to the News Of the World. I will of course be now resigning my Cabinet position, after 15 days I thought I’d got away  with it,

Your Close Friend John Doe

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Turning Back The ClockOct 10, '11 7:44 AM

for everyone

Turning Back The Clock ©

By

Michael Casey

Soon we’ll be turning back the clock, Winter will be upon us, we’ll be reaching up to the high cupboards and ferreting out our duvets and blankets. We be smelling them to see if they are musty, should we put them on the washing line outside to air them, to make them fresh, or perhaps just bung them in the washing machine. Or if we are students, we’ll just spray them with deodorant and then throw them on the bed, just in time for the night of passion.

Boots catch our attention next, we look under the bed, what’s hiding there? Spiders perhaps, or if we are students in our digs in Selly Oak or wherever perhaps a mouse asleep in our boots, or dead even. So we search for the vacuum cleaner, now where did we leave it, have we got one anyway? Its hard to remember where a vacuum cleaner is when you never use it, your flatmate usually  does or did the vacuum cleaning, he was besotted with cleaning and  he always cleaned up, but that was a month ago, when you split up, when you caught him in bed with your best friend, your sister!

We decide to go shopping and buy large tins of soup, soups are always good in Winter, and there’s always stale bread in the house as we never like throwing it away, just like Heidi in the old old story.

So we will be doing our bit for ecology, recycling our bread, the squirrels would love it as would the birds, but no we will have all the stale bread with our Heinz tomato soup, as the nights close in we will be wrapped up all warm with our bowl of soup.

We’ll look at our pile of wood in the woodshed, do we need to do more chopping? Should we order some turf or coal. The scent of peat burning or coal fills the air, it evokes memories from childhood, the coal man coming up the entry with a sack of coal on his back, 3  sacks was what we had, a hundredweight  each, that’s 8 stones, then in the 1970s we got central heating, as we were in a smokeless zone. Watching tv together in the Autumn/Winter evenings was such a joy, dad telling us to close the curtains as it was so dark and black outside. Going around the corner to the off licence to buy sweets and crisps, and Cidrax a pop that tasted like cider, there was money on the bottles too. I used to drink the dregs and then buy mojos or blackjacks with the money; only my brother knew me, so he used to pee in the bottle first….

Time itself moved, dad would grab the clock and take it upstairs to  bed with him, “don’t have that too loud” he’d say pointed to the tv, then he’d be gone. We’d stay up to watch the horror films on ATV, Peter Tomlinson used to have a teddy bear beside him as he introduced the films, all this was when the clocks went back, back in time now as I remember, 45years ago. I hope as you all turn back the clocks you remember everything with a smile, even when you forgot and ended up an hour early for Sunday Mass. 

                                    a tired looking me

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Star TrekOct 8, '11 5:57 PM

for everyone

I saw the 2009 Abrams Version of Star Trek again tonight, it was on last week, so many repeats....

I liked the idea of Spock getting the girl. Simon Pegg was great as Scottie, a great use of Simon Pegg, I like him more and more, his Hot Fuzz is a great film too.

Tonight's Star Trek looked great and the music was fab too, like classical music.

A  lot of people my age will have loved it too, all those years ago in the 60s and in black and white we watched Jim Kirk and his adventures. Star Trek is part of our lives, just as Songs Of Praise is part of others' lives.

I know Star Trek is more than science fiction, its part of the feel good generation  which came about with the Beach Boys and pop music, its all part of the same generation. As I talk I'm listening to Gerry Rafferty, that's another era too, where have the years gone. I'm sure I'll wake up one day and I'll be dead. So on that note I'll go bed, sleep of the dead.

1 Comment

The Sky at NightOct 8, '11 12:43 PM

for everyone

Our back garden forms a rectangle black box with other gardens so we can always get a good view of the stars. I've always encouraged my children to look to the stars, and to see if they can see ET. The other night my daughter said she saw a shooting star. She made a wish for a big house with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, not forgetting a cat and a dog and a gerbil. So I hope everybody else will be looking to the stars tonight and every night. The stars are always a free show and if we can instill into our kids the wonder for them then we've done something really great. I can remember the Apollo missions and all that, the 60s were great as a kid, Apollo, Mumhammed Ali, Beatles, much much better than todays reality tv and wanna be stars. True stars are in the Sky at Night.

