7 Oct update and something to read

Discovered somebody was reading the Spanish Translation of

 The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker  in  Dominican Republic

so hello to them, a new country to add to my readers list.

I checked Wiki and discovered there is gold there, sadly none has arrived in my pockets ever.

This will be a busy week on the home front.

I should be sat with my new wifi in a couple of weeks,  and maybe a new chair too.

I'll get back in the groove again then.

so here's what I've done so far on 17 Again

This is 17 Again ©

By

Michael Casey

 my 17^th Book

All my own work 14june2018

Michael Casey

The fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England

Seventeen Again ©

By

Michael Casey

Well tomorrow is another day, and today the pain has ebbed away so let’s see if I can make you laugh, and maybe me too. I’m still wondering why I get the cursor dancing all over my screen, it could be North Korea hacking me for a free read, or it could be Barron Trump, or maybe it’s just Microsoft Windows 10 being a bit strange. Or even my keyboard tray is vibrating because of Billy Joel dancing on his piano talking about it all being about Soul. The cursor has stopped dancing now, maybe the North Koreans ran out of dance steps.

I can of course step dance or Irish dance, my sisters did it so I kind of leant how to do it. The trouble with tap dancing is that you keep on falling over in the sink, that was a 1970s style joke, I don’t know what you’ll make of it, but the sink could be a Belfast sink, now that’ll really confuse some of my foreign readers.

What can you expect in this book Seventeen Again, or is it 17 Again? I have no idea as I said yesterday it should be ready by Christmas 2018, assuming I don’t die. And with all the pain I have that’s not just black humour, so enjoy me while I’m here, now is this emotional blackmail with my readers? Not if you are my neighbours hearing me moan and scream in the night, and they thought it was the foxes mating.

Summer holidays approach so my girls will be demanding a greater variety of food as they are home all day. My small daughter will no doubt read 3 books a week, while the bigger one says she’ll study hard as next year she wants to get into a good University. Though nowadays getting into university means getting into 35 to £60,000 worth of debt. Frankly I’d say get a loan and start a business instead in some cases, or some Caseys.  

My big daughter has decided for now that Medicine is not for her, so she may do Bio-Chemistry. Which is fast turning into a family thing. My best friend, he’s laughing at this now, he has a PhD in Bio-Chemistry, my wife did it in Shanghai, and my nephew is just finishing at York in Bio-Chemistry. So that’s 4 Bio-Chemistry people, the only bio-chemistry I make is down the toilet.

My other daughter is yet to decide which way to go, Arts or Science so if you keep on reading my epistles you’ll find out in a few years time. Remember both are bilingual in English and Chinese so I have no worries for their future, I just hope they face-time me in my dotage. Kim from North Korea may have been talking about me, and not the Donald. Both of them could copy my hairstyles.

What else can I share? Yes Bavarian sausages are nice, they are so big that just one is enough as a meal with bread and a few vegetables or other stuff. My local store has them ,though I have to watch my fat content, no I don’t mean look at my own belly, I mean look what I put into my belly. I’ll be having one soon as it’s nearly my dinnertime. Listen to Billy Joel with me, We Didn’t Start the Fire. It’s good. Well  I had a look in the fridge while you were listening, I did turn the volume up so you weren’t all alone in my “study”. It’s soon time for me to start the fire under my frying pan and eat.

My local store has 2 pizza and 4 budweiser for a fiver so I may go out and buy that, I’ve not had alcohol for months and months. They say the World Cup starts tomorrow. I was in Lourdes France in 1966, maybe it was our prayers that helped us win. The nice thing about Music is that it IS company and also it fires the imagination if it has words, a word from a song can lead my story one way or another. Its a split second thing.

Though with words they can lead you into “trouble”. Our neighbour knocked on the door asking for jump leads as his battery was flat, I happened to be wearing only one loose layer, so I flashed my belly and my surgery scars saying they used jump leads on me here. Where I had my quadruple heart bypass. He went away unimpressed mumbled the area had gone done, and he’d have to catch a bus.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live next door to me? I also have scars on each leg from the groin to my ankle bone, where my veins were harvested. Luckily for him he did not ask to borrow my evening dress. Speaking of which my wife has to put her’s on tonight as she is going to a Gala Dinner, meanwhile I’ll be having strawberry jam on toast, it cost 1.79 from the Polish shop. Enough of this talk I really must eat now, I hope you’ll enjoy Seventeen Again when I launch it at Xmas 2018, but now I must head for the kitchen and hope Totoro hasn’t helped herself to my Bavarian sausage.

Healthy Living ©

By

Michael Casey

I was wondering what to talk about today and I really hadn’t any thoughts ready at all, and yes the pain monster has come out to play again, so talking was not on my list. Then as I was having my Kafir Polish yogurt drink an idea came to me, why not write about Healthy Living. Yes, I know you are all laughing at the very thought of it, Lech, Boris and Gregorgi even looked up from the tv and Russia’s World Cup to laugh at me. So I just sung some Robbie Williams songs at them, and why does Robbie Williams look like Kim from North Korea, is Robbie Williams starting a K-Pop band in North Korea?

So, Healthy Living and Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England, is that a contradiction or a fantasy? Sounds like something you do in Philosophy. Now most of my life I suppose I’m like any other bloke, apart from being one of God’s special people, Lech and Boris and Gregorgi nearly dropped their bottle of vodka, the small 3 litre size one, they have no belief in me sometimes. I’m just the friend they enjoy burying in the woods, so their dogs can get tracking practice.   

Exercise, such as digging yourself out of a hole is always good, it builds muscles and character. And when you are wedged too tight and left for 2 days, as the boys have to watch a still, then it teaches you patience, and you may just decide that a few grubs would be nice as you starve for 48 hours. You also get used to the smell of babies, or rather yourself in your soiled clothes. But it’s a Spiritual Journey, even if you are wedged and and buried in the woods for 54 hours. Fear and love combine as you pray to God that Lech, Boris and Gregorgi will finish making the latest batch of vodka in Warley Woods, and not sample all 1000 litres before remembering that they left you buried somewhere.

Your skin, or rather my skin is perfect by the time I am dug out, even though I am foul smelling. This is amended by getting the dogs to drag me naked through Thimblemill brook, my clothes are disgusting after all, they are left on a bench. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi squeeze 2 litres of Fairy Liquid all over my body to de-grease me. The brook foams and bubbles fly all over the Warley Woods area. Naked yet covered in suds I emerge from the brook.

Then I am tied still naked to the roof rack on their Skoda Superb, as I’m too wet to be allowed inside, and they drive as fast as they can back home. They do have a trailer attached behind, not to my behind but to the Skoda Superb, 3000 litres of fresh vodka are inside. Once home I’m carried like a carpet from the Skoda Superb and thrown on to my kitchen floor.

Then sparing the fresh vodka,as it’s too good to waste, the three of them give me a massage. Fresh vodka certainly tones the skin after 2 days buried alive, and being dragged through a brook, then air dried by being driven while strapped to the roof rack. As life is restored Totoro my cat comes along to lick the vodka from me, the hounds join in too. Finally I’m thrown into a scalding shower. After all that you soon forget all your aches and pains. You just thank God you are alive and have such good friends called Lech, Boris and Gregorgi.  

Watching the Cat ©

By Michael Casey

We have a cat called Totoro, and thank God it’s not a dog, otherwise I’d not be here to tell the tale. You see my kids begged for a pet, so I said you can have a dog if I die and a cat if I have a heart attack. A few weeks later, after I had written To The Very Gates of Hell I had an unplanned quadruple heart bypass. That was Jan 2015, 3^rd Jan was when I was admitted then Tuesday 13^th Jan 2015 I had the operation. So when I came out of hospital I kept my word and Totoro came and joined the family a few months later.

I had said I’d accept a Tom cat, but Totoro deceived us by being a  female cat. So we had her neutered otherwise we’d be soon overrun by cats. My friend when he was at University in Canterbury Kent, his landlady had 16 cats. But at least the seaside and fresh air as available at nearby Whitstable.

When you first have a kitten you have to kitten proof your house, we used old shoe boxes to block the space under the sink so Totoro could not hide nor more importantly pooh there. Then there is the need for kitty litter to soak up all little messages, you can buy this in supermarkets and an old tray can be used to hold the litter. Now kitty litter was a revelation of sorts for me, all the years at home, 30+ years our cat your rattle the doorknob and out she’d go to bury her treasure in the next door neighbour’s flower bed. Now with Totoro we had to bury her pooh for her, self-service for the owner so to speak.

 I always said it was wrong for a cat to be a house cat, but Totoro got Whiskas from us so she was content as she grew from kitty to cat. Totoro has free range of the whole house, so she was happy enough. We had a little wicker basket for her, and she could jump on top of the fridge for variety. She even mastered opening the kitchen cupboards so we had to tape them shut, all in all a happy cat.

But cats need adventure so Totoro decided to escape, she jumped from the bedroom window to the top of the bay window and finally into the bushes below. Or that was the only explanation of how she could possibly escaped. The amount of prayers my daughters said for her safe return  could not be imagined, let’s say Saint Christopher himself brought her home. Love me, stroke me, feed me.

I think Totoro got out a few more times before it was decided to let her roam free, free as dad’s farts blow, in and out like a yo-yo. Totoro as you might expect in our  house is bilingual, English and Chinese, despite having a Studio Ghbili Japanese name. She is  tri-lingual if you include Plastic, she can tell from the sound of plastic opening that Chicken or Chorizo or Polish ham is available. So she will run faster than Hussain Bolt to get to the fridge, Bolt is a slouch compared to her.

After cats eat they groom, they have several positions that would put humans in hospital if they adopted them. The Cello is one such position, the cat’s body looks as if it is holding a cello while she licks her own hind quarters. You can try it at home if you do yoga, otherwise don’t even think about it.     

Cats like heat too, that’s why if you have a baby you must watch it, as the cat will sit on the baby for its heat, they do smell of milk too. Our old cat Jean used to sit on the tv at night, the valves were hot and kept the cat warm, either that or she was a tv critic for the Mews Times. With modern tvs cats can no longer sit on them for night-time warmth. Though Totoro is so very nimble with Ninja qualities so she may sit on our lcd tv when we are not looking, the remote always has claw marks on it too.

Any opening in a door or window will let your cat in and out, or rather she lets herself in or out.  You may be in a dream sat on the toilet and then suddenly the cat appears, frightening the pooh out of you. Or you are in mid-shower and Totoro will appear and you pee yourself, luckily you are in the shower. And if she wants out she’ll just scratch at your bedroom window until you open it for her so she can join the dawn chorus and kill one of them. Such is cat life.

I’ll leave it there, you all have your own cat stories, we love cats but they just use us. Dogs are loyal, but cats are like manipulative mistresses, we know they are bad for us, but we can’t live without our pussy cat.

Sudden Surprises ©

By

Michael Casey

I couldn’t think of a theme, there were too many children children crying in the background, that Trump Daycare Centre is so noisy, then I had a stabbing pain above my left nipple, no I hadn’t been suckling too much, the Trump Daycare Centre does all that. No it was my left over pains from my surgery and so on, but at least I know how to sing songs in Spanish, Manana Domino de Pipiripingo.

So sudden surprises will be my theme, or I could go and watch the Russia v Egypt match. How you react to sudden surprises makes a difference in your life. You are naked on the sofa, now I could proceed with various tales, so I’ll use the less X rated story. Sorry to disappoint, but this is Radio after all, I want everything I talk about to work on radio.

So Florence and Zeb are on the sofa, and the spring are making a lot of noise, a lot of noise. Obviously they are practicing their trampoline act for the student ball later in the week. They were going to do a balloon blowing up act, but they forgot the balloons, so they just had to be extra careful. Whatever that means, is this turning into Panto for Radio,oh yes it is, oh no it is not.

For my far flung readers or is it listeners you’ll have to take everything with a pinch of salt, just sprinkle it lightly and be careful, Florence and Zeb are still naked after all. Or maybe just throw a bucket of water over them. But make sure Totoro isn’t splashed or she’ll jump up claws out, and I’m sure Florence and Zeb might get injured, they’d never be able to ride the magic roundabout ever again.

So what did you do, yes you blushing over there behind that Physics text book. You told your parents you were practicing learning all the parts of the anatomy, and you just had to get naked. Your girlfriend’s mother being dim believed you, her father a master butcher just took you to the deep freeze and left you there for 3 hours. By which time your ardour was cooled, but you read the posters with the best way to divide a side of beef or pig or lamb, just to pass the time.

Released from the deep freeze you fell to the ground as if dead, so the master butcher ran away in his meat van. The mother said sorry and fainted. Your girlfriend who had done a survival course knew all about body heat. So she made love to you for hours, until the colour came back to your cheeks. In the morning dad returned, he had to open the shop up after all,besides he had decided to chop up your body and sell it as dog meat. He returned to find his wife as if dead lying on the floor, or a World Cup footballer diving for a penalty. His daughter had bright red cheeks like a Russian doll, and you were even redder.

Obviously his daughter was pregnant, but you had had an epiphany, you no longer wanted to be a mortician, you wanted to be a butcher instead. Dad, was unbelieving but you recited the list learnt from when you were locked inside the freezer. A tear came to his eye, but what about your knife skills. You had spent a lot of time with Lech, Boris and Gregorgi so you knew all about knives, and potato peeling and making vodka in a still in Warley Woods. It was a match made in Heaven, or rather on the back of the family settee.

Your future wife wrote a recipe book called Sofa Meats, because after eating all the meat based recipes all you would want to do is lie down on the sofa. Though like football Sofa Meats was a game of two halves, recipes and relaxing things to do on sofas. Like, well you know, watch the Russian World Cup, or write stories like this, or where did I put those balloons. STOP, you are making up your own stories now, who do you think you are, a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, Michael Casey is the name.  

Choice Words (c) 

By 

Michael Casey

As my readers are busy with the World Cup I was wondering what should I do to attract them back, though I know only as the World Cup proceeds will my readers return. There's Loyalty for you. So how can I choose words to impress my readers, to entice, to tempt them back. I am not a model so a post with a picture of me naked attached to it would not work. Maybe only with Morticians.

So how can I write a swimming pool as the Beatles once said. BBC Radio documentaries told me that, so if you are reading this Paul and I'm wrong feel free to pop around with some groceries and I'll put the kettle on. As I was saying, before there was a knock on the door, it was the pest controller, said his name was Paul something. But he did leave me some vegan burgers, which I'll give to the cat later. Anyway where was I, I almost lost myself then, lost and found that's me, I need a label, a record label.

So how do you choose your words to inspire your readers, or impress your listeners, ok I just recite each new piece to my daughters before they are allowed to watch the 100th episode of Gilmore Girls. Some words are easy, like A level Maths for Arabs, they did invent Maths after all. Other words are hard, like cooking for the French, isn't that right Macu, or should I call you Mr President. He has forever lost his Dignity now with that reply.  Mr President, that'll come back to haunt you. It's always best to be humble and be given the best seats at the wedding if you remember your Bible. Now you'll be attacked for demanding all your trappings, you fell into a trap of your own making there, Macu.   

I was once at Chinese church a decade or more ago, and everybody but everybody had a PhD, Drs galore. I looked over at a guy in thick black specs cleaning out the dustbins, is he a PhD too I asked? No, he's a Professor was the reply, it was Andrew Chan.  HE is now a chancellor at a University in Australia I believe. So Macu, you could learn a lot from him. Titles mean nothing, it's humanity that counts.

But back to choice of words, children love a bit of alliteration, it's like scratching a dog's ear. Personally I think those who cannot write alliterate, same goes for cursing and sex. If you cannot write throw a bedroom scene in, or have lots of cursing. I have comedy sex, or rather comedy innuendo and metaphor swearing in what I write. I hope its funnier. Have you seen the size of my punctuation, it's bigger than Trump's hands. Whatever that is supposed to mean, but you are smiling as you read it, so I get the laugh.

As Gill from Stats MR  used to say, Michael you lead them up the garden path, well only as far as my pansies, but be careful of my thorny bush, it'll cut you to ribbons. You look so nice with a ribbon on, thank's mum, I'm going to play rugby it's to keep the  hair out my eyes while I play hooker. The cheek of him calling me mum, I know I look like my mum but calling me mum. I know I am wearing my mum's old smock, but calling me a woman. He's a useless hooker anyway, ribbon or no ribbon, he can never get his leg over the oval balls quick enough.

See I digressed into Round the Horne style of radio, you can turn your knobs on your crystal set and find it and compare, am I just a counterfeit Julian and Sandy, more Julian than Sandy. Or am I just confusing you?    Or have you realised as I did that in this mode I am Ronnie Corbett's  and Joyce Grenfell's bastard son. You absorb everything, for me that'd be 50 years plus of  love of words, then when you write, only then you discover what your style is. By osmosis I am  that bastard son, I'm not copying, it's just the way it is. Just as we inherit traits from our parents, such as cross dressing and shaving my legs in the kitchen sink, in the same bowl as we use for the washing up. See I've put another cartoon in your brain, the sick bucket is to the left of the computer.

Pause, while I put the fish fingers on. Left of field arrives on the page, because I have to answer my stomach. It rumbles, I burp, then I make food then I fart. The usual merry go round of love, of love of food that is. By being open to the reality of real events, was that pretentious enough for your Journalists out there? In other words background noises are added to the page and  form structure to the piece. am I really getting pretentious now? Or in plain English I pick things up, like a thief and use them in a variety of different ways.

Some people don't think they just pass through like shadows having no form or substance, just like reality tv people really, so they never notice or observe or even feel anything. They are too busy smoking the newly legal drugs, which means my job is to point things out and ask have you seen things this way or that way. Rather like a naked contortionist, again a horrid picture of me in your brain

For those who might miss the joke, deliberately or not. By putting myself forward, maybe the Elephant amongst men, the ludicrousness  of it is enhanced. I am the original ugly duckling so to speak, so it magnifies the idea. Just as when I reveal myself as a writer to some people they don't believe it. HIM, he's a security guard or bouncer at a nightclub. You wrote that, as they look at me as if I'm pooh stuck to their shoe. 

So its's nice when I get a good or big reaction from my choice of words, for this story or that story. It means I've made people laugh and sometimes think at the same time. It's when we stop thinking and allow others to do it for us that we get bad politicians everywhere, who can ruin our countries and all our lives.

Now the previous sentence is a good end point, but I've continued because my fish fingers are not quiet ready, see I have my priorities, stomach first,words second, after I've had my seconds of fish fingers. A good end point is always best, and sometimes the circle of words leads you right back to where you have started. Or  you can end with a  joke. Like my circle was finding a new shop that sold even cheaper fish fingers, fish fingers made into words. So you could choose your words while you ate your fish fingers. None of you saw that coming, not unless you use sonar for your own words

Chick Flicks ©

By

Michael Casey

Well I had a nap and went to the Polish shop for chocolate and 7Up, now we can settle down for a film. There doesn’t seem to be much on normal tv, then I spotted Bridget Jones’s Diary. So my girls are watching that for the 10^th time while take refuge here, and talk to you about them. Meanwhile the girls in the Polish shop are shelf filling, no Hugh Grant for them, he’d have to be 2 meters tall with Slavic good looks even to get a look in. Sorry Hugh, go back to your film, we have shelves to stack.

So what makes a good film, a good film as far as girls are concerned? Well there has to be humour, and a good bastard to bitch at. Is that Hugh Grant again? There has to be a noble soul, he can have a limp and be ugly, so long as he is not too ugly. He can get the girl, and the bastard can get beaten, or rescued by a really fat and ugly girl who finally saves him. Dream boy gets ugly girl, with a wart, so he is

saved, or is it condemned by Fate. Meanwhile the heroine is saved and gets a nice boy, even if he has a limp.

Gushy music plays a part, as does music, genre music of its time. Bridget Jones’ Diary I see was made in 2001. Soft focus and girls crying while just in their knickers sat of their bed stroking the cat for comfort. It’s as simple as that, it’s almost like a recipe.

There is a film about a London/LA house swop, The Holiday now that’s a chick flick but also a good family film, we’ve seen it a couple of times now. It has music and comedy and soft focus, I like it, though I’m no chick. The genre is made for girls who want a film without their bloke, just for them and their girl friends, a Thursday night out, where they can laugh together and bond with their girlfriends. No violence and blood bathes, no need to squirm, and no chance of puking because of all of the buckets of blood.

In the room behind me I can hear the pompous lawyer saying he loves Bridget Jones. Corny but nice themes, she gets a nice man who’ll treat her well, the bastard always loses. Or gets drowned in the pool in the park, only to be dragged out by the really fat girl with the wart on her lip. So the bastard gets his just rewards a really fat girl with a wart who’ll break his back and bed when she takes advantage of him. So it’s a morality tale, if you are a bastard this is what will happen to you.

Though in other chick flicks, the ugly duckling has a good wax and loses those hairy legs, and suddenly loses 40 pounds. Then she steals Hugh Grant’s heart, only to discover he’s still a bastard in the 2^nd film in the series, he divorces her because they cannot have children. So she is comforted by the fat ugly man in shades with silver hair from Birmingham and she marries him instead, only to discover she can have children after all. Seven of them, each more beautiful than the  previous one. It’s God’s sense of humour, ugly dads have beautiful children.

As for the Hugh Grant character, what happens to him? He dies a horrible death, or becomes a doorman in a strip club, Stringfellow had pity on him before he went to Heavens About, a deluxe club. At the end of the day a chick flick is a laxative as it moves you, and clears blockages, but makes you feel so relieved, so relieved you cry.

Chatting with Doris ©

By

Michael Casey

I was about to find my bench in the churchyard when I stumbled over Doris in the churchyard, it’s not her real name, just in case her husband is reading this, he could be the jealous kind, not wishing to share his Doris. Doris is not a nubile young thing trying to turn my head, Doris is 80 and maybe more. Though if she is younger I hope she will forgive me, I can talk what with my silver hair, or white if you are unkind.

So I had popped into the churchyard and part on my routine and was about to sit on my John Thomas Beddall bench when I spotted Doris, so I said hello again and sat down. Am I lying really and is she a nubile young thing with legs up to her armpits with an innocent smile above a heaving chest. No she is not, beside I’m only attracted to Orientals. Doris really is a little old lady, we’ve exchanged a few greeting on the high street, and she has a great smile, she twinkles, she has a good sense of humour too.

So I sat by Doris and said hello again, last time we met was at the GPs when I had to take my small daughter for her tetanus injection, which turned out to be 2 injections, they gave her the kissing virus injection too. You know the one students get before going to University, meninajarvirus injection or some other name. Then Doris had met my small daughter while she was looking for a dustbin, now she met me again.

I told Doris my other daughter was having a look at Birmingham University along with the small daughter she had already met. I had rung my Oriental wife, Shanghai that is, with some news when a pigeon poohed on my wife as I shared the news. My Irish mother would have said that was good luck. I hope my mother is right, we’ll find out on Monday. Meanwhile my girls went to Ying Yip to spend the vouchers my wife had won at the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce dinner, so a very big thank you to them. My wife is world famous now in some quarters of Birmingham, a small sprat in the fishbowl.

A man passed by in the churchyard, he reminded me of the Postman I stumbled into on my wedding day, the Postman had said I was Shanghaied and of course he was right. So I asked was he him, it turned out he was not, though he has jade beads on one wrist. He turns out to have a connection with the churchyard, so I recommend my neighbour for any gardening requirements. The man who was not a postman turns out to be a local property man, he said he had 3 houses, so God Bless him.

Meanwhile me and Doris alighted on Round the Horne, I told her I was a bit of a Julian though my hair was once a bit Sandy, she laughed so encouraged I continued that my Sandy was a bit Julian, and I was a Bona writer. Now this 80 something was tickled, the rest of you might think we had had too many Lucozades or being chewing too much Wrigleys. I asked her had she seen that man again, no not the man who was not the postman, but ITMA, Its That Man Again, a famous radio show. You can all discover audio on Utube, it will illuminate my back passage to where my comedy stems from.

It turns out that Doris has a typewriter, I swooned. I hope you are a speed typist, I explained I had another full length novel in me. If only I could recline like Dame Barbara Cartland and recite my next 600 page full length novel, Tears for a Butcher to Doris ready at her keyboard. Sadly Doris was not open to my proposition, at 80 she could not keep up with to torrent. I asked did she have a child, but she did not. So my idea was stillborn.

We bantered away while her milk curdled in her wheellie shopping bag, then I departed I had to do a bit of shopping, non Chinese food shopping that is. I said to the strawberry salesman in the church grounds that me and Doris might run away together on the no.11 bus. Doris just remarked I was definitely a Julian and not a Sandy, whatever that meant.

Doris was not on the bench the following day, but there was a Korean girl sitting there, she said she was the cleaner where Doris lived, and you have guessed it, she was also a speed typist, 150 words a minute. Doris had sent her along, with instructions, look for the fat silver haired writer in shades from the churchyard. He’s a bit of a Julian but you’ll have a Sandy experience with him if you type Tears for a Butcher for him, whatever does Doris mean?

Ice Cream at my Funeral ©

By

Michael Casey

Well its hot and my big daughter wanted ice cream so we had some new green ice cream from the local alcohol shop. It did not have alcohol in it and it was not minty either, but we liked it, so we had our share and put it back in our fridge for later. It said the taste of the East so obviously I was attracted to it. As me and my daughter enjoyed it, I thought what can I talk about tonight, then the idea of Ice Cream at my Funeral arrived.

So would you eat ice cream at a funeral. We had a snooker table full of food at my mother’s and then my dad’s funeral, and obviously the bar was open too, we were in the Irish Club over the road from the funeral directors. But would you have ice cream at a funeral. I’ve just decided I want ice cream at mine. Sadly I won’t get to eat any myself, but there should be a party atmosphere, the days of wearing black at funerals are long over. Except celebrity funerals, especially Z list celebrity funerals where everything is exaggerated as much as the Duchess of York’s, that’s Fergie’s, waves to the Queen at Ascot.

Ice cream is from Xmas parties at primary school, I can remember hearing don’t get burnt, yes burnt as they moved a chunk of ice which was being used to keep the ice creams cold at the school Christmas party, this was in 1968 maybe. See my greed has kept that memory alive till this very moment, we were sat in the school hall I remember.

Maybe only Latins would have ice cream at funerals, or drugs cartel funerals. I don’t know, I’ve never been invited to a Latin American drugs cartel funeral. And the only “drugs” I take are medicines my doctors insist I take. Though with my imagination some people think I must be on drugs. Sorry to disappoint you, and please stop sending me adverts for legal cannabis. I’m in UK, not USA. Imagination is all I need and maybe a good supply of ice cold fizzy pop from the shop.

Ice cream does denote celebration or relaxation, and expensive ice cream, not the cheapest of the cheap stuff is so nice. Ask any girl, the quickest way to her heart is Cadbury’s chocolate from here in Birmingham, and ice cream. Give a girl that and she will give you, her attention. Anything else you will have to deserve.

Ice cream is Summer and happiness, even Theresa May is having an ice cream right now, as she contemplates hanging Boris from the flagpole on top of no.10 Downing Street by his naughty bits. Meanwhile she has a 2^nd ice cream and gets her security crew to have one too, an ice cream to relax with, even the policeman on the door gets one, with not one but two Cadbury flakes inserted. Forming a 2 fingered salute in the ice cream just in case Boris passes by.

So ice cream is a thing of joy, you cannot be unhappy when the ice cream is dripping down your fingers. Even hardened close protection officers can relax as they have a ice cream. Theresa may have some ice lollies too stuck at the back of the fridge. If you save the sticks from the lollies when you have five of them you can weave together a triangle that you can throw across the garden of number 10 Downing street. How else do you think Theresa May can relax? Yes it’s ice cream and lollies followed by making flying ice lolly stick triangles.

But I digressed, however it proves a point ice cream helps people chill, it relaxes us and brings out the child in us. So when my time arrives head for the ice cream section in Iceland or any posh supermarket, don’t wear black, not unless you are fat or going to a night club later. Then lick your lolly as the priest says the prays and buries me in Trinity Road graveyard Smethwick, next door to the Sikh temple and the postal sorting office, and over the road from what was The District Iron and Steel Brasshouse Lane, Smethwick, where my dad spent 40 happy years sweating. It has rail, canal and road connections, so you can all come and pay a visit when you are looking for work, as it’s opposite the labour exchange too.

Enjoy your ice cream and remember though Life ends in cold, its when we make Life warm and full of laughter that we truly enjoy our lives. So make love and enjoy ice cream simultaneously, then you will enjoy life to the full, but be careful where you drop any ice cream.

