Pain Fear and God

Pain Fear and God ©

By Michael Casey

 

Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Hugo Chavez is praying for his life we are told. So it makes me wonder when do we, all of us pray? I have to declare an interest straight away, I've had tennis elbow for nearly 4 months now and boy oh boy does it hurt. I cannot lift anything, not even the kettle. This would bed bad enough in itself but for the fact that I've ricked my back badly. In fact the pain is the worst I've ever had in my life.

 

So Hugh is praying to be spared, I'm doing a bit of praying too, but my breath is being taken away by pain. The smell of Deep Heat fills our house, the girls retreat to the garden for fresh air. I can stand for 10 mins or sit and write here for 30mins, after that I have to lie down because the pain is so much. I don't want to pop pips so Deep Heat and hot baths are my tools of choice. My mother used to have bucket loads of pain killers for her bad back but she never took them, she just used to collect them over the pantry door. "Jeekus" she used to wince and half scream through her pain. So I hope its not hereditary.

 

We all pray when we are in pain, we pray the pain will end soon. Perhaps pain helps teaches us humility, everything sure is in perspective when all you can think of is your elbow or your back. My back has been playing up for 2 weeks on this occasion, how people live in pain and in wheelchairs makes me wonder. My Aunty Mary was in a wheelchair for the last 13years of her life after a stroke,  her rosary keep her sane. We have test cases for the right to die, after my own pain filled recent experiences I see things more fully, through the prism of pain. I applaud pain relief experts, I have to lie down now  for a bit before I write any more.

 

My daughter just threw "TonY" her toy at me so I'll get up and finish. Pain can destroy us, but it does clear the clutter of our daily lives, it makes us remember and enjoy the real things in our lives. I really enjoy the taste of food, the experience is heightened, ordinary food tastes like a 5star restaurant experience, and I may just be talking about a bit of toast and peanut butter. If when I finally get better I can remember the real values, of nice simple food, and enjoying watching tv with my kids then all the pain will be worth it. Yes I know I'll get negative replies to this but, I always learn the hard way which is the best way. Yes I hope I'll never be in such pain again,  but if all our lives we live a feather bed existance then we are not really experiencing life.  Life includes pain.

Pain Fear and God ©

By Michael Casey

 

Today is Good Friday, the day Jesus was crucified. Hugo Chavez is praying for his life we are told. So it makes me wonder when do we, all of us pray? I have to declare an interest straight away, I've had tennis elbow for nearly 4 months now and boy oh boy does it hurt. I cannot lift anything, not even the kettle. This would bed bad enough in itself but for the fact that I've ricked my back badly. In fact the pain is the worst I've ever had in my life.

 

So Hugh is praying to be spared, I'm doing a bit of praying too, but my breath is being taken away by pain. The smell of Deep Heat fills our house, the girls retreat to the garden for fresh air. I can stand for 10 mins or sit and write here for 30mins, after that I have to lie down because the pain is so much. I don't want to pop pips so Deep Heat and hot baths are my tools of choice. My mother used to have bucket loads of pain killers for her bad back but she never took them, she just used to collect them over the pantry door. "Jeekus" she used to wince and half scream through her pain. So I hope its not hereditary.

 

We all pray when we are in pain, we pray the pain will end soon. Perhaps pain helps teaches us humility, everything sure is in perspective when all you can think of is your elbow or your back. My back has been playing up for 2 weeks on this occasion, how people live in pain and in wheelchairs makes me wonder. My Aunty Mary was in a wheelchair for the last 13years of her life after a stroke,  her rosary keep her sane. We have test cases for the right to die, after my own pain filled recent experiences I see things more fully, through the prism of pain. I applaud pain relief experts, I have to lie down now  for a bit before I write any more.