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Burglar in ReverseSep 27, '11 12:18 PM

for everyone

I was relaxing on my new bed while I read up on the EU, see I always read rivetting stuff. The alarm went off, I went downstairs but nobody was there. Had I put the alarm on incorrectly? NO. I looked in the fridge and there were 3 litres of Tesco smooth not from concentrate orange there. Was this an Irish thief? No it was a Shanghai wife, she had slipped in and out of the house in a minute, putting the orange in the fridge before disappearing up the road. Its great orange by the way IF a little expensive, but if anybody wants to donate orange to me on a regular basis, feel free .

I am Irish after all, Kerry, now I have 60 more pages to read, so if anybody wants to put Camenbert in the fridge while I'm upstairs on my BedzRus bed, Lecco, its really fab.

 Michael

 www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

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Rediscovering John DenverSep 25, '11 11:31 AM

for everyone

Rediscovering John Denver ©

By Michael Casey

A long time ago I used to listen to  John Denver, my dad used to say he had a soft voice and if John Denver was on the radio he’d raise the volume. 35 years ago maybe I’d get my giro and buy a few books to read and a John Denver album to listen to. I had saved up £30 to buy a stereo from a previous job, it was 8 watts per speaker.

So me and John had good times together, I remember I read all the Alistair Maclean books at that time, staying up late to do so, I could read a whole book in a day if I stuck at it. Living at home was great, I couldn’t afford to live anywhere else either. My dad’s charity I repaid 20 years later, I visited him every single day for 3 years, and that’s how I met the wife.

Avoiding scratching the record was a major thing in those days, and fluff on the needle was important too. It was a different sound compared to today, you may have heard that some singers and bands try and put back the scratches on records. They don’t like the pure song. Now or should I say perhaps 10 or 15 years ago I got John Denver on CD, so I could listen on a decent hifi.

Time and technology moves on so I have put my CD collection on my PC, so I can hear whatever I like while I work on the PC.

Then the latest step is to move my collection to my 10 quid MP3 player, so now while on the bus to work I can listen to JD. I  have noticed something great, because I am using earphones I can pick up things I’d never heard while listening on speakers.

People have all kinds of headgear for listening to mobiles and to listen to their music, it is very annoying when its loud and you can hear them even though you have your own earphones in. They’ll end up deaf, THEY’LL END UP DEAF. I had an ear infection for 3 weeks so now I really do appreciate my hearing and God for it too.  I’ll finish now , but do go and dig out your own John Denver, or Depeche Mode and Crowded House. Just enjoy your own music, and send me 6 lottery numbers, there’s this house I’d like to buy, its £4,000,000 biggest house build in 100years in Birmingham. I can just imagine myself listening to John Denver in luxury. Failing that there’s a nice house for 1/16 of the price, home is where the heart is, and John Denver singing!

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Wood or Metal, which is bestSep 12, '11 4:07 PM

for everyone

Wood or Metal, which is best ©

By  Michael Casey

We all can remember the old fashioned sprung beds made from metal, and how you needed a spanner to dismantle them. I’m talking back in the 60s now and the beds now doubt came from the 50s. Pillow cases were stripy black and white, convict style.

Mattresses were just as uninspiring. Headboards were really heavy, made of steel with a wooden piece at the top.

I remember one of the single beds in the room we all shared. The leg had broken off, so first a tin of beans, then an iron, an iron iron, one used for ironing clothes was pressed into service to support the bed in the bottom right hand corner. I suppose we were quite poor in our childhood days, but much much loved.

We also had to move things about in our lodging house next door. Painting and decorating when lodgers bailed out. My mother bought up a load of material from the fire salvage shop down the road and made ticks and pillowcases for the beds in the lodgers rooms. Mum really was a devil on the sewing machine, I’m told dad carried it from West Bromwich to Berry Street Winson Green. Singer was the  name and sewing was the game, I think we have the very same machine tucked away somewhere.