Process and Routine ©

By

Michael Casey

What? Process and Routine, what kind of story is that? Well settle down we only have an hour before the England v Belgium match, so get a drink from Lech, Boris and Gregorgi and I’ll explain it all. Though before I start did you know there is a Lech Polish lager, I saw it in the Polish shop last night. I knew there was Lech vodka, he makes it in Warley Woods with Boris and Gregorgi, but now I know there is a legal larger called Lech.

So what’s this about Process and Routine? Well yesterday when I fixed my computer again it was only because I followed Process and Routine that I was to fix it. If you follow the Process and have a Routine you can fix anything. If you panic then you are dead. So you have to go through the options logically and then you’ll come to the answer. I suppose it’s Logic really, something I think they should and must teach kids in school.

Why do soldiers train, why do acrobats train? Why do Politicians lie, and why are Bankers well Bankers. Because that is how they hone their skill, but too much honing can be very bad for your eyesight. Going back to basics, if you just try things hit and miss you may get all the right answers, especially if it is multiple choice, as did one student I know of. But realistically it is only by following the Process that you get good results. That’s why doctors and lawyers ask questions sequentially. Watch the Grenfell enquiry to see the proof of this.

Now as I used to work shifts most of my working life, before the delights of ill health meant I could annoy you all more frequently, I always had to have a Routine. Up, wash, eat and out the door to work. Then home, eat, wash and then sleep. I spent 14 years working night shifts and enjoying the delights of what that did to my body. So there was no time to relax and stay up late when it was a work day/night, I had to be at that bus stop and get the bus to work. Otherwise the evening shift had to wait for me, or they were supposed to anyway. Ditto if the night shift did not arrive on time then I’d miss my bus home, so I was part of a mechanism, a rickety clock that ticked and tocked. You cannot imagine just how tired you get when you work so many night shifts, some of them 12 hours for a few years.

Now if part of the computer broke, and it did often, this was 40 years ago remember, you would have to improvise. You’d transfer files via the scenic route as we called it. Copy files to a tape on systemA then to systemB then finally systemC. Instead of just doing one direct transfer, that’s if I remember rightly, Dave Eaton will remember should he stumble over this, just as much as he remembers Elaine cleaning the windows in Collins. You’ll have to read my play Shoplife from 1988 to understand the reference. You do have to do the occasional bit of research if you read my stuff.

The point of this though is that we all need to be able to improvise, if its raining what do you do? You put a plastic bag on your head, you may look stupid, but if you’ve just had your hair dyed what other choice is there. You lock yourself out, and only Mr Obnoxious has a key, will you stay on the landing all night, or suffer him, and it really is suffering, but you brown nose him so you can get into your flat. The point being Life is a learning curse, or should I say curve. If you don’t learn from your mistakes, then you are cursing your life, which is something a female priest once said to me. Now obviously I am perfect.

So if you have a routine your life is easier, and if you follow a process you can correct any mistakes along the way. I’m not saying be a machine, everything so orderly and routine, like a North Korean parade, oh when are the nukes going to be shipped out to Russia, Donald? But if you have a routine life is tidier. I’m trying to get my kids to put the marg and ham back in the same slot in the fridge, otherwise only the cat could possible find the ham, I never could. But it does make all the difference for family harmony, same as not using dad’s razor to shave your legs.

Now if you look at your own kids or friends at University or wherever you are, even in Indonesia today, what do you see? Are they clued up enough to react when they need to? Or are they clueless? Simple things like keeping your eyes open, watch for that toddler about to put its head in the revolving door of the hotel, or for a person with love and hate tattoos on his knuckles in a 5 star hotel. So things stand out, you should be following that person and ringing the martial arts security crew. Then Sandy says it’s only Julian the vicar, he used to be a bad boy with tats before he saw the light, he’s giving a lecture on Religion in the Business environment today in the Corybn suite.

And on it goes, I could give more examples but the match is on, I’ll post this in half time.Belgium man, Belgium, which as you know is the biggest curse of all, that’s if you have read The Hitcherhiker’s Guide to the Universe. So use Process and Routine and expand your Universe, feed your mind, or else it really will be Belgium man, Belgium.

As Ever I return to Music (c)

By  

Michael Casey

Well I’m trying a different word processor so forgive any mistakes, it looks darker like an old fashioned newspaper, with the print, the ink coming off on your fingers. I don’t know if I like it yet, it’s Abi Word you can try it for yourself, as Vangelis plays in the background. Which brings me to today’s talk, as ever I return to Music. I do always return to Music, yes with a capital M, it plays a most important part in my life. As does talking to you, some would say writing is my therapy, the Cards amongst you would say if you read Michael Casey then YOU need therapy, you are all so cruel. The Card was a book by Arnold Bennett and a nice film in 1952 as well, so go read or watch that if you have had enough of me already, have a Guinness too, a Sir Alec Guinness.

So what’s it with music, as a Chinese theme plays through the speakers. Well its the thing that binds us all together, it is a heart beat, the internal tick of time that plays through our lives. I remember this or that or even the other when a certain track was playing, or an entire Barry White double album when me and my lady got acquainted. Music is the rhythm to our lives, the beat, the slow slow quick quick slow as we dance through our lives, or enjoy Barry White with somebody we love.

In times of trouble when your heart is broken maybe after you smashed his Barry White collection because, well just because. Then you retreat to the bathroom or the sofa somewhere to cry. But as these gentle tears fall you just need a bit of loving and compassion. So you play your dad’s Nat King Cole, because Nat was a gentleman, and as those tears fall his voice is brushing your hair, and wiping those tears away, your love may have met its Waterloo, but you’ll survive because you have the eye of a tiger. So you play I will survive, and the winner takes it all, cos your mate is a divorce lawyer, so you smile.

I’ve digressed as usual, but its the winding road that makes the story, the long and winding road that leads us all home. Music is a special place in our hearts, it soothes us, it reminds us. Celine Dion was singing on the radio the night my mother died so now her song Because you Loved Me, has a powerful reminder and effect on us all. I just put it on the speakers and I’m almost crying now as I talk to you, so that is the power in music. I’ll stop and listen to the song.  

We each have a song that makes us happy or brings on the tears, or coaxes us back to the right path. Grannie would bribe us with sweets when we sulked, and we’d listen to the radio with her, so now when we hear that song we think of grannie too. So when she was even older you made sure she had the best DAB radio money could buy so that she was not all alone in the old people’s home.

Music is Love, if you think about it, it really is true, maybe explains why Mick Jagger is still dancing in the street, or why musicians always had groupies, music is a magnet, as is musicians’ large back list. None of us can live in silence. Silence is loneliness, silence is even pain, we all need music in remembrance of love, of kindness, of hope. If ever you have walked through an accountancy firm it’s like walking through the valley of the death, they don’t talk, yet they exist.

So when they leave the office it’s like a fart exploding with noise and relief. To be able to speak, to listen to music, to dance in the street even. We all need to escape into music, to be swept along by the rhythm and the beat. Even if it is only Agadoo, though we may be blind drunk and desperately looking for the toilet, through that big gold handbag will do, Laura Kuenssberg shouldn’t leave it lying about.

Earlier I was listening to a piece by Sky and I imagined a chase through a woods to rescue a child from a kidnapper, the ending to The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker in fact, the undertaker praying he’d not have to bury the little Indian Princess, the butcher vowing to kill the kidnapper, the baker cursing his dog for chasing squirrels. Then as the music plays in my imagination I can see the result, all played out to music, such overpowering music. Yes that is the power of music, in fact Betty’s son writes film music I believe, while I dream my comic novel makes it to the screen, 5 years ago a low budget film producer did take a look.

So as Vangelis plays chariots of fire in slow motion, my dreams are in slow motion waiting to hit the floor and accelerate. So it’s time to finish so there is only one track I can play Windmills of my Mind from the Thomas Crown Affair, or maybe Queen’s I want it all and I want it now…

Passport Photos ©

By

Michael Casey

As usual I had no idea what to talk about then reality gave me an idea, even though I wish it did not. My big daughter lost her seasonal bus pass, with just 2 weeks left of term time, but the pass lasts till the end of July. So I was was not very happy, so after we moaned and told our daughter she was just like her uncle, he’d lose his arse if it was not tied onto him, as my mother used to say. She went to the shop to get a new bus pass. Only she needed a new passport sized photo, so she had come home like a fool, and we had no spares at home.

This is when it got interesting and funny. She took a photo of herself, then emailed it me to print off, only you have to print it to the size of a passport photo. By doing it ourselves we save a fiver, though if she hadn’t lost her bus pass we wouldn’t need to save a fiver. So I printed the photo on colour paper, I’d bought some ages ago so we had plenty thanks to the Pound shop. Only it came off full size A4. So I tried again, still the same result.

We decided to consult Dr.Google it told us that a passport photo was 35mm x 45mm, so armed with that information we put the photo inside a word document. Then we dragged it smaller and tried to print it. Now my daughter looked as if she was in a hall of mirrors at the fair. I decided to print again on the same piece of paper, hoping it’d go in the space. Only it printed on top of the same photo. Now it looked as if Picasso had taken the photo of my daughter.

Then my daughter noticed I had magnify on the word document, ratio 189%. So I reduced to real size and tried again. This time the picture was better, only my daughter’s neck had been squashed, no longer an elegant swan, now a stumpy little robin. We tried a few times and then finally a 35mm x 45mm photo, or as near as we were going to get. That would have to do. 

I used to have software that let you print a whole sheet of passport size photos but that seems to have gone on one of my updates to Windows 10. But at least Picasso would have bee pleased with my  efforts, and I do remember seeing some of his stuff in Barcelona in Feb 1999. Then I tried chatting up a girl with great hair and an American accent, who I discover the next day was a Russian ballerina, who happened to have a broken nose, but maybe it was Picasso doing her makeup in Las Ramblas.

Pictures are strange, and passport photos are even stranger, so you have to keep your sense of proportion in life and in photos, or you end up like a Picasso image.

Do What you Can ©

By

Michael Casey

Now I’m not one of these people that is impressed by things, and I am suspicious of loud, happy clappy people. I distrust them immediately, and when they say they want to “help” I know really “help” means help themselves and fleece me. Salespeople can be like that, others are as honest as the day is long, but the default position should be distrust especially in very large ticket purchases. You have been warned now think for yourselves.

I’ve sidetracked myself, but its very hot in Birmingham and the UK in general so your common sense might not be working, we had the worst Winter in 20 years maybe and now we are having the best Summer in 40 years maybe. Now in the heat as in the cold my body makes me vulnerable, which I hate, it’s not old age rather its my diseases. But my brain is in fine fettle, and though I always have a Buster Keaton look, it’s a way of seeing if people are lying to me. Then like a fat sumo I pounce, or rather waddle. I may look like a bouncer, but I do have a brain, far better than the micky mouse university you went to. Give me strength.

All of this has nothing to do with today’s piece, but I’m sure I’ll weave it together by the time the satnat takes me to the bottom of the page. I WAS impressed by just 4 words I read yesterday in the Columban magazine yesterday. It’s not a magazine for Columbian football fans, nor drugs dealers. Its a missionary magazine, and no not about missionary position for sex workers or those seeking to improve their love life. The Columban magazine is about religious missionary work all over the world by the Columban Missionary Society. I have their calendar on my wall for years, and occasionally I send them a donation.

Now what 4 words impressed me so much, Do What You Can, those 4 words really impressed me. I love you, are 3 words that should impress all of us and lead to great things, and creation, and creation of families. But when we grow up we may be told to Do What You Can. If you are Harry Kane you may score a hat trick over Sweden. That is doing what he can. As for you and me, we’d score 6, Harry can be such a slacker sometimes. Gareth has to promise that Harry can try on his waistcoat if he gets a hat trick, that’s his motivational method.

Doing what you can, means being honest about your abilities and using them to the best of your ability. Hopefully Harry will be given Gareth’s waistcoat because he’ll perform to his very best by doing what he can. If he was a dancer he’d be doing the Can Can because that was doing what he can can can.

Whatever your skill, use it to the very best, just as my dad said 45 years ago. I have no education, I cannot tell you what to pick at O Level, but do what you like, but do your best. This was his mantra for all of us, and I suppose it worked as one went to Oxford, another to Cambridge, a third is a great teacher, and me I am what you see before you. A fat, smelly, silver haired writer sweating in the Summer of 2018 sun, wear his shades in front of the computer as he adds to his 1,333,000 words over 16 books on Amazon.

What about the other side of the coin, what does doing what you can mean then? Doing What you Can, means doing the best with the material you have. If you can draw then draw in a notebook, even if all you can draw is match stick men. If all you can do is sing, then sing, or if all you can do is dance then dance. Whatever you can do, then do it, and never let any bastard belittle you. I saw a documentary on the tv about a musician and how his family broke his guitar and crushed his spirit, but he never gave up. That man was Eric Clapton.

We are not all Eric Claptons and we may never have any such talent. All we are good for is opening doors, as a doorman. I’ve done that, so there is no shame in that. Or all you are good for is cleaning rooms, I’ve done that, there is no shame in that. I’ve cleaned toilets and then chatted to millionaires minutes later. No matter how humble your job, you still have worth, so do what you can, where you can. You may not climb any ladders. But you may start as a humble receptionist and by your hard work and talent become a General Manager, just as my friend Robin did. If you see a General Manager with orange hair in Birmingham then that’s him, say Michael Casey says hello.

The point of all this is that doing what you can, it’s better than saying I’m nothing, I can do nothing. You can be a cheerleader, you may have to stay at home because of illness or infirmity, but you can be the reservoir of love and hope and prayer. Even stuck at home, you can do what you can. Theresa taught us that, and no not Theresa May, I’m sure she’d appreciate prayers, and shoes with poisoned knives in, just like in James Bond. Or a cabinet maker, if you know anybody good with woodwork, especially halving joints, and I’m not talking about Columbians and drugs. I’m talking about doing what you can.Which seems to have brought us to the bottom of the page. And sometimes you have to slap your own bottom when you are at the bottom of a pit of despair or self pity. Or roll up a copy of the Columban magazine and slap the bottoms of the Cabinet, then you’ll force them to do what they can.

The Joys of Text ©

By Michael Casey

Well I must be on a roll, I read back Do What You Can which I wrote earlier tonight, instead of watching the Brazil match, and I really enjoyed it. You see it’s only when I finish a piece and read it back in its entirety that I know if I’ve hit it on the nail or have I missed it. If you like I choose a target to write about and fire my words on the page, not quite like a blind man or a blindfolded man, but rather I’m in a tank with limited field of view. So when battle is over, or when I’ve ran out of words,  as I step back or emerge from my tank I see the battlefield. I can see the results of my hour’s labour, and each piece usually takes an hour.

It’s then that I enjoy my text, my words on the page as I read the full thing back to myself for the first time, it’s the afterglow. Just as after a workout in the gym you feel so good, as you stop and head for the pub, or enjoy Stella in the changing room. By which I mean a can of Stella Artois in your gym bag, not unless you have a close relationship with Stella your gym coach.

Words are real fun, as I read it back I can feel if I have made my point, or have I failed. Failed is too strong a word, remember what I write about is randomly chosen by me. So if I pick Pain Relief Gel, I’ve just looked at my tube of Movelat  in front of me , that’s why I’ve randomly chosen that to explain my point. So if I chose that then there may not be as interesting a story to tell than if I told the story about being trapped in the toilet on the Paris to Calais express. At least I remembered the French for Help I’m trapped inside the toilet.

So the random choice of story effects the quality of the story, I hope the quality of the writing is always high, by the way my pain killers don’t add or subtract to the writing. I might stop to slap on the Movelat gel, by the way buy shares in that, otherwise I’ll carry on writing till I die, or till a North Korean Army girl spirits me away to her flat above the undertakers. I always tell my Shanghai wife I’ll run away with a Korean girl. She just laughs and reminds me she turned down a millionaire for me. Yes, Love is blind and stupid, or maybe we are each other’s punishment  from God, discuss all you philosophy students out there.

As you can see surreal ideas are a joy to me, it’s like finding another can of Stella in the back of the fridge when you thought it was empty. Or a cake in the cupboard when you wanted something to go with your coffee before you finish writing your thesis. I am of course a PhD, but you guessed already. Maybe the  Novichok was in the back of a fridge, the bad boys hid amongst the least of our brethren in Salisbury. But we will never know.

The thing with words is that you can build and rebuild with them, they are Lego, and Lego is never ending and Danish. Which is not Legover in a Danish, that is something entirely different. The sprinkles would get everywhere. As I write this I  realise I am Ronnie Corbett’s and Joyce Grenfell’s bastard son, am I turning into Gerald Wiley again?

I also like the fact I can mix the sacred and the profane. Would you listen if I was too sacred, or too surreally profane? I think not. But if I add a spoon full of sugar then the medicine does go down, please stop calling me Julie, call me Julian, Sandy does all the time. Sandy does what all the time? Never you mind it’s nearly time for bed. I’ve given you two tonight, maybe I’ll give Sandy 2 tonight as well. Two mugs of  cocoa, what did you think? You are all so easily led. The ink still hasn’t dried on my PhD, I paid 2.99 online to the University of Donald Trump for it.

Ok, I’ll really go to bed now, thanks for reading my rubbish, feel free to pay for it on Amazon, 16 books worth

  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC 

ok, please  yourselves as Frankie Howard once said in Up Pompeii

Bee Gees on the Beach in Birmingham ©

By Michael Casey

Well England won  2 nil, Sweden forgot how to put an attack together, a bit like losing the build instructions for an IKEA product. My daughter saw the match in China town with her Maths Viz friend, we have high hopes he gets into Cambridge such is his skill with high and exotic numbers. Though when she told me where she saw the match I told her about my old company’s high and exotic numbers. Which brought more joy that any World Cup match.

You see it was our  work’s Christmas party so the company issued beer tokens, 2 pints each. This was very kind of them, especially as the nature of our work, and the fact this company could out drink anybody, and no this is not an empty boast. I was the sole shandy drinker in the company, rather like an accepted Leper. Dom, God bless him used to look at me with amusement, and say “A Girlie” as he poured my pint maybe 30 years ago now. A Girlie being a pint of shandy, which is half lager and half lemonade. Tragically Dom died as a result of a fire. So whenever I think of a Girlie I think of him. Some bright spark, who shall remain nameless decided to photocopy the beer tokens. We the staff needed no encouragement to drink excessively, but with beer tokens galore, the beer flowed even more.

The following week the bar bill was to be settled, but instead of say 400 free pints, beer was cheap then. The bar presented  my old company with a bill way way higher. Which my company promptly refused to pay. So an entire company of experienced drinkers were banned from that bar. Which happens to be where my daughter and  her friend watched the match today. Such sweet memories. So like a nomadic tribe my company packed their tents and decamped to another bar, 50 yards away. We had to be close to the office after all, we could not leave the Chinese Quarter, which was very pubescent at the time.

Which brings me back to my Bee Gees, they are singing as I talk to you  I thought they deserved a spin. Though they are a bit mellow, not because they are singing a slow song, but because I’ve got drops in both ears, prior to having them cleaned out. It may help the Tinnitus I’ve acquired, which may or may not be due to too much water in my ear. If I stopped washing my hearing would be better, but you wouldn’t want to stand next to me, you’d stand far away and shout at me. And all your shouting would deafen me, so it might just be best to stick to email or posting my thoughts here.

The good tracks are coming now on the Bee Gees double album, outside its very sunny and quiet. Everybody watched the match here in England, my wife said the roads were deserted, and everywhere was quiet as she stormed the shops. Now the next match of the day is on. Russia v Croatia is happening now so everybody is watching that. England v Russia at the next stage would be interesting to say the least with another poison attack in Salisbury area. Though all in all Russian World Cup has been excellent, fantastic people, as usual people, all people are let down by Governments.

So as you read this you will know the final score, one football match in a day is enough for me. Birmingham feels like a beach, majestic in the sunshine and my fuchsia are sprouting like beans in my front and back gardens. That’s the joy of sunshine, everybody feels happy and are talking to each other. If you add a great win, with a wonderful goalkeeper what could be better? Pardon, I can’t hear a thing, all I can hear is a gentle banging on my front room wall. It’s my neighbour I’ve got the speakers too loud, all the cotton wool in my ear and so on.  

Sweden Calling (c)

By

Michael Casey

Well I've just done my daily check of readers over my 4 sites, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker is the main site by the way, it's named after my comic novel, all 600 pages of it. To my surprise Sweden is reading me, just after losing to England Sweden is reading me. So is that a good sign or did the Finnish and Norwegian cousins recommend me. I have the Slavic cousins already, Lech, Boris and Gregorgi from Poland, Ukraine and Russia, so should I invent Scandinavian cousins as well? The idea does appeal. But what would I call the cousins? And would they always be nudists and be ever so polite, speaking multiple languages better than the English. Not to mention always free climbing mountains as ropes are so very uncool.

Bjorn, Magnus and Sven now what would I do with them? Well maybe I'll just have to go to the Sauna and sit naked and cogitatate. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi would sit beside me with a barrel of lager hidden in all the steam, obviously I'd feel inadequate compared to my Slavic friends. They would drink straight from the barrel while I like a girl would have a 1 litre tankard, as the steam surged all around us. Clean living cousins, from Scandanavia, in the war against the Nazi bastards a great uncle or something was working behind the lines and under the covers travelling everywhere, and naturally he'd have to hide from those Nazi bastards. And as it was so cold in Scandinavia, the Scandinavian branch of the Slavic family was born, or should I say Bjorn.

So that's the beginnings of an idea, would Lech, Boris and Gregori accept them, what with their perfectly groomed beards and pressed trousers. I suppose Bjorn, Magnus and Sven would have to prove themselves. So the six of them would go for a hike and climb a mountain, with just a backpack each of a small barrel of larger on their backs. No ropes, they were Scandinavian cousins after all. Rather like Clint Eastwood in the Eiger Sanction, but obviously much much tougher. So they all go  free climbing and get to the top of the mountain, then they get drunk. Lech decided lager would not be enough so he had brought the 2018 batch of new vodka freshly stilled in Warley Woods, instead of lager.

Now getting off a mountain when you are still hung over is a very difficult thing to do, but Scandinavian cousins had thought of that. So they had brought micro parachutes with them, they were cool Scandinavians, they would jump off the mountain into a Fiord. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi thought they were joking till their newly discover cousins just did it.  Bjorn, Magnus and Sven were gone.

5 hours later Lech, Boris and Gregorgi got back to the cabin where dinner was waiting for them. Bjorn, Magnus and Sven ever so politely apologised, you see they just had to be in time for Sunday service. Bjorn was the organist after all, and Magnus a lay preacher, Sven was man who collected contributions. So they had to get off the mountain quick. No time to make love on any mountain, though that’s how it all started in the war, they had to pray.

Lech, Boris and Gregorgi obviously forgave them, blood is thicker that mountains after all. So Sweden if you are still reading this would you like to join the family? The Michael Casey the fat, silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England family, the comedy of errors, sometimes typing errors. I have to go clean the toilet now, the wife insists, then I’ll be flushed with success.

I’m just a stupid Artic Monkey ©

By Michael Casey

I’m sad, any comments from the back of the bus and I’ll throw you off the bus, without stopping. I’m broken hearted in fact. You know I wrote Sweden Calling a few hours ago, and I’ve been picking furniture since then, well I’ve had some really heart breaking news. NO, not a fart breaking noise, I think you need your ears cleaned not me. Well, no, it was like this I had a nice mug of coffee and Billy was singing loudly, no wonder my ears are the way they are, that Billy Joel is such a noise, and his Storm Front is self-explanatory.

So where was I? Yes, a nice mug of coffee is so good, you ask Julian or Sandy from Bona Coffee shop on the high street if you don’t believe me, though they can be high for other reasons and it’s not therapeutic either. Yes, I was sat here minding my own business gently shaking my hair dry, like an Old English Sheepdog, but with dandruff. When the trio sneaked up behind me and shook me violently, Lech, Boris and Gregorgi had just adopted a new blood hound from the pound, and yes they were shaking me dry, or trying to leave a trail of dandruff for the new hound to follow. Then they gave me the news, and I’ll admit it a tear did fall. Which reminds me, let’s put Tears for Fears on, and let Billy Joel have his Storm Front in the outside toilet.

Woman in Chains, fashion is really strange that’s all I’ll say. If anybody tried to put Lech’s wife in chains she’s cut him it two with her best butcher’s cleaver, Lech really does love her butchery skills. But where was I, yes I had tears in my eyes, the boys explained why Finland, Norway and Sweden had been reading my stuff. It was because they weren’t reading my stuff, it was an Elk.

The boys’ friend Alexi Alexicoff worked for a satellite tracking company and sometimes the boys did a favour for him. If a satellite landed and nobody could find exactly where it was then Lech, Boris and Gregorgi would hunt it down. Space stuff is very expensive and you want to get your results back. It’s not like sending your photos off to be processed, if you lose 100 photos of Lech drinking while up a mountain or arm wrestling a wild bear, then that really does not matter as they post everything to the cloud as well. But Space stuff has to be found, and as it lands there is a smell as it burns through the atmosphere. So if you have a hound you can track it when it’s landed in the back of beyond.

You all thought Lech, Boris and Gregorgi burying me in Warley Woods was just high jinx, when in actual fact it was part of their hounds recovery satellites training. Look deeper, sometimes  there is depth in shallowness, well that’s what I always told my Latin teacher.  Shall I get to the point, let me have a wee first, too much coffee does that to me, at least Julian and Sandy’s coffee shop on the high street does have an outside toilet, it’s very clean, well in 1984 it was.

Alexi Alexicoff read my story about The Spaceman and the Arch-Angel and he said I was cheeky. The boys defended me, and Alexi relented, but he had an idea. He was doing some tracking of Elk , a special project for Finland, Norway and Sweden, migration and population, Elk population that is. So Alexi decided to add a mobile phone to the tracking device strapped to the Elk. Then as well as tracking the Elk he could make it appear that my website was being read in Norway, Finland and Sweden.

I had been suckered by an Elk, no new readers in Finland nor Norway nor Sweden. It was just Alexi Aexicoff’s joke. Never joke about the Russian Cosmonauts, even if it is a great story honouring them, you can read The Spaceman and the Arch-Angel  for yourselves I’ll repost it again after this.

So I should be sad and disheartened, no real  Nordic readers, just a travelling Elk rutting his way across the Artic. Though Alexi did say for some reason my view figures at the North Pole had gone through the roof. Had Santa Claus discovered the phone strapped to the Elk. Were Elves having a break from making toys, and reading my stories. Or had nuclear powered submarines stopped at Ice Station Zebra, for tea and biscuits. Julian and Sandy were saying they were fed up of all the heat, and the smell from the outside toilet, so maybe just maybe it’s their new bona café. One Yank and you can Russin, a catchy name for the café at the top of the world.

 Killing Time ©

By Michael Casey

Well I promised you I’d Kill Time, so here it is. Sometimes we wish we could kill time, or turn back time. Sometimes we think our Time is up, but sometimes there are miracles, such as the Thai  child footballers being rescued from that cave. But we must all remember the one Thai who lost his life bringing those children home. We thought Time was up for my own dad back in 1996 when he had his heart attack  8 bare weeks after mum had died in the marriage bed beside him. But he beat Death itself and had 5.5 more years with us, which led to me meeting my wife and  then having 2 daughters. It’s all in Padre Pio and Me if you can find it.

So this afternoon I was waiting in, but sadly I did not get the result I wanted. However it did make me think about Time, and killing Time. And  being bored. I never get bored myself because I’ve always got something to think about, and yes I have an Interior Life. I’m sure if you ask the “stars” on Love Island what an Interior Life is they will say it’s something to do with decorating. Though I may need to get somebody to do some decorating for me before I wait in again. Sounds like a puzzle, I’m sure you’ll work it out.

Or in the meantime what does MC=4C mean, something for the Maths or Chemistry students out there. By the way in her latest test my daughter got 87% for her Chemistry. As my dad used to say, do what you like but do your best, he did hold her in his arms before my mother called him to Heaven for his dinner. Yesterday 9^th July would have been their 71^st Wedding Anniversary, that was them on their Wedding Day in the photo I posted plus my auntie too. My dad slept with his brother on his wedding day and my mother slept with her sister, you can see her at the side of the photo. Why? A Kerry Tradition? No, because dad’s brother was up from Cricklewood in London so he had to sleep somewhere.

I hope I haven’t stolen too much of your time by sharing that story, but Time is for sharing and my dad used to say When God made Time, he made Plenty of it. Kids say I’m bored, and will sulk, but never think of talking or having a conversation. Wifi rules everything. Just switch the Wifi off and make your kids talk to one another. Expand their brain and vocabulary, Real Life is much more fun, parents just need to have backbone, and switch off the Wifi, instead of wasting all their time on mindless Wifi distractions.