 

My daughter just threw "TonY" her toy at me so I'll get up and finish. Pain can destroy us, but it does clear the clutter of our daily lives, it makes us remember and enjoy the real things in our lives. I really enjoy the taste of food, the experience is heightened, ordinary food tastes like a 5star restaurant experience, and I may just be talking about a bit of toast and peanut butter. If when I finally get better I can remember the real values, of nice simple food, and enjoying watching tv with my kids then all the pain will be worth it. Yes I know I'll get negative replies to this but, I always learn the hard way which is the best way. Yes I hope I'll never be in such pain again,  but if all our lives we live a feather bed existance then we are not really experiencing life.  Life includes pain.

Swimming Baths and Painting Eggs

Swimming Baths and Painting Eggs ©

By Michael Casey

Today, Saint Patrick’s Day was new day for swimming for my big daughter. It meant I couldn’t have a lie in, I had to take here and her sister to the Baths, luckily they are at the bottom of the road. She’s in the big pool now as she’s progressed with her swimming. So me and my small daughter went up to the gallery to watch, the big pool used to have a diving board many years ago when my brothers went there to swim, maybe 40 years ago. So Time is catching up on me, my big daughter has my exact features, spooky, it’s like looking into my own past as I look at her face. Though twice today when I looked at her face at the baths and afterwards when we went shopping, she looked Chinese to me. Yes my wife is a Shanghai girl, but normally our girls look so Western, so it was the Gene Pool reminding me of her mixed heritage.

Swimming finished and then there was the 30mins delay while she changed, lads are so much quicker, so any dads out there who take their girls out for sports bear this in mind. I should say a big thank you to the folks at the pool who teach swimming, this really is such an important thing. Two of my brothers swim like seals, my niece has  even swum 2 kilometres; the last time I tried swimming I could have drowned in the hotel pool, but it was 20 years after I last swum and I was at my heaviest ever.

Girls and shopping always involves the stationary shop, felts and glues and coloured pens and so forth. If they don’t become artists of some sort I’ll be very surprised, so when I look at houses I always think where we could have a studio for them, all I need is a lottery win or to finally sell a few books. I’m in the quiet of the other room while they are painting an egg. It’s the Easter project for year 3, whatever year 3 is. My mother said all she ever got was a boiled egg for Easter, 9 people living in a stone shack in Cromane Lower County Kerry, the photo is on my site, so when we all eat too much chocolate and some think Easter is a Cadbury’s invention think back to 1920s Ireland  this Saint Patrick’s Day.

The girls  are quiet now while they wait for the glue and the papier-mâché to fix, they always give me inspiration for a blog, so I thank them. I hope when I’m gone they can look back and read all these blogs, maybe 220  so far, and laugh at themselves and their dad. I’m tired now, the lack of beauty sleep has tired me out. Mind you how much beauty sleep a Shrek like dad need?  

Judging a Book By Its Cover

Judging a  Book By Its Cover ©

By Michael Casey

“He’s a scruff, I don’t like him,” said the girl in the street.

“She’s a dog,” said the boy looking at a photo of his friend’s sister.

“He’ll never be Prime Minister,” said people stopped in the street by Mori.

“If he lost 4stones then maybe,” said the women in the hairdressers.

I was looking at a few covers, and I thought what DOES make a difference? I can remember reading Dr No while I was in primary school, I had to make a cover out of brown paper to hide the silhouette of a naked woman on the cover, it was 1969 or 1970 and I was a very big reader. The sex bits in James Bond were boring, but I had to make the cover for a quiet life.

We all look at the cover when we are in book stores, I can remember reading Tom Sharpe’s books 25years ago, the cover was a front and back cartoon telling the books’ story.  It was a good way of getting people to pick up the book and read a bit. Yes, I will mention my own 4 books. I decided to put my own face on the front of them, so just what will people think of my face and my book. He looks stupid, so we won’t buy his books, or it must be funny because he looks funny. Will anybody think I look sexy just like Right Said Fred, and decide to buy my cheap books on a whim or will they just think, what a loser  and scroll past me on Amazon Kindle. Will my fuller figure excite the women or even the men, or will both conclude, fat B£%^&*. I’m sure marketing departments think about such issues constantly. Even old JKRowling’s books were reissued with different cover so to catch an older audience.