So why am I talking about beds, metal or wood today. Well you see I am heavy, very heavy, even if do look 4 stones, ok 3 stones lighter than I look. I bought a bed when I moved into this house and it lasted decades. However when I replaced the pine bed with a medal bed you can guess what happened. The metal headboard went wonky, it riggles and jiggles. Then one side of the bed just gave up all together, like an elephant doing the splits, my bed split apart, but only on the right hand side.

So what would you do? Me I remembered my childhood and reached for an iron iron, but that was not tall enough. I did have a load of photo albums gathering dust, in fact my wife wanted me to throw them away. We had compromised so I put them  in an old bag and forgot about them. Now I remembered them. Perfect to fix my new metal bed, one load of albums at the top, another load at the bottom, and finally another load in the middle. I have to be very careful as there is a radiator right next to the bed, so to avoid a boiling eruption of hot water the bed must be supported corectly.

This has been the case for a year, but I’m getting fed up with this arrangement especially as the top of the bed is shaking more and more and clatters into the chest of drawers behind. So today I had a look at beds metal and wood, online and in my local furniture shop. There was a sale item in the window and I was very tempted, I had brought a tape measure with me and the bed would fit. However when I sat on the bed it wobbled like a jelly, and it did say it was a back support mattress. So it failed the test. I tried another bed before heading upstairs to look at what was there. I did find a great bed and it was on offer, £150 for the double. If I had cash in my pocket I would have bought it. I’m like that when I buy things, so normally I don’t carry money with me, just pocket money.

I went home determined to return and buy it. But first I’d look online. I found the same item cheaper online, 30quid cheaper, the exact same  thing. Then the question is, should I buy it online or from where I saw it in the fresh so to speak.I don’t want to buy rubbish. I have decided though I’ll never buy a metal bed again. I did buy a metal one from my daughter but it is beginning to sag a bit. Pine is nice to look at too.

That’s all I have to say for tonight, wood is always better. When I was single I could just please myself but once you are married with children you have to justify every penny. Should I have a new bed for me or should I buy shoes for the girls instead, so far the shoes have won.

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How do you know you are fat?Sep 1, '11 2:03 PM

for everyone

How do you know you are fat? ©

By

Michael Casey

I’m not fat, of course I’m not fat. I KNOW I’m not fat, its other people who are fat, alright?

I’m big yes, but I’m not fat, got it? Just so long as you know, I am not fat. Just because I weigh nearly 3 times as much as my wife it does not make me fat. Just because I weigh as much as my wife and our 2 kids and the mother-in-law does NOT make me fat, alright?

Does this sound familiar? Then maybe, just maybe, YOU are fat, not me but YOU.

Can YOU see your feet when you are in the shower? I can, so I’m not fat, its YOU, so there. I do have to breath in and press my hands on my tummy, but I’m not fat.  When you take your clothes off the washing line and hold them up and it looks like a tent the kids can play in, then perhaps you are BIG, like me, big but NOT fat!

I weigh myself every morning on the bathroom scales, after I’ve used the W.C. and my weight is the same every day, which proves, I’m not fat. 112kilos for the Europeans reading this, or 17.5stones for English readers, for any Americans reading this a “stone” is 14pounds. So do the maths, and we say maths not math, 17.5 stones is 17x14 + 7 =245pounds, I’m as heavy as a heavyweight boxer. But its tight fat, not wobbly fat, so I look 200pounds maybe. You can all go to Amazon Kindle and buy my 4 books and you’ll see some photos too. www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com is my site and there’s more photos there as well as a lot of blog. All of which will prove that I’m NOT fat.

I don’t know about  having big bones, we don’t have a dog, so how would I know, but at least my wife says I’m “medium” fat compared to the folks we saw when we were in Florida a few years ago, and compared to folks we saw in Frankfurt, which all goes to prove, I’m just big, not FAT.