Our kids were late to wifi toys, we bought them crayons, thousands of crayons, for years. I was even allowed to bring scrap paper home from my print rooms for my kids to use. Now both my girls can draw really well. If you want to see early examples of their art then look at The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker plus 300 and Not OUT the print versions on Amazon. Time spent learning to draw is a great investment of Love in your kids, uncles provided pencils galore as did aunties, and even books teaching them to draw. Its normally a very quiet process, and teaches patience, it’s also a life skill, such as riding a bike or leaning to swim. Time is precious so use it wisely to help your kids grow. Expand their mind, not their waistline by giving in and giving too much junk food.

I hope I don’t sound like a teacher, though 3 of the family were teachers, and even I ended up teaching Esol for a year, so does that make 4 teachers? Time should not be killed, I’m bored so you sit on your behind reciting, I’m bored, I’m bored like the Donkey from Shrek. There used to be a BBC  tv kids show called Why don’t you switch of the TV and do something really useful instead. And  yes I never watched it. The principle though is that you don’t stay a Zombie but you use your time.

The worse words in the English Language are, I’m Bored. Our dad used to switch off the tv 50 plus years ago and say Go Out into the Sun this fine day. So then we’d use the wooden draft excluder stick from the side door of the house as a cricket bat and we’d play cricket. The wicket was the concrete post that help up the washing line, mum would scream at us to go down the yard and not break the windows with our ball.

These are just a few examples of using time I my life. Sometimes you are too tired to do anything, you don’t know what to do or say. Like in 1996 when I whispered into my dad’s ear that he should joint my mother in Heaven. He was not expected to survive. I wanted to stay by his side, my brother’s advice was step back, remember he had just saved dad’s life, and 8 weeks previously he had tried CPR on mum, but it was already too late as he cradled her in his arms in the marriage bed.

Time can seem to be in slow motion, or you are at a different angel to Life as it moves on around you. Prayer can enter even if you have no words, but you have the Faith that your mother had poured into you. So Prayer fills the void, and Time does not end. You persuade God through your heart to STOP Time, keep Death at bay. So you can see my prospective on time is different to yours. Same as in 1979, 17 year previously a lodger, Andy Madden died on me as I tried heart massage. Time flows, we are just passengers sat upon it, Jan 2015 could have been my own end of days. But I’m still here, still having some pain, and sharing my words with you all.

What am I trying to say, as I ignore the France v Belgium match, I’m saying use your time, don’t waste it. Enjoy your time, as we all will when I watch England v Croatia tomorrow, and with the help of God and 2 Policemen and  one waistcoat we win the Cup. I was in Lourdes France in 1966 when England won last won. And if it’s true that History Repeats Itself, then Logically England should win the Cup again. And as you know everything I write is 1^st draft as I don’t want to waste my time on rewrites. And another strange thing is what I sometimes write happens. So I won’t be correcting this, so it must happen. Though Prayer does help as I said before, so all of you  reading this will be praying to Saint Andrew the patron saint of Russia to remember he has  the head of England.

I’ll finish now and hope I haven’t wasted too much of your time, usually there is more comedy in my writing, perhaps you need to Xray me to find what lies beneath. You only see the tip of my iceberg, and that’s not a metaphor either.

Sacred Places and Tourism ©

By Michael Casey

Sacred Places and Tourism, not what you expect from me, but let’s see where the road leads, all roads used to lead to Rome perhaps. I was watching the BBC news on the computer and I saw the end of a piece about Ayers rock, which might be a magical animal asleep in the middle of Australia waiting to be awakened to save Australia in time of peril.  Who knows? The thing about Ayers rock is that it belongs to the native people, Aborigines they used to be called. But the white settlers dispossessed them, so it became a theme park for drunken Aussies to climb. I am generalising  but it’s not too far from the truth. The Spanish did the same thing to the Incas, and as for the Colonialists they did the same, we did have the Scramble for Africa after all, was it around 1870, I did something in History about it over 40 years ago. Why are there so many straight lines on the map of Africa?

Back to Ayers rock, you can Google all the information for yourselves, it is beautiful in a way, I’d rather be up in Scotland with Donald playing golf, I don’t like too much heat. As I’ve mentioned the Donald we are getting all this guff about The President and The Presidency. If the holder is behaving badly then he denigrates the office. Same as the Catholic Church in Ireland and elsewhere hiding behind their Office when terrible terrible things are being done. Now in Ireland only 40% attend, when it used to be 90% this is as a direct result of the Hierarchy, covering up, to cover their own arse. In USA only 50% bother to vote, so they get the government they deserve. But I’ll leave that subject in the bunker, along with Hitler.

Now back to the plot, why are people obsessed with selfies, and why does it have to be if it’s Tuesday it’s  Turin, and Friday it’s Florence. The point of a holiday is to see something different, be it the toilets, or turtles swimming on the beach. If it’s a herd following a guide all eating McDonald’s because they don’t like foreign muck, what’s the point of going? Virtual reality holidays would be better. You would not have to bother to interact with the locals. In 2000 I was in Shanghai and we stopped for food, Western food for me, and there as a table of maybe 10 Americans, trying to analyse  who me and my wife were. They really were the worst of stereotypical Americans, like amateur FBI, loudly talking, who would never get the culture, this is 18 years ago now.  Now everybody wants to know China, need I say any more.

You have to be aware of local sensitivities, you can’t just have a pee against any wall, it could be the Wailing Wall, or a Holy Place of any other nature. Same as camping anywhere, you could be camping on a sacred graveyard or burial place. Sadly if people are not white then it seems to some they have no value.  A Banksy on a wall has more value than sacred items from a different culture. What makes a Banksy valuable? What people are prepared to pay for it. It’s not a Renoir nor a Picasso, it is transitory like a Rolf Harris picture.

Tourism can and does destroy places. I’ve been lucky when I’ve been in Ireland or France and China as I’ve stayed with family or friends so you enjoy the company and the food without swamping local culture or place. In the end everywhere could just look the same, a car park and a McDonalds, you can only tell the difference by the signage in a foreign language, the signs themselves all made in China.

People have a tick list of things, which to me proves they are shallow, as shallow as Everest is high. It’s like Euston station at rush hour on Mount Everest sometimes, K2 I believe is the actual harder mountain to climb. Or just watch Cliffhanger or that other great film, or even the Eiger Sanction, and don’t leave your rubbish over mountains. In today’s documentary about Ayers Rock one lady spoke the truth, it was her ego that made her climb Ayers Rock, especially as climbers will be banned next year. Things are a trophy, Mount Everest, Ayers Rock, seducing a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham. What? Just seeing if you are reading this or still asleep.

The point is that trophy tourism is a waste of your time. Mrs Murphy in a story I have in my head, maybe I’ll finish it, she visits all the churches in Birmingham and lights  candles and prayers. Then from that I hang a story about Navy Seals finally saving a North Korean girl who they did not save in North Korea, so half her face is cut off. But she escapes and comes to Birmingham England and meets a black guy who loves her. Now she meets Mrs Murphy and it may have been her who introduces her to her black boyfriend. Anyway in Birmingham the North Korean girl is tracked down and is about to be killed even though she is pregnant, but the Navy Seals turn up and save the day and regain their honour. All because Mrs Murphy could not get into the 100^th church so she called in a favour from her good Jewish friend, who is the mother of a zillionaire industrialist, which you may remember from my Malta story. But I’ve sidetracked myself, that’s the trouble with stories, it’s like sitting on a jack-in-the-box, or on top of a nuclear missile it will go up into the air and detonate into laughter, well my ones anyway. Rocket man, put your toys away today.

I suppose I’ve covered most of the bases, just enjoy your holidays but don’t destroy places with your litter and ignorance. Treat it like your grandfather’s house, with love and care, and don’t wake him up he is 94, so don’t go banging any doors. You don’t tick a list to see how often you have kissed your friend goodbye, it’s love an laughter that you should be after. Then each time will be fun, and if you do seduce that fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham you don’t take a selfie or post it on Facebook, have some Dignity, not Ignominy.

 Monday, 16 July 2018

3am monday 16th july

I was thinking to myself that the hot weather seemed to have helped my left shoulder, not as many outbreaks of pain this month. Normally at least on bad one a day. I also was pleased not so many pain in the night problems, as far as my chest goes. Then you've guessed it tonight I've been screaming in pain due to my left hip, which is where it all started 5 years ago in 2013, before my heart decided to join in. My neighbours think it's kinky sex, or somebody being murdered, or both, killing two birds with one stone maybe.

So I've slapped on the Movelat and got up for 2 pain killers. I do have new ones which are originally Elipesy medicine, but the does is too high, so I'm not going to use them.I don't want to become an addict, and as screamingly horrible the pain is I prefer that to being in a daze. Maintaining mental clarity is the most important thing.

I was talking to my big daughter this afternoon and I was discussing should I buy a big ticket item for myself, her reply was you may as well, as you'll be dead soon.  So I may as well enjoy myself. I repeatedly say "I'll be dead soon", it's a catch phrase when various pains hit various parts of my body. But it was ironic that my phrase was used to encourage me to spoil myself.

I have been lucky to spend a lot of time watching my children grow up while I've become an unpaid housewife, and it has allowed me the Time to write all my books. 16 to date, and about 1,340,000 Words or 4000 or so pages.

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Michael-Casey/e/B00571G0YC

You could say its an ill wind that has blown some good. Though obviously I could do without all the pain. So if ever my readers do buy some books or I get Media interest I really will finance a Pain Relief clinic.

I'm waiting till I'm so tired I am nearly falling over then I'll try going back to bed. If you see me in the street you might think I'm much more good looking than George Clooney, but I may start to  limp,  or stop to catch my breath or nothing at all. Then at home I am suddenly mugged by pain. It's the Randomness of it all that's so frustrating.

Yes many more people suffer, and really suffer, but as I've said before I bitch about it more. At least I'm not Padre Pio, now he really suffered.

My dad used to say have some comfort in your life, so I will spoil myself, though some nights really are, The Dark Night of the Soul.

A Question of Taste ©

By Michael Casey

Taste is a big thing, and style is another, and there is good taste and bad taste, and leaving a bad taste in your mouth. As I speak Trump is in Finland, thanking Putin for helping him get elected, Putin wanted a chump and he got Trump. If you have seen the film Being There one of Peter Sellers last films you’ll see the comparison. Sellers was Chance the Gardener, but people thought he was Chancy Jardinier, and in the end Deep Society is it, decided he’d be President material. The comedy sex scene is very funny, where Sellers says he likes to watch, so he does, he watches tv while the woman cavorts on the floor on her own, best sex  ever she says. It’s maybe 40 years since I saw the film at the cinema.

And now we have Trump, Obama was wrong, people did elect him, and all because folks thought it was Hillary’s turn. Sleeping with the President instead of Divorcing him is not a good enough qualification for being President. President Stormy Daniels next? Trump does not believe in anything but himself, but sadly if only 50% of the people bother to vote you get the Decline and Fall of the American Empire. I’m sure I’ve got your attention now. Shall I just Pardon myself and refuse a writ to attend as we call them in UK. This is why in UK 100,000s  protested, not because Trump is such a bad man, there are many many more worse leaders.

The point is taste, Trump has none, everything is in the worse possible taste. Look at Candide and Kenny Everett in drag and you’ll soon see the similarities with Trump. WE hate arrogance, money does not give you class and nobility. Breeding gives class, as in manners, and kindness and compassion.  And I’m not talking about Royalty, I’m talking about being a Gentleman or a Lady, even if you live in the flat above the chip shop. Sadly from this side of the Atlantic Trump seems to have taken over the White House and gone rogue as one of our Political Commentators remarked.

It’s the economy stupid is what Bill Clinton said, and Trump claims credit for all of that. But yet again today the Markets are frightened because of Trump’s self-imposed bullet in the head, Trade Wars are the height of stupidity. Markets wildly going up and down is never good stewardship, it’s almost Biblical in its stupidity. Remember the master asking what did you do with the talents? Trump seems to be the one who buried the talent in the ground. Talent is the People of any country, but if the bus driver is so busy on twitter he does not do his job but instead crashes the bus and all the talents of the people go over the cliff, who is then to blame? I’m sure he would blame all previous Presidents.   

I was going to write something different but I’ve ended up talking about Donald, maybe it’s because I despair that USA voters won’t cull him and his policies. Has Trump sold America’s soul for 30 pieces of silver? But if the trade wars kill the stock market then the 30 pieces of silver will be even more worthless. Some things have a value much much greater than money, but Donald only thinks in money terms. To the rest of the world USA had been downgraded, and that’s all due to one man. Is Isolationism returning, if there is no quick buck, why should Trump’s America bother?

They say that the Presidency changes the Man, in Donald’s case he has trashed the Presidency, it’s become a 50cent store. I have no pleasure in saying this. If he and his chief of staff are shouting at each other, if so many of his staff have left and so on, what chance for Hope. Trump’s America is no longer a beacon of hope in a dark and sometimes cruel world. It’s become Scrooge before finding redemption. So in the end the Future is with the people they have to bother to vote, if they are not too busy watching Trump’s photo opportunities on Fox News.

Glossing over the Facts ©

By Michael Casey

I think we all need a laugh, maybe especially Theresa May, Putin is still laughing at the back of his super-sized car, as for Trump the whole world thinks he’s beyond a joke, but will his Party actually do anything? I bet not, but watch the news tonight to see if I am proved wrong. So let’s talk about facts and glossing over them, why let reality get in the way of a good story.

So when you arrange a blind date, but not in Helsinki, what do you do? You build up the girl. She’s so good looking she stops traffic. And she does, she has a stick and stops traffic so the schoolkids can go over the road safely to school. Or rather she has jam jar glasses and jaywalks into traffic, hence the stopping the traffic, or the crashing of traffic. But that’s fine she works as a loss adjuster for an insurance company.

My own wife was very scruffy when I first met her, now decades on, and two kids later she can still fit into the evening dress I bought her. We were in Offenbach in 2008 and they had two tall models filming a Honda Jazz advert in the courtyard of the Hotel Achat, me and the wife and  kids walked past, the models started to cry. Yes, I am that pretty, and the wife and girls aren’t so bad either, but I digress.

So your girlfriend wants somebody nice, so nice he could be gay, but isn’t, he is nice but knows how to please a Lady. Barry White is singing in the background, it aint what you’ve got but how you use it.  Which could be the kind of bloke your best sister from the tyre factor wants. Somebody who knows how to please her, just like Donkey said to Shrek. You gloss over the fact that he has spots, like a puzzle book, all you need is a pencil to join the spots up. But when they meet its perfection, you see she is spotty too, they look as if they should be in isolation together. He gives her a gift and she gives him one too, the new super spot removal cream. Her dad has a Pharmacy,  which will be useful as the relationship progresses.

We gloss over lots of things, like her bad breath and his smelly feet, but it’s a match made in Heaven, they have so much in common, like rambling, they can never hold a decent conversation, it just rambles on and on till they hit the bunkers. They fall into the bunkers by the golf course, but bunkers can be very nice places, so long as you don’t get too much sand in sensitive places.

So you decide you should move in together, not just share a bunker. Then you read the ads in post office windows, warm flat available with great views. It is a warm flat, it’s above the chip shop and smells of fish and chips. Look out back and you can see the yard with a mountain of potatoes, look out front and you can see the dual carriageway and interchange. But at least the bed really is super king size. But it’s been there since the time Henry XIII stopped by for some orange chips. One leg of the bed has been replaced by a tin of tinned roe, the other has an old tyre underneath it. But when you jump from the wardrobe onto the mattress you have the surprise of your life. It’s perfect, the chip shop owner got it on discount when the bedding warehouse closed down. Fat Freddie from the bedding warehouse was a regular customer, so thanks to those extra large portions of kebab the flat above the chip shop gained a great mattress.

We gloss over the fact that we hate our job, it’s challenging really means that every day it’s a challenge for you not to punch that bastard’s face in, or stab him with your stiletto. He never appreciated your hard work, and he had total disrespect for the fact you cross dress. Why could he not accept the fact you wore bright red lipstick and red dress split to the thigh, and if you wanted to shave your legs in the Gents at dinner time what was it do with him, the inconsiderate bastard. But you have to gloss over those facts or Danny la Rue your auntie might be very upset.  Nobody could ever accept her dressed as a man after all.

We boast about our cars, though not me, as I travel by bus. There is so much lying about motors, and the size of the spoiler,  spoil her with your larger spoiler, so much utter rubbish. So long as it goes from A to B and there is no hole in the seat, now that’s enough for me. The sound system is great, or in other words, a 4 seater becomes a 2 seater as child size speakers are in the back seats. Give me a DAB that’s enough, I have no need for my ears to bleed as we are stuck in traffic, though Traffic were a good band. And as for engine rumblings, an engine should be as  silent as a Rolls Royce.  I don’t need audible flatulence from any motor, on que a motor bike with chronic farting has just passed by. Pardon me while I close a window.

I just looked over to see Totoro our cat asleep on the armchair, I’ll gloss over the fact the fact that she is a one girl killing machine, but if you love your cat you will forgive the bodies she lines up outside the kitchen door. It’s been a long hot summer, and for Totoro this means open season, as she escapes my bedroom window at 4am as dawn breaks and let the hunting begin. It is no longer the dawn chorus, more like wake up wake up, killer cat alert. Even with her bell dingling she is faster than that sloth Hussain Bolt.

I’ve given you just a few samples of what we gloss over and why we gloss over. And what is the best glossing over? That’s when lip gloss rubs against your lips, from the Lady you love, I think I need put Barry White back on. Or I could just kiss my own reflection, but I am no Donald Trump.

Wednesday Evening 9pm ©

By Michael Casey

Apologies to Simon and Garfunkel fans but I could not think what to call this piece, so I looked at the clock and then at the wall calendar, and that’s how I titled this piece. I’ve had a quiet day, I stumbled over something and I could end up making a new friend, he’s in a Blues Band, but somehow I think not. I may put Celine Dion’s song on, where she sings in French, Le Blues du Businessman I love that song, join in everybody, I want to be an Artist, but in French.

As usual what has that got to do with anything? I thought this morning I might write something, nice, a poem perhaps. I was thinking how can you describe a Mother’s Love, or All Our Mother’s Love. I had a line or two in my head, and I was thinking how best to put it on paper. Poems are like feathers, you have to coax them, to blow them onto the page, to gently blow them into position. They are like the toddler walking in the street with mum or grandpa, you have to guard they don’t walk into the road, training straps are far safer, but like a poem you have to be ever so gentle, or you will hurt the toddler. And so it is with a poem, it’s like directing a bubble, if you poke it then it bursts, shattering like an egg yolk for morning breakfast.

Where there is anger, let there be love.

Where there are lies, let there be light.

Where there are tears, let the dawn of smiles break through.

Where hearts are broken, let them be mended by kindness.

Where fear has taken over, let laugher ring out again.

Where clouds hang forever, let the swings of love disperse sadness.

Where there is doubt, let a mother’s certainty ring and shout out.

Where confidence is lost, let a dad’s strength hold out a hand of love.

Where strength has failed, let a grandpa’s never-ending hope strengthen us.

When all is lost, refuse to die, refuse to give up, refuse refuse refuse

For when all is lost, when family is not enough we still have friends

For when the dice is loaded against us and they divide out clothes.

We still Prayer, we have more friends in very high places  indeed.

For we have a friend in the highest place of all, In God We Trust.

*****

Well that’s the best I could come up with in my hour at the keyboard, I hope my new friend in the Blues Band sees this, he could put it to music, he’s not very busy nowadays. And with that I’ll quit while  I’m ahead,

Here’s some Random Connections©

By

Michael Casey

Well I’ve just been asked for CHOCOLATE, or rather my big daughter has demanded a Bounty, so I have to stop to pay the bounty, then I’ll be back with you. Teenage daughter are so demanding, but at least she brought in my drawers from the washing line, so they cannot be spotted from the space station, nor stray parachutists using them as target landing places. So I’ll pause with Simon and Garfunkel playing, with the cat snoring along on the back of the sofa while I run to the Polish shop before it closes, otherwise there will be a bounty on my head and it wont be chocolate. I hope you notice how I weave in real life drama into my stories, what you haven’t noticed? I’m going to sulk now, I’ll have a moan with Julian and Sandy from round the Horne, you can google that for yourself.

Now where was I? It’s4.30pm another day, Sunday 22^nd July now, just in case any of you are archiving my writing. The storm has passed, and I was up in the night with pain, its so very unpredictable, when and where pain comes. At least my computer is fixed now, it might just be too much anti virus software, or good old Windows 10 having a Benny as they used to say. So if I cannot sleep I can always fix the computer, or even think about a new piece.

Now today if you have spotted today’s message the wife has lost her voice, so in the middle of the night just before I crept back to bed I thought what if I lost my voice too. So I left a note on the coffee table stating I had lost my voice. And still after 1/2 the day is over she believes me. I winked at my small daughter, and she smiled knowingly, then she ruined it by telling he big sister. You must never tell anybody not even your small daughter if you want to keep a secret, or a joke for that matter. My wife still does not know and is asleep like a pig on sofa. I should post a photo but we keep our  media lives separate. My photos are not suitable for Linked IN after all, and I’m not on it anyway.

I spotted Germany having a reading fest so hello to you all, Ich Lieb dich if I’ve spelt that right. As you know I was in Frankfurt at Hotel Achat in Offenbach back in 2008, it really was great. I assume they have had the room fumigated by now, and replaced the bed after my heavy weight stay. I did have a metal bed collapse once under my weight, you can track down that story for yourselves. Though it was an ill wind that blew no good as a passing Polish guy rescued it from the street and hammered it into shape, no doubt him and his beautiful wife are smoking in it now, the Poles tend to smoke a lot.

Yes I realise that some of you misplace my words and their meaning, assuming I’m thinking what you are thinking, but as Gill from StatsMR used to say, you are going up that garden path again, and again and again. Rather like a Status Que song, its all in the rhythm and the beat after all, rolled up magazines not included. That was for all you Political Scientists out there, and why is the BBC better than Sky, its all about coverage? The BBC uses bigger paper, rolled up, and no I’m not talking about smoking of a different kind.

Where was I, there was somebody at the front door and I’m all in my scruffs, at least I showered earlier. When a stranger arrives it does put you off your flow. In actual fact it was a Fairy Godmother, yes really, I don’t just make this up, it was Fran, a real Godmother, a nice white lady with an Afro hairdo. She’s my small daughter’s Godmother, she just dropped by with a present for my small daughter. I thought she had come to demand the return of a library book, she is in fact a member of the Library staff at the end of the road. Her husband is the organist and choir master from church, he really knows how to make people cry. Not due to his organ skills or lack of them, but rather he use to work for the Inland Revenue, or IRS as the say in USA. Thinking on it, in the Untouchables there is a little bald guy from the IRS, well they could be related, they look so similar.

I hope they laugh if ever they read this, or I could be hung from the bell tower. Which reminds me of Chuck Berry’s song My Ding a Ling, though that does sound like one of my Chinese relatives. Or will I be accused of being “Wordist”. Snowflakes everywhere want to be wrapped in cotton wool and not experience real life, Casey Jones was a tv show about the steam train driver in USA, I believe as a child the drummer from The Monkees featured in it. And yes when I was small, and I was well below 200lbs once, Casey Jones was shouted at me in the school yard.

I think that’s enough random connections for today, I think we have some Ice Cream Soda pop in the fridge so I’ll have some of that. I’m lucky now that I’m older, at least my brother does not pee in the old glass pop bottles anymore. He knew I used to drink the dregs, so he left his surprise pee in each and every bottle. That’s an example of family love, some families never interact with each other, they don’t even bother to pee in pop bottles, ready for their little brother to drink.

Hot Stuff ©

By

Michael Casey

Now the heatwave is continuing in Birmingham and everywhere else in the world, so I’ve just been wallowing in the bath like a Hippo, with lots of ice cream to dribble down myself. I had been thinking the pains had stayed away when I screamed, my scar tissue made me jump. But otherwise I cannot complain, I acquired Tinnitus from somewhere, sounds like a cat with a Latin name, and sadly I cannot get rid of it, though it’s not too noticeable when I’m listening to my music, just lots of miaowing.

I’m listening to the soundtrack of Moulin Rouge right now, I am of course wearing my bright red stockings and suspenders, topless of course, showing off my bypass scars, and my chest hair, which took 2 years to grow back. I love the film because the music is so very good. It’s interesting but not really sexy, I won’t define my tastes, not on this page anyway, maybe if ever I get locked into a Japanese Private Hotel. Pause, or should it be Tinnitus paws.

You all need to find Around the Horne, which is a RADIO show from the 1960s to understand some of the styles of humour. And with all Styles just be careful you don’t snag your bottom as you go over. I resisted the temptation of mentioning Harry, actually his music is very good, though he is no good in drag, and if ever he ladders my stockings again then I’ll slap his bare legs with lettuce.

But what has this got to do with anything? I don’t have a clue but I’m sure we’ll get to the end of the page safely, even though some of you may be red faced. It’s all the sun, little old ladies all trying to trip me over with their walking sticks, or barging me with their baskets on wheels. I thought it was because I looked so irresistible in my white shirt exposing my bypass scar to the world, walking down the street like John Travolta, but with 2 pints of milk not a can of paint in my hand.

Only the local old girls were feuding me, they could not remember why, but it could have been something to do with me saying I did not like Tinnitus. The old ladies all studied Latin, so they knew that Tinnitus was a cat, and me a young man, a good looking young man prancing down the street in my shades just made their blood boil. A Tinnitus hater, I may as well have said I did not like the vicar. So the old ladies were not behaving like ladies, they were trying to kill me, or at the very least split my pants. Getting me to fall in the gutter without ever an Oscar Wilde for company. I was a star they wanted to drown in the gutter, no chance of rescue for me like that 1950s film, which they could remember like yesterday, as well as their Latin.

The window cleaner hissed, he was like a snake, playing Snakes and Ladders with his own ladder. I looked up and he wrung his rag on my head. He’s saved Tinnitus when she was stuck up a tree by using his ladder and carrying her down in his bucket, even though he’d forgotten to empty it. So Tinnitus was was a soggy moggy, but at least rescued. Meanwhile I was persona non grata as my bottom lip began to tremble, my ice lolly was too cold and had stuck to my lip. It’s hard to look as cool as John Travolta with an ice lolly stuck to your lip, its even harder to speak.

I headed for Post Office, Donald Trump’s influence was everywhere, hang on where am I, a lolly stuck to my lip had sent me overboard, or over the sea to DC. I sneezed all over old Mrs Murphy, I knew it was time to run as I left her pebble dashed in snot. Tinnitus might be forgiven but  covering the chairwomen of the local Women’s Institute in snot would ever be accepted. I would come to a sticky end.

I screamed and sat bolt upright in bed, I’d knocked my cocoa off the night stand and burnt myself. I had been dreaming, that Feta cheese has got a lot to answer for. The doorbell run, so I answered the door, in my ladies pyjamas, funny place to have a door in your ladies pyjamas as Eric Morcambe said. Here’s your cat you forgot to let her in said Mrs Murphy as she handed Tinnitus to me. Who’s a clever cat, I asked Tinnitus, it’s all Greek to me replied my Tinnitus, or maybe I was hearing things.

Colour Blind ©

By Michael Casey

Today I’ll not mention any heat or cross dressing, sorry to disappoint my readers in the Philippines, Priests or Sinners of anybody else. I’ve got Barry White singing in the background as I talk to you all, the wife has recovered her voice and is ordering folks about in two languages, the cat Totoro has let herself out via a window and is off killing the local wild life. Everybody should have a hobby I suppose, though I noticed that the ham I bought today has a RSPCA sticker on it. The pigs in Heaven will no doubt appreciate that.

Today we are discussing colour in our house, no nothing to do with Barry White or my sometimes black humour, you’ll have to ask the pink pigs about that, or the RSPCA. No, what we are talking about is colour, as in what colour our walls are going to be painted in. Me I like white, as it makes a place brighter, we do live in a South Facing home, so that does colour our lives, and anybody else’s house looks Grimm or is it Brothers Grimm by comparison.  By the way for the record they only wrote 250 or was it 280 stories. My total is around 2000. They were actually very educated, I even have a copy of their Fairy Tales on the book shelf behind me, you can have  it too, just go to Amazon. And yes my stuff is on Amazon too, it may take 200 years before you all start buying it.