 

I could have liposuction to make me ever so sexy, and then with new and airbrushed photos I could make it as a cover boy on my own books. I would be fully clothed of course, with my M&S best clothes, in sizes for the bigger man. I can hear laughter in my mind, anybody who knows me or has ever seen me, and that may be 100,000 people, as I did work in a hotel for 3 years, everybody would just laugh.  Laughter is the intention of all my books, but getting people to laugh with me is a challenge. So even if you don’t want to buy any of my books, just go to Amazon Kindle and see does your mental picture of me match any of my words. But most of all don’t judge a book by its cover, even if it has my photo on the front.

Judging a  Book By Its Cover ©

By Michael Casey

“He’s a scruff, I don’t like him,” said the girl in the street.

“She’s a dog,” said the boy looking at a photo of his friend’s sister.

“He’ll never be Prime Minister,” said people stopped in the street by Mori.

“If he lost 4stones then maybe,” said the women in the hairdressers.

I was looking at a few covers, and I thought what DOES make a difference? I can remember reading Dr No while I was in primary school, I had to make a cover out of brown paper to hide the silhouette of a naked woman on the cover, it was 1969 or 1970 and I was a very big reader. The sex bits in James Bond were boring, but I had to make the cover for a quiet life.

We all look at the cover when we are in book stores, I can remember reading Tom Sharpe’s books 25years ago, the cover was a front and back cartoon telling the books’ story.  It was a good way of getting people to pick up the book and read a bit. Yes, I will mention my own 4 books. I decided to put my own face on the front of them, so just what will people think of my face and my book. He looks stupid, so we won’t buy his books, or it must be funny because he looks funny. Will anybody think I look sexy just like Right Said Fred, and decide to buy my cheap books on a whim or will they just think, what a loser  and scroll past me on Amazon Kindle. Will my fuller figure excite the women or even the men, or will both conclude, fat B£%^&*. I’m sure marketing departments think about such issues constantly. Even old JKRowling’s books were reissued with different cover so to catch an older audience.

 

I could have liposuction to make me ever so sexy, and then with new and airbrushed photos I could make it as a cover boy on my own books. I would be fully clothed of course, with my M&S best clothes, in sizes for the bigger man. I can hear laughter in my mind, anybody who knows me or has ever seen me, and that may be 100,000 people, as I did work in a hotel for 3 years, everybody would just laugh.  Laughter is the intention of all my books, but getting people to laugh with me is a challenge. So even if you don’t want to buy any of my books, just go to Amazon Kindle and see does your mental picture of me match any of my words. But most of all don’t judge a book by its cover, even if it has my photo on the front.

Oxbridge and still cannot write essays? (c)

Oxbridge and still cannot write essays? ©

By  Michael Casey

I had been thinking about my latest  blog here on the Daily Telegraph and on my own site www.michaelgcasey.multiply.com then I spotted the article, so that’s why I’m writing this. My own brothers were Oxbridge, me CPNEC was my university along with the good old OU. So I’m saddened that nobody can write, if I were in charge of Oxbridge I’d do a Maths and an English test, and if they fail the test I wouldn’t let them in.

How can somebody 18plus not write a good essay? I was lucky because Frank Brown from County Tyrone was our lodger and he donated a radio, an old Bush radio to me and my brother. You all remember the Bush radio with the marzipan strip carry handle and the saucer size tuning dial, and don’t forget the domino size frequency buttons, and the huge battery inside. That radio was part of my education, we used to listen to The World Tonight, Douglas Stewart reporting, followed by The Book at Bedtime. I can still remember falling asleep during the Ghost and Mrs Muir. I must have spent 20years listening to Radio 4 constantly, and it was only then that I started writing myself, and it took me a year to get it right. Now I have 4 “masterpieces” on Amazon Kindle.