So are you all agreeing with me, or do you think I a sad sad fat guy?  Do you hear the same words often? Spoken by yourselves. Well my girls love me, my smallest loves me so much because my tubby is like Winnie the Pooh’s. I tell my wife she gets more value for money, pound for pound she has more husband compared to those wives who have small husbands. Compared to a regular Chinese husband, she has an absolute bargain, she has me. And I have white hair too, what more could a fashionable Shanghai girl want. Then there’s our bilingual daughters, so pretty, if she stuck with Chinese she would not have had such pretty girls. And its there that I silence her, and I’m still NOT fat.

1 Comment

Peace CorpAug 29, '11 5:07 PM

for everyone

Peace Corp ©

By

Michael Casey

I heard about The Peace Corp on the radio4 this morning, it was a good programme. I didn’t know it was 50years old. It did get me thinking which is a good sign for any programme. JFK was the man behind it, the thing that changes the most is the soul of the volunteer, soul being the right word. To think that your gift of 2 years of  your life, your work for 2 years is a soul changing thing, and the place where you are working benefits greatly too.

DC is on about having community service here, if it worked that would fun for the youth and society could benefit too. The thing is though, do people in general want to be the Good Samaritan to Society, or are we all so selfish nowadays? Are we ready to have our soul changed? Years ago we had a guy at work he took a year off to travel around the world, when he came back he hadn’t change an inch, so I think it was a waste of a year. It might be my Irish blood but we tell a tale when we come back from Aldi  just up the road, our Chinese Irish kids are that way too. You have to connect with the world before you can change yourself and your surroundings wherever that may be. You cannot be Peace Corp unless you travel first to yourself, the Inner Journey is the biggest and best journey.

The journey within means you know yourself, you know your own heart, once that is known you can set out on whatever   course you want to take. Sometimes in a life you do have the Dark Night of the Soul, but once you pass through that you do have an even greater insight into yourself. Naïve dreams give way to realities, you stop trying to run before you can walk, you plan, even if its on a piece of paper stuck to the fridge. The Peace Corp idea may have been first sketched out on the back on an envelope, but it grew and now its 50years old. Over here we have The Duke of Edinburgh scheme and The Prince’s Trust, next time I have a beer with the Duke and the Prince, or more likely in The Duke or The Prince pubs, I’ll have to ask them did they think their soul changing schemes would make a difference. If you can discover or touch your own soul then you can have a little peace, peace will have a chance and John Lennon will smile again.

flying lessons

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Fashionistas Strike AgainAug 25, '11 5:57 PM

for everyone

Fashionistas Strike Again ©

By

Michael Casey

Well my daughters struck again, they knew my wife didn’t really like my black jeans. So I was encouraged to donate them. Well what can 2 small girls do with one large pair of black jeans? First of all they cut the legs off, they always said I should wear shorts in the Summer. So now I had a pair of shorts. I tried them on, one leg was higher than the other, or is it one leg was shorter than the other? Either way, one thing was certain, I now had my first ever pair of shorts.

As for the girls, my smallest now had a skirt,  it was made from one piece of one leg, there was a problem though they had managed to put a hole in the back of her new skirt; inspiration came and they slid on another piece of  leg on top of the first, now she had a more stylist skirt, with a more fashionable design. As for my bigger daughter she had turned one piece of leg into a fashion bag, she had sewn up one end and then with a thin strip of leg she had made a strap. To make it even better she had added a spangle broach to it.

I had seen the results and had given in and tried on my new shorts, while they did the catwalk in the living room, Gadaffi was forgotten, they had more important things to do, catwalk. I gave in and donated another pair of jeans, in seconds I had a 2nd pair of shorts. What will the girls produce with the 2nd donation? I’ll find out tomorrow no doubt. I did have an interlude in the afternoon sun, my daughter cut my hair, it was a bit of fun, I do have 2 weeks left before my holidays are over, so my hair will grow back before I return to work. I suppose I look like the gay designer in The Devil Loves Prada, but my hair does  grow very very thick and fast, but white.