Barry is singing about the colour of your hair, my weakness is red or browny red hair. See colour of hair makes men defenseless, and women know this and spend billions on hair colouring products. Though Chinese girls do have the best hair of all, as for my hair, it’s ever so soft, and wonderfully silver, but you will all have to take my word for it. All the little old ladies in the White House will be spitting at the screen now, envy really is one of the seven deadly sins. No I’m not calling Donald a little old lady, he has his own little old lady as we call them in UK, Melania. No the White House I’m talking about is the retirement home up the road in Spangles Lane, Stars and Spangles is the name of the pub opposite. So residents use their walkers to get to the pub and a wheelbarrow brings them back. So I hope I’ve explained things clearly, the Donald does not drink as we all know.

But talking of blondes, Donald is a blond after all, why do blondes always have the most fun, or in Donald’s case, why does this blond always have the most fun? Because he has a good grip and knows where all the bunkers are, which reminds me of the Dr Strangelove film, which you can find for yourselves. See this talk of blondes or is it the blond, has made me lose my thread, speaking of thread that reminds me of a camel and the eye of a needle. But the Base believes anything can go through the eye of a needle, whatever colour it is.

But I was talking about our walls, what colour should they be, the wife has ordained that Shingle is the colour of her choice. I did tell her that Shingles was a disease that spreads around your belly and if the spots join up you are in deep deep trouble. I can remember my old Kerry Irish mum telling me all about it on one occasion. So there you have it Shingle colour is ordained, but remember Shingle colour on your walls is not the same as Shingles you put on your roof which are a dark grey, the colour of tombstones. I do have a new friend called Tombs, so hello to her if she ever stumbles over this. So I was worried that our walls would be the colour of my tomb, I can wait for the tomb without it invading my living room and pointing to my final exit. Charles Dickens has a lot to answer for, him and  his Christmas Carol, though my wife does have a  friend called Karol, a Polish guy. Even though she thought it was Carole and was amazed when  she turned out to be a Polish he.

Back against the wall, is that how you are all feeling as I talk to you, that’s not nice, I may punctuate you all! Did you like the exclamation mark, no, well please yourselves. At least there is no blood on the wall or carpet, just a little kebab sauce and coffee stains. We had a very nice carpet and yes, I spilt my coffee all over it, it’s still a very nice carpet, apart from that one spot. If I stand decoratively on that spot when we have visitors then, it still looks very nice, thanks to John Lewis. Otherwise it looks as if Jackson Pollock was about to start but dribbled a bit. The moral of the story is don’t have white or sand coloured carpet near traffic areas, ok, don’t ever let a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham have a drink. Not unless he is standing on concrete .

Heaven’s Devils ©

By Michael Casey

Rodrigo was a bad man, a very bad man. He had lied and cheated and killed his way all over Central America, but he was good at his job. He was a killer for the cartels. Obviously he was going straight to Hell, the hottest part of Hell itself, but he neither cared nor believed. He was BAD with a Capital B, Michael Jackson could sing and dance and prance as much as he wanted but compared to Rodrigo, he was just DEAD with a capital D. Jackson was not Bad, he was Sad with a silly voice and bad dance moves, and he was DEAD. Rodrigo was the MAN and his moves left a trail of Death all over Central America.

Rodrigo had no friends, but he did have one cousin, Miguel was his name, and he too was a bad man, a very bad man, who like Rodrigo lied and cheated and killed his way all over Central America. They used to send postcards to each other, with cartoons written on the back showing how many and how they had killed their latest victims. The postmen just assumed it was children scrawling things. But to the FBI it was evidence.

Rodrigo and Miguel were tasked to kill a priest who condemned the drugs trade from the pulpit. So obviously they sat at the back and enjoyed the sermon, they would slit his throat after the Mass and steal the offerings too on the way out. Only Fr. Camillo had other ideas, he was not stupid he knew when death was calling him, and today after Sunday Mass was the day. But the thing about Death is that it is not the Master, there is only one Master, and today the Holy Ghost was in town. Now the Holy Ghost was faster and quicker than any assassin, so Rodrigo and Miguel had better watch their backs.

Now who or what is the Holy Ghost? Well the Holy Ghost was a retired CIA assassin, he knew Fr. Camillo from high school, and every day Fr. Camillo had prayed for his dark and evil soul. If the thief on the cross could be spared and Saul could become Paul, then the Holy Ghost could be saved too. And so he was, the Holy Ghost became plain old Sancho, he was Fr. Camillo’s invisible bodyguard. Any time the cartels sent a hit man to kill Fr. Camillo the hit man disappeared off the face of the earth. In actual fact, Sancho cut their ear off and posted it back to the cartel. As for the hit men, they just retired to Miami, thanking God they were still alive, though slightly hard of hearing. They grew their hair and enjoyed all their ill -gotten gains.

Rodrigo and Miguel were about to strike, when Sancho hit them first. They awoke to find themselves  tied up chickens ready to go in the oven. Fr. Camillo blessed them with Holy Water, Sancho  who had been drinking relieved himself on them. They were about to swear, but Sancho hit them with two Bibles across the face. There will be no more swearing ever, Repent or Die, with that Fr. Camillo threw a bucket of Holy Water over each of them. Now the Holy Spirit the real Holy Spirit works in most strange ways, Rodrigo and Miguel had come to kill, but now they would become savers.

They were shackled and told to read the Bible, every day Sancho fed them and Fr. Camillo blessed them, the Holy Spirit did his work too. That is the real Holy Spirit and the Sancho the retired assassin. Sleep deprived and forced to change, this was no road to Damascus, this was Central America. How many months it took I do not know, but I do know, light began to shine in their hearts, a tiny tiny light, but Fr. Camillo could feel it. The Holy Spirit was at work. Sancho had to go away with his donkey Panza for supplies, so with a wave and reminding the prisoners that there would be a 1000 question Bible test when he returned he disappeared like a Ghost, a Holy Ghost maybe.

Now an ill wind blows no good, and fools rush in where angels fear to tread. The cartels had not received any ears lately so they dispatched an entire squad to kill Fr. Camillo. Would they manage to finally kill Fr. Camillo? In the jungle whistles broke through the animal sounds. To Rodrigo and Miguel it was obvious what was about to happen, they smiled. The old priest would get his comeuppance. But as they read their Bibles, the gentle breeze of the Holy Spirit fell upon them. The Padre Pio prayer card which had acted as bookmark, fell from their Bibles, Padre Pio’s face gave them a hard stare. As Mrs Casey would say, don’t give me any cheek or I’ll slap you in the puss with the mop bucket.  They had had enough of murder, it was now time to save.  This was their Damascus moment.

So like any good assassins, Roderigo and Miguel broke free from their shackles and slipped away.

The assassination squad numbered 10, but 10 divided by 2 is 5, and 5 to 1 were easy odds as far as they were concerned. As Fr. Camillo prayed they took action, then 10 became 9, became 8, became 7, became 6 and then Panza the donkey came to the rescue. Panza distracted the assassination squad while Miguel and Roderigo with the returned Sancho finished off the 10. All of whom were tied up like chickens ready for the oven.  

Don’t think you’ll not having your Bible test, after supper will be you final test. They spun round it was Fr.Camillo who had finished praying.  They followed him into the jungle, there on the ground was another 10 men, how come to assassinate him. They were the advance party, I sorted them out myself, they were such amateurs. So they tied those ten up and dragged them to join the others. 20 men sent to kill just one priest. Roderigo and Miguel bowed their heads, you love God so much and the send so many killers to get you.

Fr.Camillo blessed them and they all had supper, afterwards Sancho gave them their 1000 question Bible test. So what happens now? Well said Fr. Camillo, Sancho has some friends in the CIA they could use men like you. But we aren’t killers any more, you know I think we could become Christians, real Christian, do you think your boss would accept people like us. Of course he can, but listen to Sancho. So Sancho explained the CIA or the friends of friends  of the CIA needed bodyguards, not close protection ones, but invisible bodyguards to protect special people from a distance, and maybe sometimes to intervene. They would become Ghosts, Holy Ghosts if you like.

Roderigo and Miguel took all of 2 seconds to say yes. But don’t you need more than 2 sometimes? Well yes explained Sancho, after I cut off all those ears and previous assassins are official dead I stay in touch with the “dead” so to speak, and they do me favours occasionally. What about these 20, they are the worst of the worst. Well you could help us re-educate them. So after they had cut both ears off all 20 assassins, they chained them up and Bible school began. Fr. Camillo was left alone after that the cartels gave up on him, the Sicorro was blowing after all.

Now where did Roderigo and Miguel go? Well if you remember Mrs Murphy likes to visits lots and lots of churches and some are not in nice places. And her Jewish friend Esther has a zillionaire son who makes satellites for CIA etc. Well a satellite is all fine and dandy but Esther worries about her friends, her close friends. So it makes Esther sleep easier knowing that the Holy Ghost Protection Society is only a heartbeat away.   

Expectations ©

By Michael Casey

Oh No, he thinks he’s Charles Dickens again. Yes, I do have Charles Dickens as a screen saver, and I have cried while listening to A Christmas Carol, and Michael and the Chink in the Wall had shades of Dickens in it, but I’m expecting hence the title. Yes I’m worn out after such a big sentence, and reading my stuff, or rather listening to me talking to you might be construed as a Prison Sentence, but and you were expecting a but, I’m expecting, so there you go.

What am I expecting? And please don’t say I’m so fat it must be a baby, you are all so very very cruel. In French as you know elle est grose, if my written French is up to spec, well it means she is pregnant. Not just fat. Language has many meanings and that is why it’s such fun, you can build and breakup just like Lego. My neighbour was filling a skip with bricks and he said he was moving house, one brick at a time. SO I replied like Lego. Then he told me that he knew somebody was NOT allowed into the new Lego attraction because they did not have a child with them, so could he borrow one of my kids in future. I said if he could tear them away from the Wifi. But the point is Lego has superglued their policy together if only family constructions are allowed into their attractions. Now if I’m wrong I’m sure Lego will email me.  

So you expect one thing and get another. And that’s how advertising works, it builds up your expectations and then you are deflated when you get the reality. Its best to have high hopes but low expectations, then you won’t be disappointed. Dating can be like that too, you think he’s in Property, and he is, he sticks the For Sale signs up outside houses. Rather like in my play Battered Husband from 30 years ago. Time and Tide waits for no man and now the Dating Game has changed so much too. What people expect and demand has changed for the worse.

You’ll find in my writing, if I can use such a pretentious phrase, I write stuff, chocolate bars of stuff you can enjoy on your tea break then go back to launching rockets into space, or fixing the asphalt , and asphalt is not where you need to see a proctologist. Expectations are one thing and reality is another, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. As we all bitterly discover as Life pushes us along, my only Life has been a song and dance, but I did it my way, on the late night bus avoiding the drunks after an evening shift. There was one little Italian guy always singing on the bus, Frank something or another was his name. He always got off at the Crematorium, just next to the Swish curtain shop.

What other Expectations are there? Well you never know what to expect when you read my stuff, neither do I that’s what makes it interesting for me the Writer. If I just wrote rhythms for greetings cards then it really would bore me, and yes I can hear you all mutter, how do you think we feel? I could easily be crushed if I listened to negativity.

Nobody should put up with Negativity, so the worm should turn. The Lillys of this world should shatter people’s expectations of them, as I said only the other day, I do know how to swear, my dad worked in a Steel Works, do you think they all spoke posh Queen’s English? They spoke excellent cursing English, above the sound of the Blast Furnace, so as I’m still a bit battered I’ll finish by encouraging you all to exceed your own expectations, and if anybody, but anybody tries to put you down then bite their bum, and they won’t expect that, not unless you are in some kind of kinky relationship.  

The Price of a Soul ©

By Michael Casey

I read something in the paper and it should have shocked me, but it did not. In USA a company is chasing debt,  after the person has died. So the debt does not die with the person, it is Immortal, whatever the belief system of the person involved. Which goes to prove, never act as Guarantor, because even though Death and Taxes cannot be avoided, though some try to avoid the latter. You can be caught up in your friend’s debt, even though they are dead, so you become part of their Immortality, the immorality of chasing debt from the dead, thus killing the afterlife, the here and now life of the living. But maybe I am old fashioned.

So this got me thinking, and for those of you who bother to vote in USA, I hope you bother to vote because it seems everything has a Price, but the Value of some things has been lost. A smile from your mother, what price is that, priceless, I’m thinking of my own mother now. Even if she said she’d hit me with the wet mop if I stood on her clean kitchen floor. A hug from Grannie, as she slips 10 dollars into your pocket and winks at you. If you visits her grave you will always but always think of her and her Love for you.

When your dad spanked you when you deserved it, you really hated him, but later you realized that climbing the power lines was not a very good idea. So when later you became a power engineer your dad just laughed, and you laughed too over a few beers. But when your crew made one tiny tiny safety error you’d say you’d bring your dad to beat them. You said your dad was 6feet 6 and 300 pounds. They believed you as you were so large yourself. Years later they finally met dad, and he was 5feet 2, but his Love made you a Giant amongst men.

 The love makes  you big, not your actual size. As for your crew they were the best of the best, and all recruits were told that your dad would beat your bare arse if you did not comply to all the safety standards. And when finally the new recruit qualified, the look of relief he had on his face when your dad was not as big as the Rock. And so your dad’s memory and safety sense lived on through all your crews. Can you put a price on that?

The janitor who cleans through the night and leaves a few flowers every day in Reception, he does this himself, everybody thinks it is the company but it’s him. It’s only when he retires that everybody realised that without him the company would not be as nice as it is. His brother was an undertaker and that’s where the flowers came from, though nobody ever knew. Until 20 years later when everybody, but everybody came to his funeral they recognised the  flowers. You all smiled, but nobody said a word, but you all looked skywards and said thanks Joe. Now what price is there on this?

The crossings lady, the cop, the orderly in the hospital, the porter taking people to their operations. All these people and many many more have great value, great worth. Maybe even a fat silver haired writer in shades, from Birmingham, the one in Engand, maybe me maybe you whatever you do. We are all part of life’s rich tapestry, we are all a piece of the jigsaw. If you know your Bible the piece about the value of each part of the body springs to mind. Without all the pieces then we are not whole, a fabulous sports car is going nowhere without a steering wheel, or keys in the ignition. So what price do we put on a Soul? Is everything marked and barcoded, because the barcode is high or the sticker price is high then the Value is high?

A mother’s Love, a friend’s support, a cheerleader’s shouts, a band’s music, the smell of apple pie, or Irish stew, all of these and many many more are our Soul. Would you put a price on any of them? Is it a yard sale of the heart? A car boot sale, a wrecker’s sale, a bankruptcy sale. If all we do is sell our soul for the short term profit, then we are prostituting ourselves, our hopes, our futures. Yes we may make a killing, in money terms, until the stock market goes off the cliff edge.

Life and Love has many beats and tempos, but if you overwind  the clock it breaks, or goes too fast and chimes at the wrong time. So all I am saying is that somethings are eternal, and if a company or a society is just chasing the buck even into Eternity then the here and now is lost. And the colour of life is lost, life’s rich tapestry fades to black, the black of printed money, as the colours of life are slowly strangled. Chose love, chose life, and make it your “wife” , for love is a many splendored thing.

 Too Much Choice ©

By Michael Casey

The thing about choice is that it spoils you, too much choice confuses and leads to delay and anger. I know this to be true as my wife is designing our new kitchen. The amount of swearing and cursing coming from the carpet as swatches and tiles and cupboard doors are dropped on the floor is unbelievable. I may just be a carpet but I just cannot be walked all over, I have feelings, you just pile on the pressure and vacuum me this way and that. I  HAVE FEELINGS!

Choice means colour, a man knows basic colours, a woman knows 50 Shades of Grey and 500 shades of every other colour. So you can imagine the dramas in our house at the moment, it’s not red its more browny, more chestnut, more Father Christmas and less blood spattered horror film red. And on it goes, and this is just picking the colour of our workman’s gloves. Give a woman a choice she is spoilt, and mention colours, then you are busted, it’s all too much, you are like Daniel Craig after his last Bond film. Well with my wife it is, I may just be old fashioned, don’t talk of Fashion or we will be going down another Rabbit Hole, Alice in Wonderland  here I come. Eat me, Hemlock I worship thee.

We  had 50 Shades of Grey, the tile colour, the film is too timid, too limp, what we had was full on roaring and screaming, it’s not that colour it is not that shade of Grey or any other shade. And yes me and my girls did think of tying up mum, not ready for anything. Just so the whirl and swirl of colour would subside. It was like Jackson Pollard having a sugar rush, Brown Sugar as the Stones sung, I cannot get no satisfaction. And you wouldn’t if you were all tied up, but at least it calmed down mother, and the rainbow of colours ran through her head and all over our living room floor.  

Sparkling ideas bounced around the kitchen, before the cat came in and puked on the floor, I know a cat has 9 lives but the amount of colour swatches and samples littering the floor was too much for the cat. It was a life or two lives away when she got stuck in the local hippies house. Whatever substance, whatever colour our pussy had licked up resulted in her fur standing  up for 3 months. She kept on attacking the kitchen dustbin, it was only when we changed its colour 5 times did pussy calm down. An emerald green dustbin was the answer, the colour of grass calmed her down, as opposed to all the grass she has shared at the Hippy’s home.  

But I digressed, when mother had calmed down we removed the masking tape, but despite the pain she was very pleased. Because on removing the tape it removed all the excess hair from all over her body, so it was an ill wind that blew no good. Then she hit me with the frying pan, the kids laughed and ran away. As the blood trickled down my face, she jumped for joy, for there was the colour she wanted. So she screamed for the kids to take a photo, and she forwarded it to her colour designer.

Now she had the perfect colour creations for her new kitchen, she was filled with joy and kissed me passionately, then seizing the masking tape she began to tie me up. Many thoughts passed through my mind, none of them grey. Once finished she slowly removed all her clothes, spun around and tipped the kitchen bin all over me and left  it on my head. Naked she headed for the shower. She left me tied up with  the bin on my head all night long. In the morning she dragged me into the garden, and hosed me down with  the garden hose.

But she was ever so glad she had got the perfect colour combinations for her kitchen that she took me by the hand and we headed for the bathroom together. Just stopping to grab the Jeyes Fluid she washed me in the bath. You can imagine the rest. So now we have the perfect colour combination of a kitchen, only it’s too small now, you see one of us got pregnant, it must have been the allure of the Jeys Fluid, super strength disinfectant. We are expecting triplets, I may call them Tom, Dick and Harry. Or more colorful names, but don’t let’s mention colours.

 Saturday, 4 August 2018

Lech, Boris and Gregorgi come in from the Cold

 Lech, Boris and Gregorgi come in from the Cold ©

By Michael Casey

Now it’s hard when building work goes on and there is dust everywhere, when there is cursing galore, and that is just from mom and dad. Builders blush when they overhear such language, but building is a blessed thing, blessed with plenty of cursing. Anastasia was visiting family in the village, when she had a phone call from her granddad, the builders had let him down, now all he had was dust everywhere. This made her own problem small beer, she had bought a brand new car for herself as a graduation present, but it broke down repeatedly. The dealership just laughed at her and called her little Russian Princess.  

Now as Lech’s, Boris’s and Gregorgi’s wives chopped meat their blood boiled.

Anastasia’s granddad was Denis Nellis, he was very very old now, but when he was very very young he was a sailor on the Artic Convoy to Russia, after the war he married the sister of a Polish Battle of Britain pilot. So he was a man of great bravery, who should be honored and as he had a connection to the village through marriage he was FAMILY. The boys’ wives sharpened their knives, but Anastasia said the Pen is Mightier than the sword, and far far sharper, with a wicked smile. The boys’ wives agree as they did some target practice on the back of the kitchen door.

But where were the boys, where were Lech, Boris and Gregorgi? The Summer of 2018 was so terrible hot, some like it hot, as they  say, but Gregorgi had a friend who owned a former Russian nuclear submarine, he had bought it in an army or navy surplus sale. He ran trips to the North, the far North, ½ way to the North Pole. Ice Station Zebra and all that. Some of the crew had gone sick, so Gregorgi had persuaded Lech and Boris to come and have an adventure, or were they little girls? So the three of them found themselves on an ice shelf playing football. The new or rather ex Soviet winter warmer clothes were being sold to the tourists as Lech, Boris and Gregorgi larked about on the ice. The pay was very good after all, and it was in US dollars, perfect, what more did they want.

Their wives could bear it no longer, they dug out the old SW set and setting it to the emergency frequency they sent a message to the North Pole. Come home the dinner is getting cold, family matter to attend to. That was all it said, signed 3 wives. Now the American’s went mad trying to work out what it meant. The Russian’s wanted to know what it meant too. Only the British knew what it really meant. You see Anastasia had a secret, she had just signed on to work for GCHQ, so she had told them about her holiday plans, and having Denis Nellis as a relative had swung the interview for her, that and having a Double First from Downing Cambridge.  Or the University of Monty Python as some card in recruitment called it, you see Downing was where John Cleese went, and Michael Winner and this writer’s brother.

Lech, Boris and Gregorgi worried for a full minute, before finishing off the submarine’s supply of vodka, their wives could look after themselves, they knew how to use knives and riffles. So as the icicles melted from them they enjoyed  their vodka, the trip had been a success and they’d been invited to join the regular crew roster.

When they got home to the village their wives feed them well and took them to bed. They had to make sure everything still worked after the cold of the North Pole. In the morning their wife’s gave them the Eastern look,  they explained about Denis Nellis and Anastasia. Then Anastasia explained about the builder saying her grandad would have to face facts and surrender to reality. The car company has said the same, just surrender to life. Now Gregorgi started to twitch, you never say Surrender to a Russian, after what those Nazi bastards did. Lech and Boris weren’t happy either, this was Family. The Scots never say surrender too,  go ask the Black Watch if you don’t believe me.

There was just enough time to finish all the food their wives  had prepared while they were at the North Pole, then they made love to their wives 10 more times, before they were ready to hit the road. At David Nellis’s house it was like the Nazi bastards had shelled it. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi  set to work. The bathroom extension with downstairs bedroom would soon be sorted. The boys worked like slaves, worse than slaves, they worked like men from the East, they worked like family. If you married into the East, then you were part of the East. They only stopped for 5 mins just to send me an email asking that I looked after Still 17 in Warley Woods, it would be reaching perfection too, by pure, 95% pure, coincidence they would be in England to taste it.

When the dust settled Dennis Nellis had his bathroom  and new bedroom downstairs. Gregorgi shed a tear, and for once his cousins did not mock him for crying like a little girl. This was family. I had tapped Still 17 and send the postman to deliver 10 litres, so toasting Dennis Nellis sailor from the Artic Convoys they got drunk. What else do you expect?

Now Anastasia had not been forgotten, still hung over the boys decided to go visit the car dealership. The car dealer had ignored Anastasia, even though she was so pretty, and so very very intelligent. But boys will be boys, and they had come in from the cold, and their 3 wives had asked did they want to repeat their performance, once they had sorted out Anastasia’s broken brand new car. So they went to the car show room, now they could have physically turned all the cars over like turtles.

 Just as Big Sid does in the finale of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker.

However they had seen the Full Monty on Dennis Nellis’s tv the night before, so they just played the music on their Spotify on their iphones so they started to strip. The girls in the car show room giggled and live streamed it on Facebook to their friends, they stopped giggling as more and more clothes came off. Where was the nearest Polish/Ukrainian and Russian food store, these were MEN with a capital M! The car showroom owner came down to see the still drunk cousins sprawled naked over his cars, leaving marks all over the polish, that’s polish not POLISH by the way.

He tried to threaten them but this was no Spring Time for Hitler. Your Cars have one thing in common with us slurred Lech, Boris and Gregorgi, and what is that asked the car show room owner? BIG BOLLOCKS! And with that the boys left the showroom. And did Anastasia get a new car from the car dealer. No, he was going to offer, but the Police closed down his showroom after 100s of complaints, the Police even said he did not have a licence for Erotic Dancers so were able to close him down immediately. But Peter Stringfellow saw it all online and sent Anastasia a brand new car, a much better car. He did offer the boys a job as well, but they decided, The winner wives take it all, it was For Their Eyes Only.

Pyrrhic victories ©

By Michael Casey

As ever I didn’t know what to talk about, but I just read an email and that gave me an idea, so thanks to the sender who did not sort out the problem but gave me the idea for tonight’s talk. Who knows perhaps the sender stumbles over this and smiles, and boasts that they inspired one of my 2000 stories. A small victory for them perhaps?

Now I had heard of Pyrrhic Victory before, maybe in 1970 in 1st year Grammar school Latin lessons, in passing by Mr Hanney my Latin teacher. So what is a Pyrrhic victory? It is a victory where you lose so many men that it amounts to a loss, rather like winning a nuclear war and the entire planet is polluted.

We each have our own Pyrrhic victories, some may say me writing my first book was a Pyrrhic victory. Because I forever bored people about it, and they all head for the gents rather than share a pint in the bar. No, I was never like that, now I only write short pieces because I might not live long enough to finish another full length novel. It’s a year of your life after all, I’d rather spend an hour and write yet another short story. Though if ever I meet a speed typist I could rattle off Tears for a Butcher in 3 months. I did in fact discover my next door neighbour is fast typist, but she is moving away, and the other person I know with a typewriter must be 80 years old.

There are many Pyrrhic victories in life, you meet a professional model but decide you prefer the charm of the old fashioned girl. And yes that kind of happened to me more than 20 years ago. But then you finally have to admit the old fashioned girl does not want you either. So everybody laughs at you.

But God is good, so you look at the picture of your dead mother as you stand by the fridge with tears in your eyes and make a heartfelt prayer. I give up you take over, as you pray to Padre Pio. You have lost all the battles, Pyrrhic and otherwise. But soon you meet the future wife, who everybody says is 10 times prettier than the professional model. And then you are called a dirty bastard, nobody believes you fell for her because she made you laugh, she is just so much younger than you.

But you’ve heard my true life story before if you’ve been reading some of my 2000 stories. Ambition can be a Pyrrhic victory at times too. You work so hard to get that job, to study for all those exams to get you that place at university. But does it make you happy? A guy I went to grammar school with ended up as an accountant, he hated it. He really wanted to change and become a History teacher instead.

Near where I live there is a cramming school, but do they realise 5000 apply for grammar school but there are only 500 places. My wife forced my big daughter to cram to get a grammar school place.  I told her not to bother as the local girls school used to be a grammar school anyway and was still so very good, top 1% in the entire country perhaps. So my girls went there, though my big daughter did become a maths wiz due to the Chinese cramming for the grammar school place. But grannie was accountant for Shanghai bus company, so it could have been in the blood anyway.

They say that students from the 3rd world work so very hard to achieve, but are not accepted in the 1st world and when they return home they are no longer accepted back home either. So that’s a Pyrrhic victory I suppose. Life is like that, you finally get the girl but then discover you wish you had not bothered. Or  all she did was give you the clap. We can all chase after dreams that are no good for us in the end, they are all Pyrrhic victories.

You would not believe how hard I worked and saved for this house, yes really. It was after I reached my ambition that I stumbled into the writing, and is that a Pyrrhic victory because it consumes me so  much? I’d say no, but others have said yes in the past. These words are my way of saying, Death where is your victory? Because they are my legacy to my girls, if ever they read them all. Writing can be so very very tiring especially in the beginning, now it’s very easy, getting Rupert Murdoch and his gang to publish and  pay, now that is impossible. So why does anybody do it?

You write because it’s your thing, if I was a hunk I’d have a string of Oriental girls, if I were a painter I ‘d be painting walls, just like Banksy, if I liked cars I’d tinker with cars. We all have our  thing, whether it is morally good or bad for us and society. What matters is that it makes us feel 100% I imagine that’s the excuse druggies use. I have never used those things because I have an IMAGINATION, and I don’t want to destroy it with any substance.

You could say my physical pains make me take refuge more in my imagination, but you’d be wrong. My imagination is my greatest toy and joy, the past 5 years of zigzag of pain have been a pain, in all senses of the word. However I hope pain inspires me to try and leave as much behind as I can, before my heart stops or a stroke gets me. I’m being realistic not morbid. In theory you get 20 years after a bypass, I’ve had 3.5years, but statistically 50% live 10 years, so you do the maths yourself.

There  is a silver lining of course, if you have been following me for years, insert joke of your own choice, in theory your suffering will end when mine does. No more stories from the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, the one in England. Before you all cheer, you are all so cruel, I’m going to tell Julian and Sandy about you. The thing is I am very determined, very determined indeed, I am from Kerry Ireland stock. So I may just decide to live till I am 100, as I used to proclaim as a child. Now whose Pyrrhic victory would that be?