So why can’t students write? Is it too much cannabis or other Class As, or alcohol.No of course not. Is it too much time playing computer games? Too much sport or sex? Or didn’t they have to write an essay a week in English. We had to write an essay a week for Mr Noon, here’s the title, now go write two pages. We had a book list of 40 books we had to work our way through too. I was a natural reader, I read nearly everything on the shelves by my school desk in Primary school. I continued reading through my Grammar school days, then on through my twenties. Does anybody actually read nowadays?

I’ve done a bit of Esol teaching, I’m available right now too, but with Esol you encourage people to listen to Radio4, to practice ten new sentences a day, to read the free newspapers on the bus, to watch BBC news. Lots of simple things can help a foreigner pick up the language, one of our family friends is off to Oxford in the Autumn, her English is perfect, just like Helen Bonham Carter yet she was not born here, she is Chinese. So the obvious point is why can’t people born and raised here do the same.

Essay writing is all about a beginning, a middle and an end. You have to prove your argument too, why was this important, why is History really about Geography. History is Geography, because one leader wants to steal the other country’s resources, Hitler wanted living room, Napoleon wanted to conquer Russia too. In a History essay you’d make the bold statement and then you’d give proof, Facts, Detail, Proof, Latin as I once wrote down on a piece nearly 40 years ago. Once  you have proved your point you can then give lessons for the future, the past shows us the way NOT to go again, a do not enter sign. History repeats itself, is another phrase, we all chase the blonde who’ll slap our face, but still we follow her. Monroe is, was, and always will be a honey trap, History shows us many Monroes, if we could control ourselves and keep our hands to ourselves then we’d learn the lessons of History, and we wouldn’t need living room, just stick to our own girl in our own bedroom.

It would be nice if people read and listened to the radio, I fear I’m the final generation of radio lovers, radio is great if only those Oxbridge students listened to radio then they might be better at writing essays. Or they could pay me £xx an hour and I’ll teach a few classes. I’d teach them to love words, to adore words, no not as good as having Monroe in your bed, but at least you’d pass your exams, and that would keep the Dons happy.

excuse my convict haircut

Only 2 quid each my 4 books

New for National Book Week

my "ouvres" or books in plain English now at a lower price of £2 or $3 or 2.70 something Euros.

Tell all your friends.

Alistair Alcohol and Me

Alistair Alcohol and Me ©

By Michael Casey

 

I’ve just watched Alistair Campbell’s Panorama piece on Alcohol. I found it too understated. He should have actually shown people covered in their own pee and sick, bleeding too. Yes there was a little of that, but it was too cold, a programme an Oxford Don would have given

Wednesday May 23^rd 1979 it was 3pm I’d only just got out of bed, I’d been on night shift, I worked for a Market Research Company, we deal with Alcohol sales. Quick Quick screamed Mrs Madden, she was our lodger from the house next door, so I tucked my shirt in and ran next door. It was Andy, her husband and loveable alcohol. He was on his back and gurgling. So I tried a bit of CPR, I realised quickly tah an ambulance was needed. I ran up the entry and banged on Mr Dixon’s door, he had a phone we did not, nobody did in our area at that time. Quick get an ambulance I shouted to Mr Dixon, I frightened him a little. His son was a policeman, yes, all those Evening All jokes, but it was an ambulance we needed.

The ambulance arrived and I had to open up the doors so they could come through the house. They tried the black bulb with face mask attached but it was too late, too much booze and 3 previous heart attacks now was the death chime for Andy, the loveable drunk from the catholic club down the road. I helped put Andy on the chair and he was taken away by the ambulance lady and a man. My brother came home from school while all this was happening, then I looked down the road and I could see my mother coming up the road with her leather shopping bags full of food for us the 5000 her large family. So they had missed it, I had had to deal with it. It was then I cried, you don’t cry while its going on you are too busy, throwing the furniture out the way so you can try and do CPR with Andy lying flat. But it had been to no avail.