With that thought I’m  off to bed,  maybe I’ll add photo tomorrow. For we are a Fashionista Family.

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From Lenny Bruce to InnuendoAug 14, '11 4:25 PM

for everyone

From Lenny Bruce to Innuendo ©

By

Michael Casey

I was thinking about words and their power the other night as I drifted off to sleep, Lenny Bruce’s name drifted through my mind. I was thinking about how we use words  and perhaps I was thinking about my next blog. How nowadays nobody has a vocabulary, just F(*&^ or &*^%, that’s what you get if you remonstrate with anybody under 30. I won’t bore anybody with my take on the past week’s mayhem.

I have a friend called Jim, we worked together at a 4star deluxe business hotel, Jim had worked very hard all his life,  he had a tongue on him and he knew how to use it.

The thing though was that he could say anything and could get away with it, why, because he had charm, an old rogue’s charm, so instead of getting the sack guests would say, a la Dick Emery, “you are awful”. So if you like his use of words was acceptable. 

If you rarely curse then it has more power when you do. But 15 year olds can and do curse ad infinitum, so although we can say its bad in fact its more boring than bad.  In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Belgium is the worst word you can use. Perhaps we need to invent a few more words, Politician, NofW, Wall Street, Stock Market are just a few that spring to mind. If somebody has “stock marketed” you, its akin to some kind of rape, that has left you battered and bruised, spiritually, mentally, financially.

No doubt I’ll be criticised for my last sentence, which proves that people don’t bother to read things in context.

Over here in England we have Innuendo, we have camp and other styles of comedy. In USA Irony is not understood, and you even get attempts at using irony, and you get the joke backward telegraphed and the star saying “I was being Ironic”, when really they were getting it wrong. Innuendo is a good form of language. You can say so much while saying so little. I like the comedians who used it so well in the past, I like words used as weapons of laughter, think back to the Goons and Around the Horne. Kenneth Williams and Duncan and Sandy invented Camp humour BEFORE it was invented, I hope USA readers will Google all this they could make a comic discovery for themselves. 1950s, 1960s  were light years ahead of the game. You don’t need an overpaid fast talking guy looking at his own reflection, just go back to the old days, and they really were the good old days for comedy. I have been told myself that some of  my stuff leads people up the garden path, which is all you need to do.

Lenny Bruce said, “ have you ever Blaaaed a Bla, or have you ever Dooed a Do” I think that’s a line from the film. It makes me remember too just how good Dustin Hoffman was/is 2 Oscars and  loads of other stuff. The point is though that you don’y have to curse all the time, I think its just boring and lazy. I did a post called Metaphor This a few weeks ago, that proves that language is a balloon that can be twisted this way and that way to form a giraffe.

A sex scene when written down does not need to be graphic, a metaphor can be far funnier. He touched the scales of justice, he adjusted the weights, he was pleased with the result, law was duly served, he pleaded his innocence, but he felt the full force of justice, and he was fully processed, then he was taken down to the cells, he was relieved. That’s how I showed Romance between a lawyer and a milkman/baker in my novel The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. I’m no Jilly Cooper you can go to Amazon Kindle and Judge Me for yourselves.

Yes I do curse on occasion and when I write my actors may curse too, but words are like a cloak, they are clothes for my actors, and words show more Fashion and Class than some moron who can only “Daa a daa,” and doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.

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Why is everything getting smaller?Aug 13, '11 4:44 PM

for everyone

Why is everything getting smaller and smaller? I bought a personal DAB radio 6years ago and it was as big as a pack of fags. 2 days ago I got an MP3 player from Amazon (£13.50 a bargain)_ and that is about the size of my thumb, or smaller than a box of matches. You can get 600 or so tracks on it AND it has an FM radio. You do need a magnifying glass to read the LCD display, luckily I do have one. I'm old enough to remember the windup gramaphone player we had, this was as big as  a small fridge, I even remember breaking it up when it ceased working. So from the size of a fridge to a box of matches in one lifetime.

For more go to www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com

 or Amazon Kindle where 4 of my offerings are for sale.