Dealing with Salesmen ©

By

Michael Casey

We had a salesman touting for business in the street, now this is such an open goal as far as I am concerned. It’s like sweets left unattended, do you think they’ll last in our house, in any house? Yes today’s guy was Irish in his black shirt, like a Country and Western star, or Johnny Cash. So I told him he looked like a priest, with the collar off, if he’s reading this now he can verify it. He said he was from Clare, so I said it did not matter, and did he not know that Kerry was the best county. Ask any Kerryman they will agree, oh and yes my parents were Kerry people.

The trick with salesmen is not to let them talk, just talk over them, and keep on talking. Don’t listen to them, just keep on talking over them. And go on a sidetrack, if he’s selling double glazing tell him to buy your house instead, then he won’t have to travel so much as he blitzes the area with his double glazing. And go on and on and on, Obama couldn’t keep up with my soaring rhetoric, maybe I should just be a politician and keep on talking nonsense BS, but then maybe my hands are just too small, even though my hair is so nice and silvery.

This really is a blood sport, me activating the nuclear BS option, but then again, salesmen deserve it. If you come to my door, this is what you’ll get. Or if I’m busy picking my nose I might open the door and bless the cold caller and slam the door in their face. A warning though if you hunt in packs, if you are these mad “religious” zealots who think no blood transfusions is God’s will and hand out their rubbish, saying it’s an “invitation”. Firstly me and millions would be dead without blood transfusions, their idea belongs to no God I would recogise.

So if you bang on my door, a vampire will appear, with tomato ketchup dripping down from my mouth. Yes, I will answer, you came to give me a donation? I’ll lick my lips like Hannibal Lector, taking their hand firmly, as firm as a Donald Trump handshake. I’ll scrunch up their rubbish as I sniff their hand, which I’ll then begin to lick. As fear and un-comprehension rises on their face, I’ll scream I’m Bad, I’m Bad, and you are SAD, and laugh like Vincent Price.

Usually that does the trick, I never get the likes of mad “religious” people ever again. If you believe in Death, don’t ever come near me, just leave me alone, as Michael Jackson used to sing. I have zero tolerance for their ilk. And just in case you think I’m joking I am not, however if you are a little old lady that wants a chat at the bus stop then you can have all the time in the world, as Armstrong sung.

Life is short, and I’m very lucky I had my quadruple heart bypass, so I’m not going to waste a second, and despite knowing I’ll still have lots of pain to some degree, maybe 50% of the time, I want to have some fun. And door to door salesman are an easy target. Sometimes it’s fun to hear them talk, but I’ll boast now, I can out talk anybody, and as you all know, I have a PhD in BS. What are you reading after all, it’s top quality Trumpian level of story telling, it all depends who you believe? And who would you prefer to open the door to?

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.  

My Lima Love Story ©

By

Michael Casey

Sancho Panza was Isabella’s driver, Sancho Panza was not his real name but he had been christened it and it stuck. His real name is, but I cannot even remember and I’m telling his story. You see Sancho Panza was one of the native people, strong incredible strong, not too tall but in his case very very wide. When Isabella went to a fancy hotel he carried everything, just as a mountain donkey does, so one joker decided to call him Sancho Panza, and it stuck. He’d worked for her for 10 years now and he was her Sancho Panza. Isabella apologized, she was a lady after all.

Isabella was from Spanish Nobility who’d conquered Peru all those years ago, and like her name she was pious, but she hid it well, she wanted to appear a carefree European style person. However Sancho Panza could see her saying the Rosary in his rear view mirror. So he was proud to be her servant, he’d join in silently saying the Rosary with her as her drove the Limousine from place to place. Isabella’s family owned a Hotel company hence all the driving from place to place.

Isabella was 27 now and he was 10 years older, but looked much older than that, his face carved from stone. Isabella had a secret, and that is why she had decided not to marry. Yes she had a few suitors, some nice, some kind, some just wanting her family’s millions. Sometimes she come running to the car and demanded Sancho Panza just drove, get away from here, get away from here. Sancho could see the tears in her eyes, but he was just Sancho Panza it was not his place to ask what was making her sad. So Sancho Panza prayed to Saint Martin de Porres to take her tears away and replace them with tears of laughter. Saint Rose of Lima was also roped in. If she chose to be like you Santa Rosa so be it, but please no tears, I cannot take tears. Just let her be happy.

So his life continued, driving here there and everywhere, stopping in the staff quarters and sleeping in the worst hotel bedroom, while she had the Presidential suite. Now to pass the time Sancho Panza placed music on the Limousine stereo, which as you can imagine was excellent. Sancho Panza discovered Andrea Bocelli and was about to switch it off when Isabella entered the car. No keep it on its so beautiful, and that was the first thing that broke down the wall between them. So as he drove Andrea Bocelli sung while Isabella did some paperwork in the back of the Limousine.

Now Sancho Panza had been brought up by his abuelita in Lima, after  his parents died when an overcrowded bus they were on fell off a mountain. So Sancho Panza sent her money and paid flying visits when he could. Isabella was happy, and she noticed him looking at the sign which led to where his abuelita live. My abuelita lives there said Sancho Panza, pay her a visit then I can stay in the car, Isabella suggested. And that is how another piece of the wall came crumpling down.

Sancho Panza’s abuelita was on her knees praying when he entered her house. It was on the tv, this woman in Birmingham Inglaterra asked for prayers, she asked in many languages, incluso Espanol. A butcher has been shot while defending everybody, mira mira a la television, and Sancho Panza could see CNN replaying it over and over. A butcher saved the lives of everybody, including, a grandmother, her daughter in law, her grandchild, and the unborn baby inside her, as well as several other people. But while overcoming 3 gunmen single handedly he’d been shot 3 times.

And that is why an abuelita was on her knees tearing through the Rosary, because a request for prayers had been made in Spanish, by the grandmother herself. In countries all around the world grandmothers were praying in many many languages. You see the grandmother had learnt the Rosary in a different languages when she’d been on Pilgrimages. So united in prayer abuelitas the world over were praying.

So Sancho Panza fell to his knees in prayer. Meanwhile Isabella needed the bathroom so she slipped into the house. When she came to the living room afterwards she saw them praying and CNN replaying the scene, it was an international story today on an otherwise slow news day. Instinctively Isabella fell to her knees, the abuelita passed her a plain wooden set of Rosary beads.

After an hour the abuelita had to get up, her knees were hurting on the concrete floor. As she leant on Sancho Panza and Isabella to get herself up she knocked them both over, so Isabella landed on top of Sancho Panza. Their eyes met and lingered, they both blushed. Something stirred inside Isabella, she felt it but did not understand. She had never thought of Sancho Panza as anything but a loyal driver, though friendship was growing due to Andrea Bocelli, no at that instant a Mustard Seed had been planted. They got to their feet and both avoided eye contact, they both looked the tv, and beside the tv were statues of San Martin de Porres and Santa Rosa. A statue cannot talk, but the abuelita noticed, and though it was a mad idea she would start praying for it.

As they drove away they both avoided saying anything, Isabella had literally fallen for Sancho Panza. And there it would have ended. The next month Sancho was driving her back from a dinner and dance at the very poshest hotel her family had just opened when Sancho spotted the tears falling in his rear view mirror. He’d seen her sad before, it always seemed after she’d met some suitor, but now the tears would not stop.

So Sancho Panza stopped the Limousine, you are too beautiful to be crying, look at the beauty in the stars, look at that shooting star. Sancho Panza’s heart was breaking, to see her crying after his 10 years of driving for her. The dam broke, I thought he’d be the one, I thought he would understand. Understand what? I cannot have children, and she cried even more. This was too much for Sancho Panza to bear, he got out of the driver’s seat and went and sat in the back beside her.

I am just a burro, I am a donkey called Sancho Panza but this burro is proud to be your servant, and maybe your friend, a real friend someday in the future. But today I tell you under all these stars and in front of Almighty God himself, no man is worthy of you if any man thinks all you are is a baby making machine. You are a beautiful woman who deserves better. Isabella stopped crying for a second and kissed him on the cheek.

Sancho Panza got back into the driving seat and drove her home in silence. Had he said the wrong thing, would she sack him after 10 years?

In the morning came the answer, his abuelita had a knock at the door, it was a furniture van. A total change of furniture and a new bathroom. The delivery man handed the abuelita a hand written note. Forgive me, but your grandson was so kind to me I had to thank him in some small way, please accept this humble gesture. It was signed Isabella, your grandson’s FRIEND.

Sancho Panza smiled when Isabella got back into the car, you were too kind I did not do anything, I just stated the obvious. Isabella found herself leaning forward and kissing Sancho Panza on his cheek. Have you been drinking joked Sancho Panza. No, but thank you. And with that no more was said.

Now up in the mountains where Peru meets other countries there was another new hotel. They said it was bandit county, but they had a fast car, and Sancho Panza was a good driver. But that night, not even Saint Martin de Porres nor Santa Rosa could save them. After a successful opening Isabella decided to return to Lima for an important morning meeting, this meant travelling in the middle of the night.

Nails in the road brought the Limousine to a halt, Sancho Panza managed to avoid slamming into the mountainside. He then had to do things should never have to do in front of his Lady. There were four of them and it was all or nothing, one had a riffle so Sancho Panza hit him first. He was like a bucking burro kicking and fighting and scratching. Lock the car stay inside Isabella is all he screamed, she screamed but did as he said, she clutched her Rosary to her.

I will not describe what happen, but it was horrible and bloody. Isabella threw her money out of the window and they decided they had had enough, Sancho Panza had been defending her honour, not her money. Over his dead body would they hurt her in any way. Isabella threw her money out the window in a final act of desperation. As they left they threw rocks and one lucky shot hit Sancho Panza on the head. He fell bloodied into her arms.

Isabella found a flare in the boot and fired it. 40 minutes later help came. Sancho Panza apologised, did I do the right thing? Isabella cried, no you did not. This was the man she would marry, but was she good enough for him? Sancho Panza spent a week in hospital, his granny visited every day, she was driven in a limousine owned by Isabella’s company. Isabella visited, she was shaking all over. Sancho Panza can I ask you one thing, just one thing? Yes. Would you marry a girl like me, who could not give you children of your own?

Sancho Panzo replied only a fool would turn down a girl for that reason alone. Isabella licked her lips, then Sancho Panza will you marry me? Sancho Panza opened his arms wide from his hospital bed. That was his answer.

Isabella and Sancho Panza’s wedding was the biggest that year in Lima Peru. And what is Sancho Panza’s real name you may well ask, well it is Miguel the same as this writer telling the story. Sancho Panza and Isabella accepted that they could never have children of their own.But the abuelita did not, she prayed just for one pregnancy, just one pregnancy she begged for as she knelt on her Aixminster carpeted house. Isabella thought she deserved some comfort as she prayed.

So after a year of prayers everybody was amazed when Isabella announced that she was pregnant. Saint Martin de Porres and Santa Rosa answered the abuelita’s prayers, just one pregnancy was all she had. Isabella had baby boy whom she called Martin, she also had a baby girl whom she called Rosa. She had twins you see as sometimes prayers are answered twofold. And as my own mother and all Peru’s mothers will tell you, never underestimate the power of the Rosary.  

Flying ©

By

Michael Casey

I’m scared of several things, one of which is flying, and as I’ve just had a postcard in the post which means the sender will no doubt be landing home any second now, I’ve decided to talk about Flying. I am a very scared flier. I don’t like heights to start with and my invisible Rosary is in overdrive when I fly. Yes I know you are all laughing now, considering the Fact that Flying the safest form of travel.

Getting on a plane is like being herding through an abattoir, so much process. In actual fact one of our local supermarkets changed the checkout area and now it feels like an abattoir too. Though I gave up going there in search of nicer food to feed my daughter’s brain, 18 months ago. I hate being processed, I know it’s all for speed and economy, but I really do want to know how the security guard’s old mum is.

And say, you do have such white nice teeth to the girl at passport control, before she introduces me to the nice white teeth of the Rottweilers, though that tends to be in Germany. I have to admit it’s 2013 since my last holiday. Post heart op, and with arthritis I scream and need my Movelat gel at the most awkward of times. So I stay at home and cogitate, they can’t touch you for it you know, cogitation.

Though some day Paris Hilton will offer a private jet, holiday and Health Insurance, and then I’ll head for the Hilton Malta. I would of course repay Paris Hilton in kind. I’ll tidy up her CV, and give her some interview practice in return, then maybe just maybe she could get a job on reception at the local Specsavers Opticians. One good turn deserves another.

I do of course sweat a lot when going through checkin. Because I’m afraid I’ll get too close to God for comfort, though HE will be saying I don’t want him I my house boring the pants off me. So much did I sweat in 2006 in Maimi that I’m sure they put me next to the Air Marshall. They split the family up and the Air Marshall had the aisle seat blocking me in, away from my wife and then 2 toddlers. He was 6 foot 6 and very very big. He refused to talk to me. Though he may have just had good taste, or he was just being very very cruel. I think he was Polish too, or maybe just pretending so as to avoid having to talk to me. Some people are not nice. Though it could have just been my imagination, borne out of fear of flying.

I do like the food on planes, it takes my mind off the fear. Thinking back to 2006 when we landed in NY it was really really rough, and my 3 girls were all sick. I was not, nothing escapes my belly once it has been eaten. Back to the food I get to eat all the portions should anybody not like what is on offer. And a bit of wine is always nice, most of the year I am dry but on holidays I like a little drink.

When you drink and eat on planes you then need the toilet, which is an  adventure in itself. It’s like being a contortionist trying to get into a dwarf’s clothing, how else would you describe it? Like trying to get 15 students in the back of your dad’s car perhaps? And which slot has paper of any kind, where do you put this of that, and the toilet bowl so shallow, much more like a soup dish. They  don’t recycle everything do they?

Once you have  finished you break out of the cubicle and  fall over a beautiful air hostess who slaps your face and the Air Marshall just hopes he can taser  you, punk are you feeling lucky, a la Eastwood. Or you break out of the toilet and fall over a steward, who sighs repeated, why are stewards all gay? So you scurry back to the Air Marshall, at least the steward did not slap your face.

Then it’s time for a film or 3 depending on the flight time. These can be very good and very modern, but there is no popcorn, yet.  No doubt Ryan Air will invent it, and charge for it. There was a 2 hour interlude while the pilots popped the popcorn, or while I had a nap, I got up too early for that blood test. Or it could be blood tests are required to get into Trump’s USA next.

How the crew manage rushing here and there and everywhere I just do not know. There must be a Patron Saint of air crew/cabin crew. Maybe Saint Alan Wicker? Though Americans may be asking who? Ok, maybe Saint Rudolf Nureyev, because you have to be so graceful and move here and there effortlessly. By the way I like a bit of ballet myself, having been positively vetted by a Chinese Ballerina from the Birmingham Royal Ballet, check me out if you don’t believe me. Have you never considered why this 248 pound man moves so gracefully? Which reminds me I have a ballet story somewhere, either on my PC or in my head, I’ll have to put it on the page soon. Leap.

Now landing is the scary bit it’s like when you throw yourself into your daddy’s hands and hope he catches you. Or when you fall in Love and hope your heart won’t be broken, it’s all about leaping. And just when you think you have reached the bottom you fall even further. Air pockets are like that.

But the relief is immense when you land, that steward can sigh as much as he likes, you’ll just kiss that Air Marshall, and guess what you can speak Polish too. The amount of time spent in the Polish corner shop has meant you know a few words or two. Tak, or is it tic tac? And why are Polish girls so impossibly beautiful? Because it’s the only  thing that’ll stop their men working 16hours a day, every single day.

Well we have to go through baggage handling now and disembarking, which is a bit like toilet time after a large meal. And why does your bum hurt so much? Well 2013 and Malta was my last time, but I do have walks in the woods to look forward to, that’s if the Eagles don’t swoop down and annoy me. But they better beware as Totoro our cat will be soon scenting everywhere, and as my big daughter will attest, you need water lots of water to wash out a cat’s smell. Not unless you Fly away fast.

Shop Art to Shop Reality ©

By Michael Casey

Well I’ve know my local corner shop guy for 32 years now, so the banter has been passing back and forth for decades. When I wrote The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker back in  1987/1988 finishing on Leap Year’s Day I never knew which way my life would go. The one constant is the corner shop. Though I’ve lived here so long I can remember when he had not actually gained the corner. There was a furniture shop there so he had to wait before he could buy it out and then knock the wall down and  achieve full corner shop status.

I’d had a vacation from his corner shop so today when I returned, I  said my divorce lawyer had told me to pay the shop a visit. His wife laughed like a drain, he had previously asked my wife had I fallen out with my wife as I hadn’t been to his store in ages. So today on entering  the store I said to the new staff loudly and to the boss himself, I heard you had gone bankrupt and ran away with a Filipino. I  tried he said, which is code for he tried chatting up my wife. Normal Open All Hours banter.

He resumed by saying that my wife was clever, I know she has a degree in Bio-Chemistry, she could slice and dice you and rearrange you chemically. My nephew has just got a 2:1 in biochemistry from York, perhaps he could help, I continued with a smile. The new staff look on trying not to smile, so I explain to the hockey team, they look like they should be playing hockey for England. Which reminds me of the hockey story in Butcher Baker Undertaker. I explain that I know the Boss so long we both had brown hair, 32 years ago, when the boss only had 2 kids not the 6 he’s finished with. I know him so long I remember when he used  a spoon to carve away at the old furniture shop next door.

I realise I am not embarrassing my sparring partner enough, so as I look around the spruced up shop .I add, did you find the footage of me and the Boss French kissed just by the checkout. Just burn it all in the shopping trolley in the back yard. Make sure you don’t miss any bit. I pay for my milk and bread, safe in the knowledge that the Boss will be the talk of the Temple for at least a week.

As I leave I spot another new staff member, I  lean in to him as he works on his clip board. On second thoughts, don’t burn that footage of me French Kissing by the soft drinks, with the Indian owner. Just blow it up to poster size and stick to the side of the store. This will prove the store is Gay  friendly, and encourage the gay pound. With that I left the store, with my milk and break swinging in the plastic bag by my side. As for the owner he is going into semi-retirement, which could just mean working 40 hours a week instead of 95. Either way I wish him well, maybe he should sponsor the hockey team, they could have Shop with Smile as a logo.   

Dominus Vobiscum ©

By

Michael Casey

I woke up this morning and  Dominus Vobiscum popped into my mind, as I got dressed I wondered where did that come from. As I wrapped my dressing gown around me I was still wondering, and now an hour or so later the thought is still with me. I’ve had my breakfast with my morning Meds, and I’ve had my usual look at my viewing figures and a quick look at the morning papers. So I’ve had too much time to think of this or that way to talk about it. As I had my toast and coffee and looked out the kitchen window in that minute the piece was written. A minute is enough for the scaffolding to form, I then just peg the story too it. I am that quick, or that rubbish.

So why has Dominus Vobiscum come to mind, maybe because I need it, maybe because we all need it, and not just because it is Sunday. Though the Muslim majority of believers have a saying,  they are the majority if you count bums on seats or knees of floor. Muslims say Peace be Upon you, and Jewish people say Shalom. So we each have a saying or a praise that begins our day or prayers. The absolute majority have no faith whatsoever, and let’s not pretend otherwise, we may be a nation of shopkeepers but the Faith has long gone. Which may be why Britain is a great place to live in despite the Media’s obsession with Brexit. As there is not the hypocrisy of faith that happens in manner places, pick your own.

Dominus Vobiscum is of course Latin, and I am just old enough to remember it in Mass before the English replaced the Latin. Some people hark back to the Latin, because you could turn up anywhere in the world and understand or rather say the words you recognized in Latin. Though common sense would say let people listen in their own languages, wasn’t the first thing the Gift of Tongues after all. Then you get arguments over this or that and which form of words to use, thus forgetting  the Word.

Nowadays pop songs are the lingua franca, nobody knows any holy words of any kind, in some places you have the holy mafia, pick your own faith and location. It’s up to you to find you own path to God, I am no signpost, I’m not even mud on the signpost. It’s better if you grow up with a Faith, because when times are hard you have something to lean on, and it can even save your life. Reach out and I’ll be there, to quote one famous song, it’s the same with faith. Though immediately I’m criticized for using such a phrase, frankly people who have such a shallow interpretation of faith, any faith have no faith at all. Discuss.

As usual I’ve got music playing as I talk to you, you cannot hear it but it permeates everything I write, conscientiously or unconscientiously, that’s how certain words or phrases might appear. There was a music, a tone in the Latin Mass, and speaking as an altar boy for 8 years and a reader for 5 it was fun all the smoke and dressing up. But the basic thing has to be the words. A missionary has not got all these trappings, but he does have something of a much greater power, he has the faith of the congregation. It is the congregation who provide the juice, they are the electricity and energy and faith. Listen to any Shona choir if you don’t believe me.  

Now where has it gone wrong? You have some priests who forget they are just the signposts to God, and yes some people have to accept they are just mud on the signpost. They need to be humble, not arrogant. Be a signpost and point, let the people sing their praise, as to sing is to doubly praise. Literal songs and metaphorical singing. When the priest is in the way, and when the priest is corrupt in any way, the priests should be caste out into the wilderness immediately. This applies to all faiths and politics too.

1000 years ago Francis was told to Repare mi Casa, today the same thing needs to be urgently done in the catholic church again, by today’s Francis. I have visited Assisi and you could feel the electricity of faith there, I’ve also felt the same thing in Lourdes. There are many other holy places the world over, they are powerhouses of love and faith. Or so they should be. If the love and faith is being corrupted then it’s time to start anew. It is time to Repare mi Casa all the houses of god everywhere.  Dominus Vobiscum.

Gentle Helping ©

By

Michael Casey

As you know I’m an Altruist, which isn’t anything to do with climbing mountains or any altitudes, though it is about helping others reach the heights. A dad will put his toddler on his shoulders so that the child can feel 6 feet tall, this allows the child to feel just as tall as dad and gives the child a great view. So if you like that is what I do, I am just a pair of shoulders. As I write this suddenly and unexpectedly I tear up as the Americans say. This is my dad I’m talking about and I am just a pale reflection of him.

So that’s why I am the way I am, I am my father’s son, and that is all I ever want to be. Anything else is 2^nd rate compared to that. I can feel the story shifting as I type as I talk, such power overwhelms me, just the memory of Love. When I wrote Big Sid the butcher, HE was just a character on the page, a simple man who loved children and was a butcher. When I finished writing The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker I realised the Love inside the character was my own dad. It was in me, so it was in him, or as my dad would say it’s in the breed. If you meet the Casey Clan in Kerry my dad’s words ring out, it’s in the breed. The Love and Family is there  just as Blackpool is in the middle of a stick of rock.

Now how does anybody help? They show, they encourage, they shout, but through it all there is love. You might be so shy you would die rather than ask a girl out. Then your bear of a friend will push you into her arms literally, or your sister will ask you both to help with the washing up. And that bottle of Fairy should be invited to your wedding. Small little things can change lives, picking up a magazine on a train, or overhearing a few stray words of conversation.

We do of course have talent shows, and some are good and some are bad, and some are dire. We had the Hairy Angel from Scotland who became an international star, but then we also had boring people who wanted so much more than their 15 mins of fame as Andy Wahol predicted we’d all have. So the thing is, how should people be helped, and should you make it compulsory. We have diversity this and diversity that, and even I must know what your Social Class is. The only question that should be asked  is do you have any class at all. You have or you haven’t got style as sung in Robin and the 7 hoods https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjgNfhTZBrI 

I am not interested if you are gay or straight, it really is boring if all you can talk about is who you sleep with. I don’t care if you sleep with a donkey, actually only Catherine the great from Russia did something like that allegedly. I don’t care if you are fatter than me, or as thin as a rake, or any colour found in a rainbow. I just don’t want to be bored by where you came from it’s where you are going that matters.

Gentle helping everybody, loving their neighbour as thyself is the thing, though Barry would take that literally and learn how to escape over rooftops, need I say more. Yes, give everybody a chance, but please please please NO POLITICS PLEASE, Class Warfare should be left in the dustbin of history. There are too many personality cults following “leaders” the world over, when really we should all stand up and proclaim that the Emperor has no clothes.

Laugh and mock their stupid ideas, let’s get back to what is the base for everything. Your mum and dad, even if mum and dad are somebody who you’d prefer really were your mum and dad. We don’t need corrupt people telling us they are so great for us, what’s happening in Trump’s America beggars belief, a thief has stolen the presidency. Over here in UK, we have 3^rd rate light weights telling us all we MUST do this and we must do that.

What we need is common sense, which is of far greater value than  lots of university degrees, common sense and a guiding hand. In my 3 years at CPNEC Birmingham hotel I was lucky because I had Phil on Security as well as the lads Roger and Jim to help me along until I could fly, and in a 4 star deluxe hotel you do fly around. Taz the security manager also made sure I did the job, till he could trust me. It really was a very steep learning curve, but once I was in the groove I excelled, and did 10 different roles simultaneously.  So maybe in this life all we need is a family, one where we live, and one where we work, and then because it was OUR hotel people loved to come back. Why because they felt at home there. And that was because we all helped each other climb on each other’s shoulders.

The Fall ©

By Michael Casey

In the Fall the leaves fall down, over here we call it Autumn.  Weather changes and  aches and pains grow, Arthritis grips you again after a Summer break. Now as the damp grows outside, inside your body aches, it’s the merry-go-round of pain. But at least the Summer was good.

Life has its seasons too. We begin all virgin and pure, but then you see that  Chinese girl’s photo, and when you finally her it’s too late, it’s a Fatal attraction. Why she likes ginger boys with weak facial hair neither of you know, it’s just an attraction. She’s never had a boyfriend, and when the ginger smiled it was too much for her, ginger snaps, changed her life. She fell for you, and it was her Fall. The ignominy and shame back home, she was a A student but she threw it all away for a ginger guitar player from a rock band. And he wasn’t even Chinese, in fact he could not even speak a word of Mandarin, all he knew was one cheeky catch phrase that the man from the noodle bar had taught him. Xi Ni Di Pigu. Don’t forget to wash your bum.

Now she was no longer pure and probably pregnant, wasting her life on a ginger, a rock guitarist at that. 24 carrot stupidity. She was so relieved when she discovered she was not pregnant, though no longer pure. That she jumped straight back into bed with him, Chinese people do like to be the best at everything. So she became the best at these matters. But she was indeed by then pregnant, and all the ginger could still say was Xi Ni Di Pigu.

Her Fall was complete, 24 and pregnant, the shame back home. She felt so bad she began to wail, and the ginger just recorded her wailing. As she wailed he improvised on his guitar and she wailed the more and screamed at him, but then she sung a song of remorse. The song went one for an hour and as she sung he played along. Outside there was banging on the door, maybe the ghost of Michael Jackson trying to get in. Finally all was silent.

Regularly as the pregnancy progress the Chinese girl wailed and her ginger boy played along on his guitar. By the time they were days away from the birth the song, an album length song was complete. At the birth her recorded too, but his guitar was banished. Do you  forgive me Linda Lu for taking your innocence away and giving you a little ginger Chinese baby boy? She slapped his face hard, as hard as the baby’s bottom had been slapped. Then smiled, but she had wanted a girl so they’d have to go through all this performance again till she got her girl.

The ginger wonder had a friend in Korea who had a radio station, so he persuaded him to play his album on the radio station. It debuted between 3am and 4am on Korea Seoul Sound FM368, for some strange reason the Korean audience loved it. It  finished with the sound of a baby being born, and a slap. The next night it was played again, and for a whole week night owls heard the hypnotic singing of a pregnant Chinese girl with her ginger wonder playing guitar.

Now the Gangham Style guy just could not sleep, even after reading Michael Casey online, he stumbled on the Chinese girl and the ginger wonder on the radio. And the rest as they say is History. Hong Kong wanted to know why they had not heard this girl first, Shanghai followed then Beijing. A ripple effect followed, The Fall of a Chinese girl with Ginger guitar, was a massive hit. The slap at the end was parents favorite bit, she should have slapped him first and then there would have been no wailing and indeed no baby.

Linda Lu was so happy and rich thanks to the radio exposure, and as for the ginger wonder. Well ginger became a baker, though he never played the drums, it was just that he always put things in the oven. They went on to have 8 children, as 8 is a lucky Chinese number. Their last child they called Michael, because sometimes the smallest child can have the biggest adventures.

Playing with toys and other hobbies ©

By

Michael Casey

Some would say that Writing is my hobby, but that would be a cruel thing to say, it’s much more important to me than that. It’s not as important as breathing to me, I’m not pretentious after all, though some of you may be smiling. What I’m going to talk about tonight are others’ hobbies. I came to this choice as I’ve been having a relaxing day playing with stuff.