Our other lodgers were nearly all Born Again Alcoholic, so I’d say to Alistair Campbell, tell it as it is, squalor with a Capital S. Get up, go to work, go to pub, go to bedsit, get up, go to work, go to pub, home to bedsit etc etc, occasionally have a wash. I can tell many tales of alcoholism, I’ve seen it at close hand, as you can imagine none of us Caseys ever became drinkers. I think I used to average 24pints, no not a week, but maybe in a year. So what do I say about alcohol, yes enjoy it, Jesus’s first miracle was water into wine after all. Don’t be a Puritan, enjoy a beer or two, but also remember me a half asleep 20year old having to do CPR after getting up after a night shift.

If one person, just one person reading this has 2^nd thoughts about alcohol and/or any other addiction then Andy’s death won’t have been in vain.

Spring Family

Its really nice here in Birmingham, I had to go up the road to buy bread before we all had breaksfast, we like Warbuttons best, the orange wrapper one. After breakfast we knew we'd have to go out and buy another loaf, so that job was left for me. 2nd trip up the road to Iceland I had to buy eggs as well, JJ is going to be cooking. The other family highlight is choosing a mobile phone for our biggest daughter, she'll be off to grammar/secondary school in the Fall as you folks Autumn. So she'll need a phone for safety and "grownup" reasons. The costs are stratospheric, no wonder only the President can afford a Blackburry. Though some of the electronics are very nice the Iphone 4S et al. The built in cameras are better than regular cameras too. It woud be a nice present to win in a raffle. Then there is which tarrif to have, pay have you go with a nice phone. Me I don't even  have a mobile, two cocoa tins with a length of string attached would be fine by me. Or smoke signals, like Red Indians, or I could just use telepath.  Telepath could be fun, though I could get my face slapped too.

Am I a girl?

Am I a Girl?

By

Michael Casey

Am I a girl? I just bought some hand cream from Superdrug. I have cracked skin and its almost bleeding, eczema perhaps. The 3 girls in my house use lotions and potions on hands and faces, they said I should get some, I'd not bothered for years so finally I bought some. There's so much choice, I nearly bought baby oil stuff, finally I spotted  a product that boasted to work fast and was clinically proven and best of all was it was only 3quid for 400ml. It does smell a bit like woodwork glue. So I can call myself a carpenter and not a girl. 

To Be a Writer or 2B a Preacher?

To Be a Writer or 2B a Preacher ?

By michaelgcasey

To Be a Writer or 2B a Preacher (c) By Michael Casey

When you start writing you think you are the bees knees, then everybody says you are total c(*&, which makes you cry and you want to put your head in the oven, only its electric so you end up with a tan like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters.
Then you join a critics club where you all sit around and try and destroy each others ego. So this makes you so angry that you join a gun club. Your anger finds an avenue so you end up in the Olympics shooting team, and all you really want to do is write.

But still you want to write so after 3 Olympic golds you get bored with shooting and return to your first love. So you write about assassins, you are an expert on shooting after all, no Pulitzers but you do have 3 Olympic Golds. You get fed up of writing about sad and lonely losers who get a gun and shoot people, or about high powered 007 types. But you are such an expert, and the money rolls in.

You discover God and decide to be a preacher, and If they don’t believe you could shoot them. You find a niche and become a great and good preacher, you write all your own sermons and they are good, but 10 pages isn’t as good as 500pages of block busters. But it is a beginning. You get married in your own church with you doing your own service. The Church of I Forgive Myself Ministry. You have a few kids and seduce your secretary on the side, and her sister is so hot too, so you cann’t resist her, and you get her pregnant in the office behind your church, and then there is the cleaner. Preying is your speciality, not praying. You have your mid life crisis and run away, emptying out the bank accounts while you leave.

And if only you sold all your books on Amazon Kindle, none of this would have happened. But it does give you an idea for a new book. No not your own life story, that’s always boring for a writer. No you’ll write about stamp collecting.