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Fridge Family CaseyAug 9, '11 5:58 PM

for everyone

Fridge Family Casey ©

By

Michael Casey

　

Our fridge died on us. My wife had been nagging for ages about our fridge, finally I gave in. I agreed we needed a new fridge, and we could afford it.

So I started looking on the Internet to see where are the bargains were. Argos, Currys, Comet, John Lewis, these were the target sites, not to mention loads of others the google search gave us. But with something like a fridge, or rather a Frost Free Fridge Freezer, you really have to go to the shops and look at the offers.

So Sunday was Family Fridge Day. It began with my wife and girls going to their church, with a promise of a visit to Costco afterwards. I hadn’t decided which of my 3 churches to go to, it all depends on how tired or lazy I am, that’s why I’m here there and everywhere, so I have 3 priests praying for me. My wife and the girls go to the C of E while I stick with the Catholics. I forced myself to go to my local church around the corner, this is where our Topol look alike priest sings to us. Don’t take my word, go and attend.

My wife was surprised when she returned that I’d been out to Mass, and why had she returned instead of directly going to Costco, the simple reason, what did I have in my pocket? My wallet. So off the family went to Costco.

I like Costco because you can have a beef hotdog and a soda, with soda refill for only £1.50, yes really. While we were there we spotted a fridge freezer, so we had a look, trying all the doors and so on. There was one problem, we have a galley kitchen so we had to think, would the door open fully, if it couldn’t then we

couldn‘t buy it. We bought our stuff from Costco and I enjoyed the hotdog.

Next we were off to Wing Wip, he’s a major Chinese food hypermarket, several of my wife’s friends work there, Mr Ying Yip himself, one of the brothers waved us bye bye as we left the store. I’m told "byebye" is originally a Chinese word.

Afterwards we went to Sainsbury’s in Selly Oak, which is a student area, next to Birmingham University. There my wife met more or her friends who happened to be shopping.

So the next port of call was over the dangerous road behind Sainsbury’s that’s where Comet and Currys and Homebase are.

We looked up and down the aisles we had a good play with the fridges. Ma, my mother-in-law in Shanghai had admonished us to get a big fridge because the kids were growing and would want more food very soon. There was a nice big Indesit a silver colour, immediately we agreed on that. But we still needed to look in the shop next door. So that’s what we did, in the next shop my wife eyed a very big Bosch which blew the budget out of the water. So we looked at it and pulled and pushed all the drawers and doors open and closed. Then we went to Homebase but they don’t have fridges in the shop, only online.

The final problem was the lack of space in our galley kitchen, really we needed a tape measure to measure from the back of the fridge to the door wide open position. So we thought we’d come back the next day with our measurements and compare to what was in the shop. These are the things the Shanghai Family Casey have to do out of love and madness. I suppose we are like the Adams Family when we hit the shops.

Safely back home we decided to take our measurements down, once we had these we were half way home. But I don’t know about you but wouldn’t it be easier to just do it online? So armed with the 55cm measurement we went searching online. Hey presto we found an Indesit Frost Free Fridge Freezer that matched our 55cm figure. To be honest it was the very same fridge I had suggested a couple of days before, only I’d been overruled, which meant the Adams Family had to go playing hide and seek while we looked for a fridge.

Family meeting was held and our two girls looked at the Dixon’s offer. Yes that was the one. I hit return and bought the fridge freezer, frost free too. That was Sunday, though it felt not like a Sunday more like a Bank Holiday, a family day out while we looked at fridges.

Today Tuesday, the day after tomorrow, the lads rung us up early and said they’d be with us in 10 minutes. Then hey presto they appeared with the new frost free fridge freezer, our Indesit. They stripped all the packaging away in the street and they carried in the new fridge,

a bit like undertakers, but carrying in instead of out. They did carry away our old fridge, and in a matter of 10 mins we had a new addition to the family.