When a daughter gets a new phone a dad gets the old phone, even though he can barely understand how to use it, and his pork sausage fingers are too big to press and hold and keys or swipe things. And how does the swipe work anyway? It’s Black Magic. If you are very old you will remember Black Magic chocolates, though in today’s world it would be politically incorrect to use such word combinations. And then trading standards would complain because the description on the box was misleading, Harry Potter would complain.

Which brings me to what I’ve been doing today, I’ve been using the old phone as a music player. If you get a cheap HD chip you can backup your music collection to phone and then you have a high quality music player that has cost you nothing. Apart from the cost of a new phone that your daughter just had to have or she’d die of shame. Which means that you the dad have her old junk. But it’s still 10 times better that than brick the dad’s phone you use at present.

So more by luck than judgement or any skill whatsoever you blunder your way through the buttons or swipes. In anger you hurl it at the wall, and only then does the back come off, so you can insert you 2.99 30gig HD card inside. You thought 2.99 was robbery for such a tiny fingernail clipping. But it can store your lifetime of Barry Manilow albums, along with all your guilty musical secrets. So all you have to do now is to get the computer to recognise your old phone.

Two hours and 3 beer later you have worked it out, you did have to give 1/2 a glass of Stella Artois to your daughter’s gay best friend, he explained it in 10 seconds, and even pressed the right buttons on your windows 10 computer. He refused any more Stella Artois, as he did not want his mother to think his best friend’s dad was a drunken old sot, plying with drink. So now it was action stations. You can transfer all the Barry Manilow and Glad Rock onto your finger nail sized chip. So with Queen playing in the background, We Will Rock You, Rock You you start the xfers.

Only you drag and drop to the wrong place and end up having copies of copies of copies all over your hard drive. So you have to go and get a kebab to fortify you as you plod through all your music files tidying up. What you really need is a digital sheep dog that will guide your music collection onto the fingernail. A disc drive used to be as big as a washing machine I’ll have you know you drunkenly intone at the phone as the icon flashes at the bottom of the screen.  

A competent person would have sorted all this in an hour, even with so much Jim Reeves and all his darlings, and musical leftovers galore. But a dad, well a dad takes forever, and as any economist will tell you. Work expands to fit the time available. Rather like foreplay I imagine. Then end result is children, which complete the circle because it is they who gave you the old phone in the first place. And dos its sound any good? Yes a HD chip in an old phone does sound great. Though when the local dustman heard it, he did offer throw it in the back of his bin wagon, as he strode about with his Apple wireless in his ear as he emptied the bins.  

It’s all a question of taste and style, I still have a Toblerone shape speaker from the 1960s in the corner of my living room. My brothers listen to it when they were trying for Oxford and Cambridge. It still sounds great to my ears so I’m saving it, just in case anybody wants to swap it for an Apple thingy, or some other fruit. Though Oranges could be suggestive, suggestive of what I do not know. I am just an ordinary dad trying to salvage something for himself from his kids junk. I’ll finish now, I just remembered I need to trim my fingernails, I wonder could I use them as HD chips?  

Confidence ©

By Michael Casey

I was watching 100 Days Plus on the BBC when they had an item on self- harm, new figures out today really are shocking. Katty in Washington made some observations, so tonight I’m going to make a few of my own. The problem seems to be more with teenage girls than any other strata of people. I have met a few girls who self-harmed when I was working at various places, you can see marks on their arms or other places, from blades or elastic bands. It is heartbreaking to see, and now that I am a dad to daughters I really thank God that they will never go down that road of pain and sadness.

It mentioned social media on tonight’s report, and this is where social media can turn from a good to an evil. If you are naïve and don’t have all of the material goods and looks then you may self-harm because you are not perfect and don’t have all the toys everybody else has. That’s the basic  message and sad reality of today’s world. So I’m going to debunk that for all you girls and maybe boys out there.

First of all, you are loved, you are loved by God just as you are. I know most may not believe in any God nowadays, well maybe in England. But if you don’t believe in any God, make up an imaginary friend who will always love you. If you like cut a picture out of a magazine and that image is the one who loves you. It can be anything you like, create your own parents if you like. Obviously its better if you have real parents or a granny or an aunty. But if there is nobody then make somebody up. Or have TED like in the film.

I hope you are smiling already. My mother told me when I was 4 or 5 that I was as good as anybody else, and I’ve always believed. My eldest brother is 8 years older than me, so when he went to Queens Oxford, I just assumed at age 10 that I was just as smart. So maybe a bit of self-delusion is great for your confidence, though I am not stupid, I just pretend to be. If you really are very smart people will hate you or just be jealous, so you need to be wise enough to get them to like you. By helping with homework, though if you are smart you get paid in chocolate for your brains. It’s about getting a balance. If you have a talent then share it, it’s like a mustard seed and you will be rewarded 1000 fold.

Obviously as I am large, 13 stones in 3^rd year, is that Year 9, and as strong as  man then, obviously that’s weak compared to Boris, Lech and Gregorgi my Slav friends. But it meant nobody would ever bully me, so if you are small make friends with a big person. If you still have no confidence then Pray, put a picture of the Virgin Mary under your pillow for a few years. It really does work. As Bertha down the Legion if you don’t believe me, or Stormy Daniels my pole dancing friend, I have friends everywhere. Or am I just a liar, or a storyteller?

If you can make  people laugh then they will look after you. But what if you think you are too slim, or too  fat, or too stupid, and a whole hosts of excuses. I thought nobody would ever have me, but my mother said Love will Conquer all. And she as right. Don’t be in a hurry to find or want love, but don’t wait as long as me. Why do you think when I write the prettiest of girls fall for the man with the limp, or his mate the bloke with stutter.  In Tears for a Butcher twin sisters fall for the draymen, and when they are mocked, Bettie and Annie scream Don’t mock him, he’s my future husband. And then they use their martial arts skills on the mocking men. But that’s in the future.

But  it’s true, a girl wants somebody who’ll stick around, not become a notch on his bedpost. Humour works as does having a few words to talk about anything, just read a bit and have a bit of conversation. Confidence is all about Loving Yourself, never hate yourself, and if anybody makes my girls cry they will never forget my reaction. YOU are loved, by your dad, by your mom, by the collage of a dad you created, but you are loved and always will be. With my dying breath I will say, forgive me if I wasn’t a good enough dad, but I will always love you. I may start singing a Celine Dion  song as I die with a smile on my lips.

Never surrender to self-doubt. If you want to hurt something then keep a special teddy you can punch or throw about, let the anger out, let it all out and give it to the teddy. Or if you are Canadian join an ice-hockey team, but let those emotions out, and you stay serene, ground yourself, have a binge on chocolate, any diet can be resumed. Just let any pain out, scream at the sea, talk to the bleeding wall. Watch Paddington over and over again. But when you’ve had the controlled tantrum you can go downstairs and cuddle up with mum and dad, or the picture on the wall and watch Twilight for the 50^th time.

Confidence is knowing you’ll never be Katty Kay on the BBC, but you will be just as poised, as self-assured when you reach 35 too. You may never be a journalist like her, but you will be dying people’s hair just like that Katty on the BBC, and you will have a chain of beauty salons. Because you believe in yourself, and your dad did save you from that bad one, and dad raided his pension so you could open your first salon. But you did repay him 10 times over, and was it Fate or your confidence that attracted that sailor to you, Christian, and yes he does look like that bloke off the tv, you know Katty’s 2^nd assistant.  Confidence in the end is love.

As ever I return to Music, Surreal Version(c)

By

Michael Casey

If you have been  reading my stuff for a while then you will know that I like a bit of music, sometimes I listen till dawn before I am able to sleep so it is great company. As is the BBC World service which plays in the Radio4 slot during the night time hours.

I've found a stack of stuff online so I'll be listening to that, my own record collection is mainly 80s and 90s so the newer stuff will be a bit more varied. Or it will be the remastered versions of my old stuff, marriage and kids put paid to having any new CDs decades ago. So  online  free stuff, with or without annoying adverts is what I'll be listening to.

Timberlake is of course great, even if he did steal all my dance steps. Stealing from a 248 pound dancer such as I, has Timberlake got no shame? I'll hide my mirror, next time he'll have to dance without his own reflection there to help and guide him. You just watch him stumble, as if I tied his shoelaces together.

Seal is dancing outside, can you hear him rapping on my front door. Snoop has taken my dog for a walk, so Pink is making pancakes for us all, such a nice girl, and a great pancake maker. As for Lionel Richie he is of no use whatsoever, he just dances all over my ceiling. Adele is just crying in the corner, she hasn't mastered how to switch on my washing machine. When my Musical Heroes come around they could at least be helpful. The Corrs just hang around on the corner outside, just making rude gestures through my window, and I thought they were such nice girls. Though they could just be gesturing how many cups of tea they need, I really must get my eyes tested.

The Queen is coming later on, or did they say May come later, I cannot keep  up they speak so fast. I told him the stars look so great from my garden, so May said he'd  come, he is an astrologer now, he has a PhD now in Aston Villa, or Astro Turf, of Astrophysics or something with an  astro in, or was it Aston Martin, they earn so much money after all. Why don't they all just take the bus. And look at the stars from the top deck of the number 11.

 Seal is singing that I'm his baby, and I'll still be loved. That's so nice, he's such a caring man. But enough of him, he's dancing in the corner with Theresa May. She is of course Brian May's secret sister, they were split at birth you know. When Theresa was dancing in Africa what she really was doing was pretending to be her brother strumming on his guitar, that's why she didn't  move much she was afraid of falling over the invisible electrical cable. She could have been in Queen too but she got lost on the way to the audition, Geography was never her strong point.

 So she became leader of the Tories instead, she could have been in the Darkness instead with the tight leotards and the high pitch singing. Instead she watches Black Rod enviously, the way he twirls his stick would remind you of dear old Freddie. It  reminds her of Freddie Truman, the cricket legend, Theresa's musical education does need a bit of help. Which reminds me to the Commons' Disco. Frank has left the Field tonight to set up the coconut shy, where you can throw white feathers at photos of various politicians. Something to do with moral cowardice I believe.

 But what music will they play for Politicians? Stand By your Man, and Don't Take your Love to Town are perennial favorites for Politicians. As is The Politician by Cream. Abba's The Winner Takes it All is also a firm Political favorite, along with The Windmills of your Mind, as nobody can ever explain where the latest White Elephant  came from. Too much time spent in cheap bars, no not in sleazy parts, just in the Commons bars.

 Seal is still singing, he needs a bit of help so I'm going to give him a bit of help now, then maybe he can fly like an eagle and avoid flying into the sea. And speaking of sea, where do seagulls from the seaside go for their holidays? BIRMINGHAM and we are the furthest spot from sea. Hang on Totoro my cat has spotted a seagull she may just launch herself from the garden fence.

 I have to peel the potatoes for tomorrow's dinner now, and I have to harvest the rice from our paddy field outside, fresh food is a must for a Shanghai/Birmingham family. Seal, can you stop the dad dancing and I'll show you some really cool moves, so if ever you bump into Obama or Opera, the Double Os as they call themselves, then you can show them both how to dance. Irish dancing is the the only way to dance, I'll even lend you my old tights.

 Hey you Corrs come off that street corner and come on over, and bring Shania too, we've got some jigging to do, the maybe Seal can finally regain his street cred, and be good enough to dance with Theresa May at the Commons Ball at Frank's Fields.   

Teasing ©

By

Michael Casey

I wanted to write something new but although I have a load of possibilities I could share I don’t want to share them with you yet. Am I actually teasing you all already? I do have a load of ideas and they are fresh but I’m not ready to share them with you yet. So as I pondered what to give you, like a mother wanting to save the cake will the weekend, or until Christmas, when I realized I could talk about teasing. So that’s what’s on the menu tonight, 2^nd Sept 2018 a  Sunday if any of you are collating my word. You must be so sad if that’s all you have to do. Go out find a girl and make love, or adopt a dog and take it for a walk, but staying home in front of the computer reading what Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, the one in England is up to? Or is that the ultimate chat u line, I have read all of his words in 16 books on Amazon? You must get a better hobby for yourself, watch paint dry. Though we have a new Polish  friend called Carol who watches a lot of paint drying, but he is a decorator.

Ok, so while you are here, share those French Saint Michel biscuits from Marseilles, they really are nice, stop don’t take them upstairs, leave me some. I’m talking to my girls we just got those biscuits from my brother who has just returned from Marseilles. No he’s not a sailor, in the French Navy, though he does wear bell bottoms, they are back in fashion after all. These are the normal family arguments when fresh treats arrive in the house.

What will you do for me if I give you a biscuit? I won’t spit at you is the reply as a gob full of spit is prepared ready to spray over a sibling. This was our family life in the 1960s. One of my brother was really good at spitting so you never teased him about biscuits or he’d spit at you. He was a great shot and long distance too, and oh so accurate too. He was also great at dribbling food down the front of his jumper too. Losing things was his forte too, mum used to say “he’d lose his arse if it wasn’t tied on to him”.

As children we love teasing each other, where is your little sister? And you’d make the others guess, and say were they hot or cold as they searched the house for her. In the end she was stuffed into a cupboard or wedged under one of those old steel beds with exposed springs underneath.

Teasing is fun, the teased person goes mad, of feels as if they are being tickled, or had banged their elbow or coccyx so it hurts but makes them laugh simultaneously. As a child  you are so excited you may even pee yourself, until you find out were we really really getting a dog. Don’t tease the child I can remember my dad saying to my brothers and sisters. Then he’d buy me an ice cream to calm my tears, and that’s why I was called the Pet.  I repaid him when he was an old man by the years of sitting by his side.

I like to tease but do hate being teased. I’ll just curse and walk away if anybody attempts to tease me, they have no sport of the target  moves away. Though lovers enjoy the teasing, it’s almost a form of foreplay, have you bought me that house, or  where did you hide my red pen, I have to mark all those horrid students’ exams. Where did you hide the Stella Artois, I’m desperate for a drink. If you give me the Stella Artois I’ll give you the red pens. So a trade is done and as you get merry your girl marks the exams.

When she is finished you offer her your body, your fat and hairy body. She says she’s decided to leave you and become a Lesbian. So you do a strip tease and stand defiant, can your lesbian give you this. You girl looks at you and laughs, stealing your Stella Artois she has a well-deserved drink. Then she marks your body with her red pen, putting numbers, marks out of ten on various parts of your body.

Only what she  does not realise is that those new pens from Amazon are the never fade variety for teachers. The Stella Artois is finished and there is only one thing left to do, yes she has to prove that the marks allotted are justified. So you go to bed. And yes she did not use all her pen on all your body. Though in the morning as you sleep she writes A minus on your behind, then she heads for the shower. You join her in the shower, and she teases that the ink never fades. To your horror you discover she is right, she was not teasing, you bought those pens as a token of love for your love, now you are all marked up. You are an ass, an A minus ass.

The Power of Words, The Power of Prayer ©
By
Michael Casey

I hope that does not sound too pretentious, or as the saying goes, pretentious moi? It’s been a funny old day, I had to get up due to the chest pain that had descended, so as every I went on the computer to distract myself. I spotted something and as it hit a nerve I sent an email to the writer, whether he hates me or sees my point is too early to say. But the issue involves Prayer, so I was then using the Power of my words to try and make my point.

Later on I had an official email reply to something I’d been chasing up, and the answer was not to my liking so I fired off my 2^nd missive of the day. You should remember  you may think I am a clapped out old fat guy with immaculate sliver hair, though I still feel young and virile, at least in my imagination, I still get looks you know. It’s all a question of prospective you know, and that reminds me I did write about Prospective years ago. So I annoyed and upset the people who sent me the email, but I’d say they deserved it.

If you claim to do customer service then do it well, don’t just write it on the letterhead. Remember I may carry a donkey called pain, and smell like one, but I do carry a loaded pen, and with a pen you can change the world. Look what the Evangelists did, in fact I used to joke I would only ever write 4 books, but obviously their Agent is more powerful than mine, in fact I don’t have one.

So much for the power of words, words do have strength and you can blackmail people with your words, or browbeat them, though at the end of the session it will be you who gets thrown out. However sidestepping the news, the never ending news we have the tragic news here in England about a mother and news reader for the BBC  who is dying of breast cancer. As you know I am a news junkie, so when I read about this in the Press I was sadden like all of you reading this are.

So this is where I can ask you all to heed the power of my words as I ask you all to use the power of your prayer for this mother who will soon be leaving her family. No more words of mine are good enough, but we can all say a silent prayer for this mother and BBC news reader. Just send  our strength and love to her and her family, positive thoughts of love to a stranger, though we may never meet, we lay our prayers for her at God’s feet.

Leftovers or I am a Dustbin ©

By

Michael Casey

My daughter has a big table behind me to do her work on, she’s doing her A Levels in 2019, and as ever she has left a load of junk on it. So like any good dad I have tidied up after her, ok, I’ve scavenged to see if I can find anything useful. I found the sweets first, followed by a scrap of paper that has turned out to be 2 pieces of chewing gum, if the roles were reversed the scrap of paper could have contained my snot neatly bundled up. What, you are disgusted? I bet you never wiped your snot on walls as a child, you were perfect weren’t you?

Back to this perfect dad, I never knew they did mini boxes of Celebrations, I’ve just found one amongst the rubble, so I’m celebrating myself. It’s always good to find unexpected chocolate, it’s like a kiss, always welcomed, not unless it’s a Glasgow Kiss, which is slang for a head-butt. I’m chewing the gum now, but I have to be careful or the chocolate will stick to it. Bits of bounty bar stuck to chewing gum can be tricky, but I can multi-task, I bet you are all impressed, maybe I’ll write a poem about it later, I am a poet as well you know.

What else was on the desk behind me, well the bag itself said Celebrate on it, so I’ve folded the bad and saved it, ok I’ve stuck it down the side of the bookcase in the corner. I can reuse it for one of the family Birthdays or Christmases, I am an original recycler, ok I’m a whore, sorry I mistyped, I am a hoarder. Why throw away when you can use again. Or is that being a whore after all, I know you all have your own opinions about me, that’s why there are no comments allowed on my sites, just send me an amusing email. Tell me you have a goat that eats grass, and you save the money to buy apple trees, then you get drunk on scrumpy and cannot remember where you are. Which sounds like me in the middle of a story, but I always get to the end of a page.

My daughter also has a nice new note book on the study table behind me, it has scripture verses at the top of each page. It was a reward for pole climbing  with the vicar. Perhaps I should exclaim, she and others had to climb poles, not Poles, she had to climb a telegraph pole and jump onto a trapeze thing. I think she was going to run away and join the crew in Madagascar, they say travel broadens the mind after all. Ok, for those of you who could be confused it was an outward bound trip for young leaders.

Me and my other daughter enjoyed the quiet while big sister was being a lumberjack, as for the vicar he had to rush back to do a wedding, there is no rest for the wicked and journalists. Our vicar Paul, used to be a journalist, my priest is an Editor, freelance, and yes I am just so very annoying. You are all so cruel. Go listen to every episode of Around the Horne, it may educate you, calling me annoying. I’m just fat and silver haired and  wearing shades and I’m from Birmingham, the one in ENGLAND.

What else did I find amongst the rubbish, a piece of string with knots in, I thought it was a DIY Rosary beads but the vicar is with the opposition, so I assume there was no tv so the teenagers made knots  to pass the time. Prayer beads of any kind are always good, I speak from experience. I’ve just looked back and the desk is far tidier now. Little miss just complained about the loss of chocolate, but if you leave mess and chocolate unattended for 4 days what do you expect? Dads have to do tough love too, if there is chocolate a dad will just have to force himself to eat it, am I right dads?

Well this chewing gum is beginning to lose its flavour, maybe I should leave it on my daughter’s bedpost, you remember the song after all? So all in all please don’t leave rubbish lying around, your old dad may fall over it. And if it’s mum who is tidying up the dustmen will have everything, Tidy or Throw is her motto, and Throw is her preferred option. So children you have all been warned. Sometimes though I think I am related to Rupert Murdoch, well his Sky tv is always on about recycling, perhaps Rupert could recycle my words into tv programmes, I am so very cheap after all.          

Dark Again ©

By Michael Casey

If any of you have wondered where I’ve been, well your favorite writer, I stole the idea from somebody, I’ve been stealing things off the President’s desk. Luckily I can teleport into the janitor’s cupboard next to the Oval Office, where they keep a plentiful supply of toilet paper for the President.

And if you believe that then you know just who wrote that OpEd in the NYT, I have guessed already, but I’m not sharing that exclusive. It’s much more fun if we all keep on guessing. But in the end The Truth will Out. Can USA survive 2,4,6 or 8 years of Trump telling LIES, it’s up to the USA, but if you don’t even bother to vote and only 50% do vote, then it’s your own fault, as your mother will tell you. In UK we get 75% for General Elections.

But I’ve digressed as usual, I do enjoy my Politics but I do detest liars to the nth degree. As to why I say I’ve gone Dark Again, well the wifi provider has cut us off too early. Yes, we are finally moving house, so we’ll be switching, but my present wifi company has cut me off far too early. I’m waiting for them to contact me, which will be interesting if they have cut the wifi and maybe even the phone. The local clairvoyant just drove past maybe I should have asked her opinion.

It’s as if I’m in a church, swinging my legs as I sit on the bench, we never used the word Pew, pew was for Protestants, I’m trying to think of the actual word, maybe we just said seat. In those days the crowd was so big that we had drop down chairs at the end of each bench, we had 4 priests too. Then Irish priests went to the missions in Africa, now Africans come to England to be our priests.

So I could be at a loss as to how to pass the time, but I can still talk to you all, and save the posting to my sites till when my wifi returns. You know when your best friend visits from Australia, and you have only 3 weeks to catch up on 30 years of stories. So I’ll have the stories ready and then you can all take your time with the reading. Speaking of reading, Russia seems to like my stories at the moment, not unless the local library is shut or out of Tolstoy. So they are reading me instead.

What else can I do, I can continue throwing out stuff that won’t make it to the new house, we’ve sent a lot of the girls’ clothes away to the Charity shop, and to passing strangers as they passed the old house, saves me carrying them to the charity shop. There is a darkness of the spirit as you leave one house and go to another. The Love, the Life migrates from one place to another, will you miss the old house? Some do, as there are so many memories, good and bad. For me there are many sad things that happened in the old house, but the good outweighs the bad. I’ve spent ½ my life so far, at the old house, but it is time to move on.

The love is in you, not in any place, in the average house there is no spirit left once the owners leave. In a church maybe, but in your bog standard house nothing is left once the people are gone. The same goes for places of employment, it’s never wise to go back, time has moved on and you are forgotten. Like they say, never meet your heroes. You will always be disappointed, it’s always better to keep the memory as it is, otherwise you’ll destroy the memory as well.

Well I’ve had a salmon wrap for my dinner, it’s supposed to be good for you, is there any more to say about going dark? Well it does make you realise how important wifi is, and how nowadays we are all so dependent on it, for entertainment, communication and  shopping. When my girls come home from school they will probably turn tail and visit friends. I’ll just laugh until evening time and then I’ll not be able to watch any films. So I’ll have to see what is on Freeview, there is a good selection, but they rotate too slowly.

Conversation will return when wifi is broken, though my wife has lots of mobile data so she’ll just laugh, wifi does not affect her as much as the rest of us. Though Totoro our cat may be spoiled more as we’ll all have more time for her, when she is not stealing from the local takeaway. Cats have no scruples, if ever we have a new cat I think I shall call it Trump.

  

Pantomime Panic ©

By Michael Casey

As you all know I love stories, I’ve followed stories all my life, going back to watching the tv with my dad over 50 years ago. I cannot believe as the final curtain is now perhaps a sniff away, that people still believe what they want to believe, and will deny the obvious. Reality is banished by Fantasy, and please don’t tell us the Truth, we are enjoying this self-delusion because we enjoy the transitory joys of money, in fact we love money. In fact let us build and worship a Golden Calf.

Pluto flashed by, melted ice dripping from  him, Einstein was a lap dancer drinking the ice dripping from Pluto, as Pluto sped past. Snow White was an alcoholic waitress drinking seven drinks at  a time. The Wicked Witch of the West was a spy for the East, clicking those red shoes together. The fat boy said he was really slim and people believed him, they were too busy watching the kneeing game. Sport was still king and people bet on it, as everything else was fake. Reality was Fake, and nobody trusted it.

Sport was supposed to knock down walls, and build pride in Team and Country, but there was more money to be made in building walls, so let’s  build them Higher and Higher, let’s touch the surface of the moon rather than talk to one another. His faith is not my faith, his colour is not my colour, his difference is not my mirror. Let’s just hate one another, let’s have an arms race of hate.

Goebbels smiles approvingly from Hell, is you just repeat it often enough, people will be hypnotized by the Lie. Their own Love of Money, is the root to all their evil. Nobody will stand up to the new Emperor nobody will dare say he has no clothes. They have too much to lose, and the first thing they lose is their Pride, and when pride is lost a Fall surely follows.

Darkness falls across the Land, John is crying, though he spoke nobly from beyond his grave. The Keystone Cops are what the emperor requires, the cardboard cutouts he can blow over.  The Nation has fallen down a rabbit hole into a world only Alice would recognize. Off with his head, off with his head, is all that can be heard, the Emperor wants total control. Rules do not matter, a pig wearing lipstick is the new judge in the Emperor’s world.

When will the three little pigs stand united against the wolf as he huffs and puffs, and tries to blow the whole world down. Straw men stand in the way, each saying Not I Lord, as they dip their fingers in the trough, not I say the gatekeepers, not I say the jailers, not I say the brothel keepers, not I say the money changers, not I say the  sacrifice sellers in the courtyard to the big house. We’ll take a lie detector test, they all suck up to the Emperor.

The three little pigs move to the house made of sticks as the Emperor smashes the straw house away. And again everybody prostitutes themselves so they can  stay by the Emperor’s side. Outside the fat boy polishes the Emperor’s new car, maybe he’ll be allowed to drive it too. If the fat boy smiles enough, and lies enough the Emperor will be flattered enough and not notice the bomb hidden in plain sight, but the Emperor is always right, the fat boy is a good boy now, see look at the selfies the Emperor took.

The Press protests but the Emperor says they are all liars, and why does he always repeat words 3 times? Because the Emperor is brain washing his adoring public, Goebbels smiles from heaven, he must be in heaven with the angels now, so perfect is the propaganda. And on go the lies, more and more lies, photo-shopped from the day of the inauguration. Soon the house of sticks is blown away, this is perfect house of cards creation.

The wizard of oz puts in an appearance, the little dog laughs to see such fun and the dish runs away with the spoon. But the Emperor denies it all, and closes down all the newspapers that speak the truth, they are all liars anyway, and he repeats it thrice. Pinocchio his PR spokesperson issues denials after denials, as his nose gets so big  the press room has to be extended to fit his lies and his nose.

Finally the three little pigs realize only a brick build nuclear fallout shelter will be strong enough to protect them from the emperor. As they retreat from all the lies, damn lies, and statistics only then does everybody else realize that this vision of hell. Dante’s Inferno has been replaced by the Emperor’s vision, or rather delusion upon delusion, as the band plays on as the Titanic hits the rocks. Will they all drown, cursing themselves, for believing in this false god, this false emperor?

This has just been a passing nightmare, a horror show of a pantomime, the emperor will say Judas, we are all Judases. But in the real world we can all wake up and make a new choice, raise our voice, all our voices to heaven. We can start to love one another again, we can heal all the emperor’s splits and hatred. For a nation divided will fall just as the Roman Empire fell, so in November go out and vote for Love thy neighbor, and banish the Emperor into the darkness from whence he came, before the Light of Liberty is quenched in the sea of selfish selfies.

Old Smiles ©

By Michael Casey

We ended up watching Suits from the start today, and we all really enjoyed it. No we are not Duchess fans, we’re indifferent to her, but God Bless her and her new bloke, maybe one day he’ll remember where he left his razor. Harry, a beard just does not suit you, and I speak as somebody who had a beard 40 years ago. However Suits did make us smile, all the memories came flooding back, smiles of happiness and laughter.  I did actually work for a major law firm here in Birmingham, and I did hide a copy of my novel, The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker in the Law Library which was next door to my print room, hello to the beautiful Ang if she is still working there.

Smiles come and crack our solemn faces when we see or hear things from the past, we all have the Oh I Remember moment, music is the greatest tool for making memories move us, to tears, to tears of laughter too. At the moment I’m listening to Kate Bush singing The Man with the Child in his Eyes, and I think she’s talking about me. Then I look at the image of Kate Bush and I smile not just because of the song, but because Kate Bush looks a lot like my sister in law, an awful lot. My sister in law never sings nor dances around the kitchen at Christmas nor at Easter in a leotard, she is a lawyer after all, though the dog is called Heathcliff, and does bark rather like Kate Bush.

Well I’ve had a bite to eat and a bowl of Cheerios too so I’m all set up the evening, as I talk to you I think of my small daughter’s eating habits, face covered in Heinz tomato soup, and it HAS to be Heinz. If I can find the photo I’ll add them to the end of this piece, photos bring smiles galore. As I speak my daughter has reappeared after choir practice, on the way home she kidnapped or is it catnapped a cat, so she has photos of her and the fat cat as she carries it to the new place. I asked her how she managed to do that, her reply was that she is a cat whisperer. Mum, is a witch  and witches  do control cats, so I imagine it does run in the family.

Bread are singing in the background now, so I’m thinking of bread. My own dirty habit, ok just one that’ll I’ll talk about, the rest you can imagine. Well I used to drink, just cocoa milk and sugar in a giant mug all mixed up, then I’d dunk my folded sliced bread into it and eat the soggy result. This would leave tide marks of cocoa all over my face. So I suppose my young daughter inherited the eating habits from me. Though that was 10 years or more ago for her, and 50 years for me. But it does bring back the smiles.

Photos make us all smile so much, the old fashioned albums, we will be having a clear out soon so I’ll have to decide what to do with all my old albums. I may just take digital snaps of everything and then bury the old photos somewhere. I have so many old fashioned albums. So I may kill two birds with one stone, have a look at all the old memories, and photos are memories, as I record and backup all the old photo albums.

Why do we say cheese in photos, why not say any other word,  like FART, then people would really laugh in all those posed photos. As you know I hate those pompous photos for writers that’s why you get my nonsense instead. Are you smiling now? I will be getting a new bed soon, so should I pose like Burt Reynolds naked on my bed with just my dictionary for company? Would it sell more hard copies of my navel, or novels, or would a cover like that only be suitable on an ebook? It’s so very hard to decide what exactly to choose. Maybe I need a makeover to improve my appearance, but I am as hairy as a bear, so people may think a naked Michael Casey on a bed looks too much like Paddington or Tubacca.

Are you all ok now, none of you are smiling just heaving into a bucket. Well I could go on but my aches are becoming a pain so I’ll leave it for tonight. I’m glad the wifi is back, it means I can annoy you all. I hope you all have stumbled over the translations just download them, though I’m far better in English.  And with that I’m going to practice posing naked on the carpet, though I’ll have to hurry the vicar is coming later on to show us his new mittens.

Annie and Bettie get their Man ©

By

Michael Casey

Now if you have read The Butcher The Baker and the Undertaker then you will have heard about Annie and Bettie, I don’t think I’ve mixed the names up, but it is over 30 years ago since I wrote the book. However the twin sisters are still impossibly beautiful, and still work behind the bar of The Trader, their dad’s pub. They have now gone through puberty and have complexions to die for, I won’t say any more but imagine English Roses to the Nth degree.

As the whole world comes trough the doors of The Trader they have become experts in People Watching, to be honest growing up in a bar they have a degree in psychology at very least. The Human Animal observed from behind the taps of a bar. Customer service was of course in grained into them, though this does not mean they did not know how to have fun.

Today they were dressed as Pregnant Nuns, Rodney or is it Roger the Traffic Warden had imprinted his love of dressing up and amateur dramatics on them from an early age. So they dressed up and acted out dramas as they served behind the bar, it made life more interesting for them and it helped pass the time. As you can imagine The Trader was a very happy place to have a drink in, very very rarely was there any trouble.

The twins mother was worried that her beauties might do the wrong thing and get pregnant by some BASTARD, so she made them promise at age 7 that they would stay pure, and only ever go to bed with their husband. The twins honoured this promise as they loved their mum and dad so much. It was an easy promise to keep as they hadn’t seen any husband material, so they were not tempted.

However these past 3 years a revelation revealed itself to them, the twins had a crush on the draymen, they saw them regularly for years and they’d have a cup of tea together after each delivery. The draymen were just ordinary guys, nothing special. In fact they both had something that marked them out, you see Ken had a stutter, and Len had a limp, caused by dropping a beer barrel on his leg years ago. Other that that they were perfect, Annie and Bettie had decided that they were husband material.

Ken stuttered away but Annie loved him the more, when she heard on the radio about stutterers being able to sing she persuaded Ken to sing for her. And guess what? Ken’s singing voice was like Johhny Cash, so deep and appealing. She would have gone through a Ring of Fire for him. As for Len he was as strong as an ox, as was Ken, but seeing him limp made Bettie love him the more. He had no limp in her eyes, he was husband material too.

Ken and Len didn’t know it but they were marked men, they had husband written all over them. Now over the years the friendships grew, but nothing happened, Annie and Bettie were good girls, and a promise to a mother is a promise to a mother. However the Urge as the call it in Ireland does come, and that Saturday night, the night of the big match, the Urge would win and could lead to Sin.

The Trader was full and everybody was matching the Man U Villa game on the big screen. Len and Ken were in a corner enjoying the match, Annie and Bettie were sighing, the Urge was upon them. It was a game of two halves and everybody was merry. It was then that it happened. A drink was spilt and angry words were exchanged. Annie and Bettie looked up and stopped the Guinness in mid flow.

Sor sor sor sorry, it was Ken trying to apologize. He was mocked by a giant of a man. Len limped forward trying to be the peace maker. He in turn was mocked. Annie and Bettie felt the urge upon them, Annie whispered to Bettie, tonight is the night I become a woman. Bettie whispered to Annie anything you can do I can do better. Again their men were being mocked.

Sing for me Ken screamed Annie over the noise of the match. Ken knew the song she loved so he sung, Stand by Your Man, his singing was perfect. In seconds Annie had leapt from table to table to be by his side. Bettie was right behind her, Len needed her, she knew she needed him. They were there chests heaving, it was now or never. Annie grabbed Ken and kissed him, his stutter would vanish forever after a kiss like that. Bettie would not be beaten, Len’s limp would never go but Bettie didn’t mind.

Then Annie and Bettie swung around, they were still dressed as pregnant nuns, have you got a problem? The giant of a man laughed in their face, turning to his mates, pregnant nuns are the only girlfriends these guys will ever get. Len and Ken moved forward, they were so angry. Annie and Bettie defused the situation by kissing their men and placing their men’s hands where only a husbands’ hand should be. The whole pub gasped, the match was ignored, was this going to be a Strippergram.

Trust me, said Annie, trust me said Bettie with a parting kiss on the cheek for their HUSBANDS. I don’t like BASTARDS the twin sisters said in unison. With that they simultaneously, dropped kicked the giant of a man, before kick boxing his friends to the ground. GOAL.

Villa beat Man U 3 2 in extra time, but in The Trader a giant of a man and his ugly friends were too dazed to notice.

The whole pub laughed at them, Villa and Man U fans united, they did not like bastards either. Mocking a limp, and mocking a stutter, will only get you in the gutter, and you will see stars. Annie looked at Bettie and Bettie looked at Annie, NOBODY would ever mock her husband. With that they pretended to faint, they were caught by their husbands. The husbands took them to bed. They had waited and now they were ready. Their mother had been out shopping, and she fainted for real when Wayne said their twin daughters were upstairs, being touched for the very first time, Madonna was singing the song on repeat.

But Len and Ken were the perfect husbands for her daughters, though they would still need to go to church and the registry office, to make it official. Were the girls right to beat the bully? Well if you have multiple black belts, in fact they are 3^rd Dan in some martial art, I forget which, what would you do? Stand by you Man is such a nice song after all.  

 Alternative Medicine (c)

By

Michael Casey 

Well it's Saturday afternoon now, I've sat down to talk about Alternative Medicine, but first of all let me close the window the draft will give me a chill and then I'd really need some medicine. Justin is singing with Taylor they are cross, no I don't mean cross, they are cross harmonising, it's quite off putting, I just want to talk to you all then I'll pop out to Mass, or go to the online Mass, while those two are crying a river. Totoro our cat has appeared and is staring at me, when a pussy stares even Ice Cube would melt.  I've seen a couple of his films on  tv recently, he's a nice boy too, very good to his mother, although with tinnitus I may have misheard the mother reference, I am getting old now, though not in spirit.

Now what is Alternative Medicine? Can you guess, am I wasting time while I steal an idea from 

down the back of the sofa? Well what do you think? I just let Totoro out the back door, Justin has started to sing Mirrors so pardon me while I put the volume up to 17. Ice Cube is hanging out next to the fridge trying to regain his cool after being stared at by my pussy Totoro. But where was I, yes    Alternative Medicine. I have to take meds, the doctors insist, as does the wife as long as the life insurance is valid, when it expires then that is another matter.  And here in UK once you reach 60 your meds are FREE.

Life is about trying to avoid meds in the first place, and how do you do that? You get up and DANCE with Justin, or any old bloke who happens by, who will of course be so much better a dancer than Justin Trudeau, sorry I mean Justin two left legs. I  don't want Canada to declare on me after all. Justin is crying in a corner now, wait. I have to dance with him now to restore his self confidence. You know an erotic dance like in Moulin Rouge, Roxanne I think  it was called,  go watch the film and come to me in two hours or so, but don't leave any popcorn on my carpet.

Justin is all puffed out in a corner, you try dancing with a 248 pound man in drag and having to throw the drag queen about from pillar to post. I am quietly impress by Justin, he must have been working out. Not unless the rumours are true, he's been putting stuffing in meat pies with Big Bertha from the pie factory down the Old Kent Road, you know where they have the Pie Monopoly.

If you can do the Lambeth Walk every day then you will be happier and not need any meds, it is in fact an alternative to meds. Life style is a dirty word, but Ice Cube insists he is just acting, he really does sing in a choir, but so did Elvis in Jail House Rock, or Hugh Grant in Paddington Two. If you can put on a happy face and smile, or laugh in the face of adversity then you do have a much happier life. Yes you may need a few pills, legal ones, but it's the Alternative Medicine which makes a difference to you daily life. A kiss and a hug from Mrs Douglas or Mrs McKenna on the Dudley road, now both in their 90s. A smile from Sally, or a wink from the butcher, a dirty laugh from the window cleaner high on his ladder. These are little things that lighten the spirit.

The Singh brothers  battering a shop lifter with hockey sticks, you don't knock over their grandfather and steal from their store ever. The daily tick and tock or life. If you can keep your spirits raised even when things are sad and heavy, like Barry White before he smiles and lifts the roof with his voice and spirit. Then you will overcome all the pains of life, even if you do bore your readers  occasionally.  If anybody has any complaints me and Barry White will jump through your screen and sit on your lap and play with your hair. Would that be 600 pounds between us?

Look out the window and watch the weather, imagine that little old lady suddenly hears Justin singing and just has to dance in the street. Like the old ladies with carts dancing in The Producers. If you can use your imagination to break the chains then you are free, you are always free, your body may be old and broken but YOU and your SPIRIT is free.

This is my Alternative to Medicine, use your spirit, free and lift your mood, and even if parts of your body don't work so well at least in your imagination they do. Justin stop singing like that, he's so naughty , he could tempt the Virgin Mary, him and his strawberry bubblegum, whatever that means.

The Modern Child ©

By

Michael Casey

We hear a lot about kids in today’s world, the stresses and strains, I think I wrote a small piece about it a few weeks ago. I was talking to a neighbour and afterwards I thought I might talk a bit more to you all.

They say Saturday’s Child works hard for a living and so I do. But what of all our other kids whenever or however they were born. In the past we were hunted out by our parents, go out this fine day is what my own dad used to say. Or we’d go to the park and play on the witch’s hat and the swings and roundabouts in Summerfield Park. We might even explore the neigbouring roads where a real witch was supposed to live. We might even be tempted or double dared to knock on a witch’s door.

All these are the simple pleasures of yesterday year, my sister would read and read, and because she sat on top of the fire she ended up with the criss-cross marks of the fireguard on her legs. Or she’d sit over the pallin by Mrs Patrick’s hedge with the cat for company as she read. I too grew up reading by the yard. Then when we got a radio, the radio was king, and then when we got that Bush Radio, Radio4 came, and that after 20 years led me to writing.

But what of today’s kids? Its wifi everything, and in UK it is a Billion Pound industry, and over in Japan you can study games at University level as does the son of a friend in Osaka. But and you knew the but was coming, what happens then? People overdose on technology. I spent hours a day, and years to decades just talking to my dad. And it was because I tried to be a good son that all the time spent with my dad led to me finding a wife, when I could have ended up on the shelf with all the other spinsters.

So today we all have toys galore. I have one on the desk in front of me, an old phone that I’ve filled with music. So it’s useful to me as a music machine, not that I ever use the phone much. However our children and grandchilden ARE addicted. You can see a family together in a room who are not together at all. Physically they are in the same space but emotionally they are not connected at all. You know it’s true, so pause to think about it. Or families are islands floating in separate seas scattered like cushions in different places in different rooms.

Families don’t connect, not for real, the Oxo advert is just that an advert. So if the family is just a group of islands how can you expect unity, how can you have dignity or harmony. The child will just play on its wifi connected toys without any connection to mum or dad, or grannie, assuming grannie hasn’t been shoved into care to be ignored, and unloved.

A bleak picture? How true is it? How often do you talk to your kids, really talk, how often do you sit down as a family to watch tv together, not even once a week, or once a month. Ok, just at Christmas to impress the rich uncle so he drops a fat envelope of cash on the table. My kids were never allowed all these electronic toys till a few years ago, which means instead they learnt to draw, thanks to all their uncles and aunts donating crayons. Being able to draw is a great skill, I wish I could draw, rather than just draw cartoons with words.

Toys are great, my friend Derek who is 60 today, we used to use a paperclip as a car and go up and down the brickwork as roads with Leprechauns as passengers, see we had imagination, as we were in the playground of Saint Patrick’s. I was also the horse while he was the rider as we had jousting fights in the playground, I carried him 8 times around the playground to see how strong I was.

Old century I can hear kids say, put it build imagination, what is built nowadays, big thumbs and short tempers. Yes enjoy your toys, but there must be self control. And if there is no self control, then there is only addiction. Middle class newspapers say, I have a contract with my child, no internet at the dinner table. Can people please grow up, my mother would have thrown a phone down the toilet, many mothers would. Apple would be happy too, as it would prove their new phone was crap proof.

Eat when you eat, sleep when you sleep. Put a lock on the wi-fi, so downtime is downtime. And yes PASSword is not a very good password, be sensible. A child should not be able to use their toy after bedtime, and if they do take action immediately. My mother would have thrown a bucket of water on me, though in today’s world that would be called cruelty. So just hide the rechargers instead, but best of all switch the wifi off.

Social media at a young age is dangerous too, so don’t allow it, all the hype is just that hype. Common sense should replace laziness, it is parental laziness, or just plain old lack of love. I won’t bore you all more, because it is a 2 second no brainer. You control the wifi, not the child, if they want electronic time, then they must work for it. And loving your child means you bother to spend time with them, otherwise they think the wifi is the only thing that does loves them.

Carry On Shakespeare ©

By

Michael Casey

As you know if you have been following me I did do a bit of Shakespeare, they can’t touch you for it, so long as your coupling rhymes, as Kenneth Williams might say. I also enjoy the Carry On films, though the Politically Correct Revisionists now view everything from today. History was then not now, if I might throw a bit of Philosophy into the cake mix, let’s see in 9 months how my buns in the oven turn out.

Because Shakespeare was so long, Kenneth don’t you say a word, so long ago, there are difficulties with language. You need to bone up on the lingo, as Bona Linguists from Round the Horne might interject. That’s the thing with language it has so many leanings, and your leanings can get you into trouble, not just with the trouble and strife. I hope this is all clear, and if it is not then just try Head and Shoulders.

Carry On started 60 years ago so the newspapers are saying, but Shakespeare was carrying on a very long time before that. So you need to know what all the carrying on means. What’s a codpiece for example? Go to your fishmongers and ask can you see his cod piece, he won’t be showing you his fish dinner. Sir Toby Belch, Falstaff and Co were heavy drinkers, in today’s parlance 17 pints of Stella Artois and one packet of chees and onion crisps. Prince Hal did find his bar bill after all, while Falstaff lay snoring.

It is worth the effort trying to understand the language, read the play first, or watch the video then go visit the Globe, don’t just be the tourist. My small daughter has been twice to the Globe in London and she really enjoyed it. I just wish I could go, maybe if I just bring my commode to their abode. Just a thought, I certainly would give them measure for measure.

Now in today’s world what merit is Shakespeare? If you look or rather listen to the English Language you’ll realise all the phrases that Shakespeare gave birth too. He was a midwife to language, so we should thank him and laugh with him. He did serious stuff too, but I’ll let Me Dears explain it all to you, those thespians as Les Dawson would say as he rearranges his bosoms while  he is sat open legged in drag on a park bench. Shakespeare did a lot of cross dressing too, maybe that was why he put it in his plays, or he could have just been kinky, you’ll have to ask a Don, no not a Mafia Don, an Oxford Don, you are so silly as Ken might laugh.

Where was I, yes I was just taking off the wife’s knickers, I better put them back in her knicker drawer before she comes home. She gets mad if she catches me wearing her clothes, she claims I stretch them, the cheek of it, Lycra is supposed to stretch, I’m only 248 pound after all. Lighter than Barry White was, though I don’t think he ever wore his wife’s clothes, all that singing he was always getting it on, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I can understand Shakespeare but not 70s disco, I put my back out once on the dance floor, too much Barry White, I was escorting him to the bar and he  slipped and fell on the dance floor and landed on me. So I’m not as fond as him as I used to be.

Which brings me to Donald Trump, what would he be like in Shakespeare? Love is a many splendored thing, but forsooth the tan the tan, his hide has been tanned too much, take him back to the tannery. The bird is nesting in his hair, what manner of thing is that. Midas wants his bling back, bling back, bling back my Country to me. Let us bend on one knee for sanity.

A proclamation, a proclamation, bring me a scribe, bring me a codpiece full of proclamations, off with their head they cannot keep up with all my  proclamations. The pen and ink lies go kill all the scribes, empty the monasteries of the learned men. They know nothing, burn the books, burn the books, ask the cooks to cook the books, and let them drink their own soup of lies. Only my truth is truth for I am a king and dear, so please do not leer. Stop whispering to me, stop prompting me, for only I am a GOD.

My Favourite Things By Theresa May

by

Michael Casey (really)

Well those bastards shafted me, all 27 of them, where were you Cameron, in your garden shed playing dead. Writer's Block more like Boris's *****, I stand alone on the bridge of state, oh how I wish it was easy Watergate, but instead I'm always late. Late for this and late for that like some Canute of History, and will anybody care.

But at least my husband loves me, and that is worth more to me than all those conspiring conspirators. I think I'll go and buy some more shoes, Clarks has a sale, and that Michael Casey was their uncool dad of the year in 2015, and he always wears Clarks. So I'll cheer myself up with a half hour of surfing their shoe website. Though waterboarding those back benchers might be more productive and fun, if I might have an unChristian thought.

John Major as right, they are all bastards. Oh, look the Clarks sale is so good, I'll have 2 pairs of those. If only they sold those James Bond shoes with poisoned tipped knives, Jacques and those EU bastards would soon jump with a kick up their collective backside. I'll have 2 pairs of those other ones too, I have to look good at the Party Conference, though not too shiny though or the tv cameras will upskirt me from the reflection in my shoes. At least Laura is nice to me, well once she's done that piece to  camera. Afterwards we have a good girlie talk  together, I had 27 EU bastards, but she has to face the Labour Conference, so who has the harder life. I think that's why we Bond so much, Basildon Bond the tea that is. Though if Edris was a baddie in a Bond film, now that would raise both our blood pressures. I'd certainly give the Elbow to any Edris haters.

I had a phone call from Julie Andrews, she said she's have said supercalifragelistic expealidoscious or whatever, and that would have sorted out those 27 EU monsters. The Sound of Music, the sound of a lynch mob more like it. She also sent me some chocolate, I said I'd give it to my security crew, I am diabetic after all, but it is the thought that counts. I love Julie, Mary Poppins is my favorite film after all. How she made the toys march back and forth, I just wish I could have done that to the EU 27.

I suppose I could write a cook book once the bastards knife me at the conference, Rees Mogg is not in favour of the nanny state, but is in favour of nannies. He wants to turn me into a Mummy, wrap me up and put me in a tomb to be forgotten for 2000 years. Old Cameron whistled while he worked his way back into No.10 then he disappeared into the oblivion of Writers Block, I should not chuckle, it's very unChristian,  but so very enjoyable. Leave a women to clean up a man's mess. Everybody would vote Remain now, we're up the creek without a paddle, but a Prime Minister has to carry on, without any Sid James laughing in the wings.

Well I better email Donald and tell him how much I love his hair, he did at least take my recommendation for the new shampoo. I did not tell him that it was radioactive as well, he'd think that was something to do with radio. It could scramble his brains, but would anybody notice.

Ah well I better empty out the swear box the vicar left, I've manage to feed 5000 with all the swearing I've done, at least the EU can be proud of that.

Love Twins ©

By

Michael Casey

Well the pain monster was really bad for a bit, but at least I did not need a nap today. I saw Hell Boy II on tv again tonight as well, so that in part gave me an idea to talk about. I also put our piano up for sale, it’s been gathering dust and after so many years not being used you have to face reality and make room in the house. Half the family wanted to keep it, and the other half wanted it to go. So as the ignored dad I said let’s pass the piano on to somebody who would love and use it, or at least dust it.

It was an idea of the wife’s for the girls to have lessons and play, both passed Grade One. They have also passed exams in choral singing, the church they go to is very good, so a big thank you to Godfather David, you didn’t know the Mafia had a chapter at the local church. Only joking, I better be careful or Betty will slap me, she was their piano teacher, she’s 90 now I believe.

So this is an example of past lives, love twinning piano playing daughters together. In Hell Boy II it showed how a brother and sister were linked and emotionally connected. Me and my youngest sister are connected like that too. I will phone here before she rings me, and vice versa, she rings me as I think of her. I imagine it happens in other families too. It is a connection, it is love.

So why does this happen? Is it nature or is it genes, a way of defending the tribe, the clan, and with all my Irish cousins I am part of a Kerry clan? I think it is because Love does know no boundaries, you’ll know when a parent has died on the other side of the world. Or you will fall to your knees as pray, let it be me, let them be safe. In my Malta story which I re-posted recently, Esther, and I think I’ve finally spelt it correctly now, Esther says let it be me, save everybody else.

Love twins us with those we love, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a dog. The love between us is like a rubber band holding us together, it can stretch and stretch but we are joined. We are brought back together, to our love twin, sometimes elastic band snaps, and that is why it hurts so much.

You all know examples of people twinned, workers down a pit, or in a football team are all twins. Folks in the army love each other, doesn’t mean they speak nicely to each other, or buy each other presents. Jake would break Mike’s jaw if such a thing happened, and no it does not happen, maybe in special services as they have a strange sense of humour, when you might die suddenly it does mean you do develop black humour.

However if the President asks why you rescued all your buddies despite all the incoming fire, you’ll say, I’ve met their mothers and their mothers would kill me if I didn’t save them all. Besides I’m dating all their sisters simultaneously, and to save my sex life I just had to save all their lives, all 18 of them. Now that would impress the President, but I couldn’t possibly know the truth of it.

Old Things, Past Loves ©

By Michael Casey

I was thinking about a title for today’s talk but Rupert Murdoch didn’t phone, but he’ll have more time now, so maybe he will. He does Radio as well you know, and as Terry Wogan used to say, I have the perfect face for radio, if only Rupert stops cursing and gives me a chance, the Sky is my limit.

I was going to write about Tidying Up but I checked my list and I did that a year ago. So I’m talking about a 1^st cousin to that instead. As I look about  the room my eye rests and a memory comes back. In front of me is my Movelat pain killer gel, I wish I never laid eyes on it, so many memories come flooding back as I look at my big tube of Movelat. Sticky memories of pain, not love. Cursing the pain and cursing for it to be brought to me, as I scream in pain. No exaggeration folks, it really is that bad at time.

I look further around the room and wonder where the smell is coming from, it’s my daughter’s school shoes, yes, girls’ feet do stink. So I gather up all their shoes and sling them into the kitchen, we can say it’s the wife’s cooking that is to blame. What’s the other smell, then I see Totoro our cat scratching by the door, she has farted, see all my girls  stink. I tell them I don’t smell, I am the clean one, they reply my Ck One is not to their liking. Should I just dab Jeyes Fluid drain cleaner behind my ears?

I have an old cardboard box on the shelf beside me, I’ve saved it just in case I have to return something, normally it’d go in the recycle bin, but I’ve saved it for now. I used to save my Clarks shoe boxes too, but they did come in handy when Totoro was a kitten. Totoro used to hide under the sink unit, and we were afraid she would pooh there too. So Clarks came to the rescue, we blocked off the area under the sink, and our noses were saved.

I have 3 pots of Shamrock besides me too, so I may have to relocate them soon. I also have it growing outside along the garden wall, and no matter how often our Oriental gardener, the wife that is, hacks and mows it down, it always comes back, deep roots, rather like Family.

I have a lot of paintings too on my wall, I always dreamt of paintings, after my mother gave me a print on cardboard which she had bought for 10p at a jumble sale. I still have it on my bedroom wall, 50 years later. However I did over the years replace prints with paintings, the dustmen used to call my house the Art Gallery, in the days when dustmen used to come up the entry to collect your dustbin. Now I only have real paintings, I haven’t bought any new ones in 20 years, being married and having a wife and kids means you can’t afford to spend a penny on yourself. If I want to gaze on beauty I can always look in the mirror. What, you are all so cruel, laughing at the eye of the beholder.

Speaking of mirrors, we’ll be abandoning most mirrors too, a mirror is a nice thing to have, it brightens up a room, you can also take selfies. Though I only ever have stupid photos of myself, I am honest about my looks, I do weigh more than the British Heavyweight champion who won last night, I’m very compact. So as I was saying a nice mirror is useful, you can check your hair and eyebrows before you leave the house, you don’t want to frighten anybody with your looks, though if you are a heavyweight  boxer you DO want to put the fear of God into an opponent,  maybe the Champ doesn’t use a mirror at all.

Moving on to the kitchen we have cups galore, my small daughter collects them, so we have 20 mugs and cups in the cupboard. It’s almost as if they breed in there, so there will be a cull, or maybe we’ll just abandon them. Cup abandoned with mismatched saucer, a bit like marriage really, chipped and battered, pattern worn away, but still useful?

When you get to pack your clothes that will be a revelation, the state of your underpants. How droopy are your drawers, how washed out are the colours, how many holes in your pants, is the pipping at the edged coming off. But that’s just my neigbours, or is that what my neigbours say about me? You would have to be a bird on the washing line to know the truth, or a pigeon pooping on my washing as they perch from tree to tree. How holy or is it holey are my pants. You’ll never know, not unless you seduce me, just to see the state of my pants. Are you laughing now? Or just violently sick?

I better finish now, it’s time to bring in all my washing before the rain comes, but as I haven’t got any clean clothes I’ll just streak into the garden and stand there naked picking my clothes off the line and getting dressed. It will be a treat for the squirrels and my neighbours, and if they don’t like what they see then NUTS to them.   

Explaining Comedy ©

By Michael Casey

Well I decided a day or two ago to revisit Explaining Comedy, and today we had Donald Trump boasting as only he can, the man with the Midas Touch in Reverse. And then the whole world laughed at him, which is Irony and they say Americans don’t get irony. I’ve also said before he is like the Emperor in the Emperor’s new clothes, and that we were just waiting for a child to laugh at him and then the crowd would, well perhaps today was that day.

Humour arrives at the strangest moment, for example at my aunty Delia’s funeral in the 1980s, she was a great big woman, a massive character and a wonderful spirit. At her funeral as the coffin was taken to the graveyard they met another funeral procession. Now in the crowd following the other funeral was the dead man’s wife and his new girlfriend. The two women in his life were fighting at his death, because he’d changed his Will, so the two loves of his life were arguing as to who should have got his dough. My aunty would have laughed at the sport of it all. So my aunty Delia went to Heaven laughing, I hope she’s still laughing now, God Bless her.