Our girls could not wait to try out the new super freezer, so after 4 hours, which is the wait time before you can switch on a new freezer, I was told this, I didn’t know this. So once it was ready me and the girls made up some blackcurrant squash and poured it into the 24 ice cube slots. They were impatient to see the results of their experiment, several times they opened and closed the fast freezer box. Finally all was revealed, we had cracked it, we had flavoured ice cubes!

The girls say they have lots to grow now, as they measure their height against the fridge. Doesn’t everybody’s kids, or is it in this Shanghai Casey’s family only? The new fridge is 1.74 metres, or up to my eyebrows so IF the girls grow that tall then they will be Models, they are pretty enough already, the wife could have been a model too, only she wasn’t tall enough, and turned down a chance to be a model for childs’ clothes in Shanghai.

How she married me is another story, I think it was my ability to chose fridges that swung it for me.

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Cooling OffAug 3, '11 11:10 AM

for everyone

Its really hot here in Sunny Birmingham.

I was thinking of filling the bath with beer and lying in it. I could have a couple of straws to quench my thirst.

I could then get my Shanghai wife to top up the beer by throwing buckets of beer all over me.

I could get the neighbour's dog to wag its tail to cool me down.

How much beer would it take to fill the bath.

Or maybe I could just use double strenghth squash as  my bath filler.

Though beer would be best for my hair, beer shampoo is something the girls know about.

I've never tried orange squash shampoo, but it would be far cheaper than any celebrity hairdresser's products.

Hang on, is that the icecream van outside.

I just bought 20 99s so if I rub them all over my body I'll cool down for sure. When the cold dissipates the neighbour's dog can lick it all off, maybe a few cats too.

The wife has just shouted to me, she's filled the bath with beer, I can jump in now, all the Nectar points have finally come in useful

So SPLASH.

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Waiting InJul 28, '11 12:26 PM

for everyone

Waiting IN ©

By

Michael Casey

We all wait in for workmen or gas man to come and read the meter or whatever, and one thing can be certain, they never but never turn up on time. Waiting for a parcel or a home purchase delivery can also mean waiting forever.

You wait and you wait, you will the man to arrive, you hope and you hope that it will arrive, you may even pray, the first time in years. Dear God make the DHL, the UPS or the Royal Mail man arrive, I really am looking forward to enjoying my latest lump of plastic gismo which will make my life worthwhile. How I lived without it I’ll never know, I’m holding in my pee so I don’t have to go, I don’t want to miss the delivery man again. Once I was in the bathroom and I missed him and then it was 3 more days before I got my stuff.

This week we had a deliveryman convention, the van stopped and my wife was so happy jumping for joy, only it wasn’t for us it was for a neighbour. A huge big thing, the delivery man was just wanting to offload it, any house would do, so long as he gets a scribble on the form or the  new electronic machine they all now use. So reluctantly my wife was palmed off with somebody else’s rubbish and not her own.

My wife was waiting for a Sat Nav, she’d looked everywhere online, and they were sold out, Tom Tom had gone gone gone. So finally she found Best Buy and they were the only place with stock and 10quid less than anywhere else, and a  10quid voucher too. So she was using tom toms to tell the world where to shop. As for me I spotted a Clarks online sale, so while she waited for a Tom Tom I was waiting for a pair of ½ price G fitting size 10 shoes. We were taking bets on whose stuff would arrive first.

I won the bet and danced around the living room with my ever so light and comfy shoes. My wife just heckled from a settee. I told her that the Sat Nav was delayed because the courier could not find our house.  The next day, very late in the afternoon her treasure arrived, she had her Tom Tom, and why is Tom Tom called Tom Tom, did the inventor have a stutter, or was the product so good it was named twice the same as New York New York.

I was given a 2 hour lecture or is it a joyful nag on the joys of Sat Navs, our kids thought it was a good toy too, it even talks to you, turn left, turn right. Almost as good as a mother-in-law in the back of a car.

I decided to take refuge in another room and wait for another pair of shoes. I hadn’t ordered any more, I was just making an excuse to avoid the wife’s advertising for Tom Tom.  My waiting in was really waiting for her joy to end. I did ask her though could the Tom Tom give a route to Ma in Shanghai.