If you ever read my comic novel The Butcher The Baker & The Undertaker  there you’ll find some black humour, and for those of you reading this in Vietnam or Greece, you were spotted today, so hello.  Well black humour, is not just Eddie Murphy, it’s also a term for humour shrouded in darkness or unhappiness. Such as mentioned in my comic novel, though I do also have to say that Percy the Undertaker is also a poet, and that is ironic because poetry in the main is about life, but Percy Frost is an undertaker, dealing with death.  The Ethos behind Percy is actually based on an undertaking firm I know of, how all undertakers should be.  Remember too in the Bible, Jesus wept for his dead friend, then he raised him from the dead.

Back to comedy, when my mother died we had the meal after the funeral in the local Irish club, all the foot laid out on the snooker table. When my sister booked it she was asked did she want the 1.99 or the 3.99 food. All I remember was that it was great, six holes on a snooker table after we’d come back from the cemetery which was full of holes, and the green green grass, compared to the green baize of the snooker table.

Humour is what you see, and it’s the angle you have on life that makes things humorous. It’s very easy to be unhappy, especially if your life is hard, so you need “trick” yourself into being happy. That’s where word association and puns, and even outright filth will keep you going. I heard once that on Nuclear Submarines, because they are away for 3 months at a time, there is a porn mag written by the crew that does the rounds. You have to keep moral up after all.

Though this could just be a lie that Putin told me when we were down the pub drinking Stella Artois together, as we laughed at the girl Trump who never drank at all. What kind of man is that asked Putin as he laughed up his kilt. Now Vietnamese readers this does not mean Putin had his head up Trump’s kilt or anything like that. It is a figure of speech, my own dad used to use it. It means they were mocking, or taking the mick out of somebody.

Comedy happens because you take one thing and twist it, Shakespeare uses it all the time. You see something and then you deliberately turn it around, to have a comic meaning. Think of your own examples. Like pound for pound I’m a great husband. Now obviously that is true. So that could be the first joke or lie, but because I am 248pounds, pound per pound I must be a great husband. Just like down the fish market and you  pay per pound, as I’m so heavy I’m a bargain. Though my wife might say I just stink.

We all have friends and they are like the good, the bad and the ugly. Michael Casey has film star looks, he should be in horror movies, or his wife is right he really does stink, he should be buried. With concrete on top, like Charlie Chaplin, just to make sure nobody digs him up. Though his humour is so old it has been resurrected. And so it has because there are influences going back to silent films that I’ve absorbed, so you all get the benefit of all my sucking up of material and influences over my  chequered life.

I need to pop out to the Polish shop for pop, so I’ll finish now but I hope you can all understand where all or at least some of the ideas come from. Though my diet can make my windy at times, so perhaps my wife is right, I do stink. But I am an expert on toilet paper I’ll have you know. I am after all, soft and strong but very very long.

Little Old Lady ©

By Michael Casey

I met this little old lady in the street yesterday and we got talking, mutual accostation if you like, if there is such a word. Now should she be reading this I’m going to divert from reality, lest she sue me, or chase me while trying to pinch my bum a la Benny Hill. Now little old ladies have a lifetime of experience, that’s why they are old. Yesterday’s little old lady, shall I call her Lottie, I knew a cleaner called Lottie once, so hello to her as well just in case she too is reading this. Now the little old lady Lottie, didn’t need a shave, as some little old ladies do, she had a sparkle in her eye, and no she was not on drugs either, maybe stronger pain killers than the paracetamol I take, but I did not ask her.

So there you have a picture, a cartoon emerging, and guess what  her son worked in the local library as a shelf stacker, he’d previously worked in Tescos, so he moved from stacking pees to stacking  books at the Spring Hill Library which actually adjoins the library. So he just slid over from one stacking to another.  But his true love in his life was/is cartoons, a kind of Banksy but with chalk, all over the loading bay at Tescos.  He nearly got killed a few times as the 18 wheelers arrived, but otherwise he enjoyed his art, as did the truckers. Only the rain was his greatest critic, and Marvin the security guard’s dog.

So naturally I told the little old lady by the name of Lottie that’s I’d love to meet him, if only for the stacking skills, as our house could do with a good stacker as I can no longer stack as well as I used to. If I pick up a heavy load it hurts my chest for a day where I had my op, sadly I doubt if I’ll ever be able to carry the nutty slack in from the coal shed to our living room again. But at least I’m still alive to bore you all, I better say it before any bright spark says it, perhaps they should just try drawing in the loading bay, and maybe they could dodge all the 18 wheelers, I have feelings you know.

Lottie also told me about her granddaughter a maths wiz, so I said snap, as my own bigger daughter is a maths wiz too. We hope to bribe the brightest spark from the maths class with regular teas in the hope he’ll push my daughter higher up the grading scale. This year the grades have been toughened. By the way the maths grade boundaries are so high that you need 10% to 15% more marks  to get an A compared to the arts. Say 75 is an A for English in Maths it may be 85. So me and Lottie discussed this as she brought out a cucumber from her trolley on wheels, and began to munch on it. Lottie explained it was good for her and it also prevented little old men from kissing her. Now that I admit threw me, but then I remember back in my computer days somebody who ate cucumber galore, 20 years ago and more this is. And as I said to them I’d never kiss you with cucumber breath, he was a man as well, so obviously I really would never kiss him, not even if her were in drag.

The little old lady told me where she lived, but I told her I was not meals on wheels nor a boy scout, so she hit me with her cucumber. If you want to meet my son, stupid, then that’s where you will  find him. Look for all the chalk marks. So I said sorry, and then she kissed me goodbye. I fainted and  hit my head on a dustbin, as it was bin day yesterday. Cucumber has that effect on me, I heard her trundle away in the distance, as I tried to remember what day it was, as I leant on the dustbin, I remember, it was bin day.

Silly Haircuts ©

By

Michael Casey

I just looked out the window 20 seconds ago and that’s how I picked today’s topic. Such disregard for my reader, but he’s probably in a supermax prison being punished by having to read all my stuff. I’m sure the Geneva Convention will be cited by his lawyer. Well as Taylor Swift sings to us I’ll try and talk over her singing.

I of course have had the same haircut all my life, short back and sides it is called. The only thing that has changed is the colour of my hair. Last night I stumbled over 3 old bus pass id photos, one of which expired 19 years ago, but the photo may have been even older. I had dark hair then, not the glorious silver hair I have now. Ok, the Santa Claus look without the beard. My daughter just said I looked weird in the photo, I can hear the chorus of agreement over Taylor Swift, and what was she doing in the woods anyway?

Haircuts are a statement, this is me, look at me, I’m so sexy. And that’s just the boys. The Mohican was fashionable in the 70s, in the Punk era, so when I see folks with one now it just looks too silly for words, its so Old Fashioned. I was there when it was new. Or maybe I am being Haircutist. You do need to know what suits your head, same as the clothes you chose to wear.

If you are fat you should not have very short hair, because it accentuates your fat face. I can hear you all laughing now, has Casey looked in a mirror lately. The reverse is true if you are small, a large amount of hair just makes you look like Dougal from the Magic Roundabout. Hair has to be in proportion to your face and your total body size. Though if you are Kim you are copying your grandad, in order to stay in power when Trump does finally build those Condos in North Korea. And as for the Donald, he has 3 wigs, one to wear, one in the wash, and one for spare. Though somebody today told me that  really it was a Tribble, as in Star Trek. I am right am I not?

Coloured hair, and I don’t mean the regular colours used, but blue hair, or bright orange, VW beetle orange is used to make a statement. I’m stupid being the most obvious statement. Am I being a little agent provocateur, or is that justy kinky underpants for women? Well half of you may be smiling while the rest of you will be spitting at the screen, which is a good thing as most people never clean their screens. I know I’ve been looking at screens for 40 years, when they were in black and white, we had an orange one and that was impressive before full colour arrived.

Geeks have silly haircuts too, as if to say I’m a geek, I’d rather sleep with a computer than a girl wearing agent provocateur. I even used to work with a guy and his initials were PC I’m not kidding you. If he reads this he’ll no doubt say I’m pants. He also has a scar on his arm from where he nearly bleed to death on a night shift accident, but that really is another story from 30 years ago.

Now some of you may think I’m just an insensitive fat slob, and I accept that. So for balance lets move to eyebrows. Of course mine are huge. The barber always offers to trim them but I go home and do it myself. The size of your eyebrows does effect the look that your face has with your perfect coloured Mohican. Or in my case when I was 4 I cut my eyebrows off with the scissors. So I looked really cute, and all my brothers and sisters just laughed.

When I was 13 we had a French test so as I paced the middle room learning French for Mr Notzing, possibly the best teacher ever, and as I paced I plucked. In the morning my sister drew eyebrows on with mascara, I went to school and pasted my French test. Nobody noticed. The next day, again with mascara my school chums, if I may use an old word, they all noticed. But as I was the biggest kid in the class nobody dared mock. I said a chemistry experiment had blown up in my face. Though I had actually been given a chemistry set by a guy from a house near the school. Remember this would be in the 1970s so all the cross gender stuff had not even been thought of, and we would have pissed ourselves if anybody tried to spout such nonsense.

So there you have it, as you lay chained to your bed in your supermax prison forced to hear me read my stories to you, with your body totally shaved by Dr Lector. Though Dr Lector could be what you call your girlfriend in her agent provocateur gear. Though in these days equality it could be you wearing her gear, or then again you’ve just fallen asleep in the barber’s chair again. It’s all in your imagination.

Iceland and Bangladesh welcome to my world©

By Michael Casey

I imagine it's not the Iceland frozen food shop up the road, nor the supply of frozen curries. By the way the best curry in the world can be found here in Birmingham, so that's another reason to visit us here in Birmingham England.

Though with a Shanghai wife I'd prefer Chinese myself.

I was going to talk about Telling Tales today, but first of all let me shut a window, the air has gone really cold today, or it could just be rigor mortis.

Now how do I write a story. I sit here at the computer, pick a theme and away I go. Usually after an hour it's done. Remember writing a book takes a year of your life, and I don't have the energy to do that. So if you are a speed typist, then say hello, because I could dictate a book in 3 months. Otherwise I'll just stick to the short stories.

Weaving material together is what Bangladesh is famous for, so you all know about the skill and hard work required to do that. You may even whistle or sing while you work. It's a pile of material that is cut to size then all the pieces and sewed together to make the garments. The skill of the cutter gets the most value from the material, as little waste as possible. In a modern factory a laser cutter or some other fancy computer controlled machine is used. Then when all the work, all the sewing is done you have the most perfect garment. Or it may just be Mo in a corner of the family house doing everything himself.

Now with story writing, now, 30 years on since I started I have those tailoring skills in my  head, yes it's chalk dust not silver hair on my head. So I have an idea, like the stars in a dark night sky, then I sew the ideas together. If you look up at the night sky  you may not see the dots that form the Plough or any other star pattern. It can be hard to spot them, but once you know then you know, It's like a baby learning to speak, slowly then more fluently with time. And that's the tailor's skill, and that's how I write. Mo in Bangladesh may have a few coloured buttons in a jar that the toddler knocks over, as Mo tidies up he decides to add the buttons as decoration.

And that's how Mo got his lucky break, because of the added buttons to his garments.

When I write I may look out the corner of my eye and see something and that leads to another idea. In Iceland when they are not using whales as surf boards, or climbing mountains without ropes, ropes are for girls. Though the girls in Iceland as well as being Vikings, can climb mountains too. They have Polar bears as pets, no Alsatian dog for them, it just has to be a Polar bear. The favourite name for a Polar bear is Michael, the same thing my wife used to call me, Polar bear, or is that in reverse?

I just stopped for a hot drink, in Iceland they do of course only eat hot food as they live on volcanoes, so it must be a great place to live in. I did write a story about love in a deep freeze, not Iceland but inside a real deep freeze, it’s in my comedy Shoplife which is on Amazon Kindle.

So as you can see my writing goes this way and that, like an iceberg that floats past Iceland, though my sister did sink through the ice in Iceland up to her waist, but that's another story. There is always another story and I do thank God for that.  So thank you Iceland and Bangladesh for visiting today, this has been your story.  

Where is the ©

By Michael Casey

I was wondering where, where is, where is the, love, the words, the rhyme in things this morning as I was waiting for the pain top ebb way. And what is the connection between Spirit and Pain, or anything. Well I could have just watched Breakfast TV instead, only I don’t get up that early after my nights of pain. So I’m thinking about how the Spirit copes, as I’m listening to music on the radio, how your Attitude is what really matters. Without Hope, you are soon dead. Dead in all senses of the word. I’m wondering how many of  you have stopped reading now? You don’t like the serious pieces, you just want the Custard Pies.

If I insert a joke I’ll soon get your attention back, maybe gallows humour is the thing, Pardon Me I’m the President perhaps? If you are going to die you may as well have a laugh as you go. In a Carry On film I seem to remember as one guy faces the guillotine he gets a letter and says put it in my pocket I’ll read it later. The point is even at death’s door your spirit helps you along. And it is because you have a Sunny Outlook, that you survive when everybody else gives in to sadness. Positive or Negative outlook.

Personally I try and think of everything, cover all the bases, hope for the best, but prepare for the worse. Like carpet fitters refusing to move a few items of furniture, so you have to find somebody else at short notice. Or if you work in a hotel you can be a miserable person, or a positive person. You can do all the work, or you can hide in a luggage room, does that remind you of anybody you know?

Sunny Demeanor who happens to be Sunny Outlook’s first cousin is the best way to be in my opinion. Or jolly as my mother used to call me as  a child. You can be a victim or you can fight. Tip if you are held hostage, fight, because they will probably kill you anyway, if you fight you at least have half a chance, which is better than none. However if you are Patty Hurst or from Stockholm you may have other ideas.

Satire works too, go watch Mel Brooks The Producers, and Springtime for Hitler song. So now it’s two hours later, was I right? Of course I was, so don’t thank me, thank Mel Brooks. I’ve made a fresh mug of coffee while you were all goose stepping, hello to my Korean and North Korean readers. Which brings me to how do we smile through the pain. In North Korea they just want food and decent tv, but how do they endure while the madness goes on? Look at the Rose Garden at the White House yesterday and you will have asked yourself the same thing.

It all goes back to, putting on a happy face and smile smile smile, how did folks here in UK survive back in WWII, it really was the back against the wall time? It  all goes back to Spirit. You can be in a supermax jailed buried half a mile underground, but you are still free, because of your spirit. The jailers are the prisoners. You could pick Mandela as an example, then the corrupt politicians follow on from him. Pick another place and another superhero. I could say the same with Religion, how it starts Holy but is then corrupted by mortal men. Look at the Catholic Church as just one example.

Now I could sidetrack myself at this point, but I hope my readers are grown up enough to look in the mirror and see wrongs, and also grown up enough to look in the mirror and change, unlike Michael Jackson. So what makes a spirit special, where is the love, where is the kindness? In my own case I would say it was poured into me by my mum and dad. No I’m far from special, but I do claim I do know how to write, or talk to you all.

A caring person, is not Donald Trump checking has everybody got a drink, which is hostess stuff which any of his hotel workers do every single day. A caring person genuinely cares, which is different to photo opportunities. There is Love in their eyes, and music in their spirit. The times I seen Shona people sing at Mass this is when I’ve felt it first-hand.

 Beggars in the street as a rule look lost, but sometimes when you give them something to eat, you can see the spark reignite. Like when the lady from the local store sneaks out with a mug of tea for the beggar. You can see her spirit by her actions, though I know she’d be embarrassed if I named her.   So you can see good spirits by their actions, and it is because they have this good inside them that they can survive when bad times come.

Chronic pain, is a curse, and you are all cursing because I’m not sharing any jokes today. When you spend the nights unable to sleep, not until you are so exhausted that you fall asleep. That is when a radio or some form of music is a life raft in the darkness, or the BBC World Service. As you try and find a less place to sleep in, your mind wanders. Sometimes Prayer comes along, and sometime saying the Rosary does lead to sleep, as your mum used to say, say the Rosary if you cannot sleep is what she used to say. However sometimes the pain is just too much, here there and everywhere, which was a song, was it by Peter Paul and Mary, or some other Evangelists.

Yes pain killers are available, and the Pain Clinic can advise, but if you find you don’t like the fizzing in your head if you take the Epilepsy pain killers, they discovered they worked for pain too, so you have to stick to the paracetamol. Though  a super dose, of Epilepsy pain killers at night kind of works, but you still wake every two hours, then in the morning 12 hours later you feel all drugged up. So you abandon the Epilepsy pain killers. Not unless you want to join the Opioid club, and lose your brain. So that’s my own personal Catch 22.

So that’s  why I am the way I am. You do have to fight, with whatever strengthen you have, to keep your spark lit, your hopes going. You have to do what you can do, you used to be able to walk 5 miles without thinking about it. Now you have a rest in the bus shelters as you go along. Some days you  are fine, some minutes you are fine, then with the sweep of the clock you are all pained up. Yes for me, it can be like that, I wouldn’t say my spirit is special, but I do know if you have a focus then you are not washed away with a Tsunami of pain or hopelessness.

Daytime tv, or watching the world go by, shouting at the radio, find an outlet, make love to the cleaning lady. Whatever gets you through the night, just do it. I noticed in the Press yesterday something about you can die in 3 weeks if you give up. We have all heard of Dying of a Broken Heart, I remember the look on my dad’s face when my mother died, that was a broken heart. You have to fight, and curse and howl at the moon, and I see many many moons because of my sleep patterns. One step at a time, like the AA motto, how I can make this day count. Do what you can do. Tiny steps are better than no steps.

I know it’s not easy, I speak from experience, hard won experience I wish I never gained, and in some things I have 50 years’ experience. You have to enjoy the small things, even what most people would consider mundane. Look up at the clouds, see the shapes they form, look at the stars at night, feel the wind on your cheek. You may be stuck in your home, but your mind is not. You may be in a prison cell, but your mind is not. You may be in a bad marriage and have a horrible job, or just hate where you live. But in your mind you can anywhere you want to be, in your mind you could even be in bed with me. Ok, a horror story finish, but the premise holds true.

You are as happy as you make yourself despite your weaknesses or failings, in your mind you are floating in space, not in that super-max half a mile underground. Sometimes the only super-max   is in your mind, if you can break through the pain, the lack of love, or the lack of hope,  then you can have a spiritual shelter inside yourself. I can only act as a signpost, a battered signpost, showing you yourself, your own inner light of eternal hope.

Lech, Boris and Gregorgi Save Christmas ©

By

Michael Casey

The cousins had decided to buy and trade a few old Army Surplus materials. Putin has updated his army so there was a lot of old kit being thrown away. So obviously the enterprising cousins decided this was their chance. There were all kinds of everything for sale at rock bottom prices, such as Arctic gear, and even parachutes and an ancient flame thrower or two. Junk to you or me, but to the cousins it was an opportunity.

Sometimes what is discarded becomes the most important thing, like a broken heart healed by love, or the dream of a dead mother on the feast of Saint Francis, that comes to heal and strengthen. But I’m talking about the Slav cousins, and their wives just laughed at them, they were just so stupid, but that made them love them the more. So as the wives sharpened their knives ready for the Christmas preparations, which meant death for some of the animals, but it for good purpose, to celebrate the feast of Christmas.

Amongst the junk was an old military radio or two, so the cousins’ children were allowed top play with one. To their surprise they were able to contact some other children, so soon there was a radio friendship. It turned out that they had discovered School 76 in Novablizt, which was a fair distance from where they all lived. It was a boarding school for children of army officers, really they should not be talking to outsiders. But it was a military frequency on an old channel, so that’s how the wall came down.

As Lech, Boris and Gregorgi rummaged through their treasure their children were enjoying the radio. It turned out that the parents of School 76 were in reality Space Engineers, they would not say more than that, but it was interesting to say the least. Now Christmas was approaching fast and the cousins had managed to sell boots and coats and the like, so they were content, they had at least made some money. There was the Christmas feast on the horizon and their wives were glowing, happy and so deeply in love. However when all the cousins’ children explained all the anticipated fun and love that they would have to the children of School 76 they were met with sadness.

You see at School 76 the parents would be working far away, launching satellites into space for the highest bidder. Christmas was lost to them, duty came first, if only they got to see a fake Santa, it would be fun amongst all the books. Now Lech, Boris and Gregorgi were saddened when they heard this, Christmas without even a fake Saint Nicolas, this was too much.

Their wives looked at them and all the children looked at them. We need to talk to your fathers said the three mothers. So the three mothers took the three cousins to the 3 bedrooms. It is always best to discuss things in a comfortable environment. 6 hours later, the mothers emerged smiling, and the cousins emerged too. It had been decided, the 3 mothers would sacrifice their 3 cousin husbands for Christmas. Lech, Boris and Gregorgi would bring Christmas to School 76.

Now School 76 is not on any map as it was classed as Military even though it was just a boarding school. So a map reference was sent and Lech marked it on a map with Rudolf’s nose, that was all the map they would need. They loaded their snow plough with items they might need, and what could they bring the students? Boiled eggs painted and some English chocolate, Cadburys of course, and some Oranges. There was some vodka too, but that was for any stray teachers or caretakers. It was the thought that counted, there would not be any other gifts as such, or so was the plan. You see the school was in a remote area and Lech, Boris and Gregorgi may have to walk in the last leg.

When School 76 heard the news they erupted. They would not only get one fake Santa but three. Carols erupted from School 76, but the could not tell the teachers, the caretaker staff as it was still technically called a Military establishment. So with a final kiss to their wives, who were probably pregnant by now, what do you think they were doing for 6 hours, knitting? So Lech, Boris and Gregorgi set off to bring Christmas to School 76. As they dove away a fancy 4x4 passed in the opposite direction, paths had been crossed.

In the 4x4 was Mikhail Mikhailovich who you will remember was the Spaceman who had a visit from the Archangel Saint Michael, by sheer chance he was driving through Lech, Boris and Gregorgi’s village.Now there is no such thing as coincidence, there is only the will of God. Mikhail Mikhailovich went into the inn and had some food and a rest, he was going to plough on and get home for Christmas himself but then the Heavens opened and it was a Whiteout, a mountain of snow had fallen. So he just knew he’s be spending Christmas there, Mikhail Mikhailovich was soon telling tales and enjoying all the company. His eyes popped open wide when he heard what Lech, Boris and Gregorgi were up to, he had studied at School 76 himself in his youth before he became the world’s greatest Cosmonaut and then the world’s greatest storyteller.

I actually drove past them, will they be safe? They are like Polar Bears replied the three wives, besides we’ll kill them if they don’t come back, as they brandished their knives. Besides we are all pregnant so they will not abandon an unborn baby at Christmas. How many weeks are you pregnant asked Mikhail Mikhailovich? About 15 hours not weeks came the proud reply.Mikhail Mikhailovich blushed, this was like one of his stories, but true.

Mikhail Mikhailovich took out his satellite phone and recited another story so that Radio Russia would have a new story over Christmas. Then the military radio crackled, it was Lech, Boris and Gregorgi. Well we are 20k short of our destination, the snow plough cannot go any further so we will walk. We have skis and a sledge, it will be fun. Everybody looked out the window and saw the snow, it was deadly dangerous.Mikhail Mikhailovich took the microphone, hello I’m Mikhail Mikhailovich can I help in any way? We love stories replied the 3 in unison. I was meaning help in getting to your destination? We think we will be ok, we have vodka to keep us warm and multiple layers too, we have got old USSR army kit, so we should be just fine.

Mikhail Mikhailovich looked about him, these fine people deserved their own Archangel, so he took out his satellite phone. In seconds he was talking to Chuck from the USA, his old friend Tim Peak who was back in space again, and Petrov a fine Russian cosmonaut. Mikhail Mikhailovich was talking to the Heavens Above AKA the Space Station. Hello guys, do you want to test that new thing you have. In seconds it was decided, it was a method of tracking Polar Bears, but now it would be tracking 3 polar bears called Lech, Boris and Gregorgi.

The only problem was their was no radio tracking device on a collar, just a vintage USSR radio. Looking around again, Mikhail Mikhailovich rung his good friend Esther, the mother of the zillionaire space satellite magnate. Shalom he began, and then Mikhail Mikhailovich explained, Esther would help he knew it. Ester put her cards down she was playing poker in Vegas, the winner chose which Charity got the pot, 10million had been raised just through her poker habit, if you can remember back to the Malta story. A phone rang in the situation room at the Pentagon, the ring tone was If I were a Rich Man sung by Topol, an actual one off recording just for a ring tone.If you are zillionaire then you can have such things.Sorry said the zillionaire turning to General Jim Mathis, mom insisted on the ring tone. In seconds all was explained and Esther went back to her poker, she wanted to win.

The zillionaire looked around, I wasn’t going to show you this yet, but a friend wants a favour. So with General Jim Mathis looking on the zillionaire brought up the satellite image. It was not perfect but through the snow Lec, Boris and Gregorgi could be made out. We’re guiding them through the snow to School 76. So the zillionaire spoke to Mikhail Mikhailovich and then he guided the three cousins.

In deep deep snow they went up and down and around and around , and this way and that way, leaving a trail as they dragged their sledge. High in space the zillionaire and brought a couple of other satellites into play, it was Christmas after all, they were not the three Magi, but they had friends in high places, very high places. But then disaster, the radio broke down, at minus 20 even a thirty year old USSR radio had to come to the end of their life.

All we can do is watch and pray, said General Jim Mathis as he looked up from the book Esther had sent him, first edition of a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.So watching from on high they all watched and prayed. Three cousins, Lech, Boris and Gregorgi would go around and around until the cold killed them. From space they tracked their route, then the zillionaire spotted a pattern. Marked in the snow was PAX VOBISCOM, or Peace Be With You. Then through the snow the satellite could see a sledge drawn by enormous reindeer, there was a giant of a man on board. The giant waved at the sky as if he knew the satellites were all watching him.

Santa Claus himself had come to rescue them, if the Archangel Saint Michael had saved Mikhail Mikhailovich why shouldn’t Santa Claus save three Slav heroes called Lech,Boris and Gregorgi. And that is how Christmas was saved by Lech, Boris and Gregorgi or rather how Santa Claus saved them. School 76 had the best Christmas ever, 3 fake Santas plus the real thing. Now if you think this story is far fetched, just watch Norad track Santa this and every Christmas. And if you still don’t believe me, why are there photos of the Real Father Christmas locked in General Jim Mathis’ safe with a signed copy of a Christmas Carol on top. Marked 25 levels higher than TOP SECRET.

Hidden Meanings (c)

By

Michael Casey

Well its 6th October now and the temperature has dropped, so Autumn has begun to show its face. Or The Fall as the Americans call it. The pain  monster has come out to play too, so forgive  the smell of Movelat gel as I swallow  some paracetamol. Yes, I'm boring you all again, but it's not all silly photos and sillier words. This is my life. I did have my yearly Flu jab and one for Pneumonia too the other day, to keep me healthy during the Winter. 

So I had to whip off my shirt in the local church hall, the sight of my naked body as I had a prick in both shoulders. They do mass inoculations, nearby where Mass is said. So at night when I tried to lie on my side and sleep I could not as I was in pain, because I was leaning on the spot where the jab went in. Sleeping in one position post bypass means thanks to my jabs I just could not sleep at all that night. Though I normally wake every 2 hours.

I got talking to the vicar as I had I had a coffee afterwards, he seems like a nice man. I did ask why he became a vicar and he said it kind of found him. Just as Writing kind of found me 30 years ago. I don't know who is the more successful, me or the vicar. I'd say the vicar. The vicar at  the church my kids sing at was in fact a journalist previously, obviously he never wrote fake news as he was honest, so honest he became a vicar.

My own priest at my local church sings like Topal, and at the other church I visit there are a variety of priests. And as I've mentioned you can also go to church at  https://www.churchservices.tv/  

But I've sidetracked myself because the Horror Film on tv is Priest, which I've seen before. So lets get back to the plot. Hidden Meanings. Are there any in the stuff I write? NO.  I'm not clever enough to hide anything. What you see is what you get, I write plain and simple stuff because I write or rather talk for the Mass Audience, if I might hark back to the Priest.

 

You can have many meanings and people interpret or misinterpret  things depending on their own leanings. You have people say "what did he mean by that" and nowadays if you don't add what did "she mean by that" then you are not even handed, same goes with using Chairman instead of Chairperson. You can be viewed as anti-Gay, anti-Black, anti-Anything because you don't use the Politically Correct language.

STOP and think about that. If somebody is always correcting your language and grammar, instead of sorting the Problem then you should ask yourself are they really trying to STOP solutions. Whatever the problem is. All I want is some more soft toilet paper to clean my bum with, do I have to fill in a form in triplicate, or have a form of words? Or should I just wipe my bum on the curtains in my hotel room?

I'll stop here before my head explodes

 

THANKS FOR PASSING BY, ONE DAY MAYBE I'LL GET SOME RECOGNITION AND REWARD