End

Well folks I really do have 4 things on Amazon Kindle, only 8dollars each so go take a peek, you can try The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker first
then maybe I’ll become a writer, a paid one.
Or do you guys want me to be a Preacher, with a Birmingham England accent?

And Today's Blog Is

And Today’s Blog Is ©

By Michael Casey

I was wondering what to write about today, I had already mentioned Dickens the other day, so what should I write about. I have put Dickens picture as a desktop background to inspire me, though I do change my background every couple of weeks. I normally spot a house I’d love to live in and it becomes my desktop background, even though it would take a lottery win to live there. It’s always best to live in hope, to dream of the nice house and now with a mahogany desk like Dickens’ from which I could talk to the world. You can get some really really nice desks, just google and you will be amazed. We have the bog standard computer desk which you get from PC World for 30quid, but should my dream come true I’d really go to town, it would be a sensual experience to be in front of your desk as you write/talk to people.

I had to have a cigarette just then as my imagination was working overtime, though the cigarette was in my imagination too. Perhaps Rupert Murdoch will give me a slot in the Sun when he visits over the weekend, just on the website, I do have a Chinese wife just like him…. Inspiration for writing comes from everywhere, the girls were baking cookies at their Godparents house this afternoon, they returned with cookies all wrapped in plastic and sealed with a ribbon, very professional. This could be a subject for a blog in itself, David and Fran are very good to them.  I could blog about my shamrock which seems to be killed off by the very harsh freezing Winter nights, and now one week later they are so forlorn. I could mention clover, which is similar to shamrock, but I mean Clover the spread from Iceland which is ½ price at the moment, a good spread on top of crumpet is so so nice as the Clover drips down your fingers.

 

I had to go and make some crumpet just then, or so I will tomorrow, as I neglected to buy any crumpet today, I just used my imagination, yes I use my imagination a lot, I’m dreaming of a nice new job where I can be useful and have fun. Well it’s time for bed now so I’ll dream of Rupert Murdoch giving me a job, though I’d write for anybody, soul for sale, no I just like talking to the world as I did in my concierge days. 

Dickens, Christmas and all that (c)

Dickens, Christmas and all that ©

By Michael Casey

I was reading a gushy piece in the ads so of course I hated it. I switch off if I read gushy stuff. If I meet pretentious people I hate them immediately too. Style is a very difficult thing, my own developed and that’s what I and readers are stuck with. People nowadays do have a smaller attention span, and if you watch satellite tv then you will see what I mean. It really is a bad thing, no wonder Americans go to cinema in droves, the tv is so bad and with all the adverts on top, heaven help us.

 

Now reading is a very personal thing, as is soaking in the bath with just you and your thoughts for company, or maybe a radio in the background. I used to stop up late to finish the latest Alistair MacLean, I read all his books 30 years ago, some in one session till 1am or 2am. I love radio so I spent 20years plus listening to Radio4 too. Finding a book you like and an author too is great. I read all the Sherlock Holmes books when I was 10 or 11 so I was a fan. I watched the new and great tv series set in today’s world, so I rushed back to the books, sadly after over 40 years I just could not read them again. Sometimes its best to keep the memory and not go back.

Dickens is big, we all love A Christmas Carol, I have even cried while listening to it on the radio after Midnight Mass, I think we may have had to read some in grammar school, Oliver Twist or something. My own view is that students should be given a week or two to read the set text before starting to do English Lit on it. English Lit can kill a book, we did Over the Bridge by Richard Church, all I remember was that he wanted a piano, and was he ungrateful for all the hard work his parents had to do to provide it. Correct me if my memory after 40years is wrong. Over my shoulder we have an electronic piano, so I’m smiling as I talk.

 

Dickens used to be serialised before his work appeared in book form, nowadays we all blog and then hope people go to our site and then read more  and final buy a book or two. The modern method of writing would I think appeal to Dickens, he could travel and perform and after a busy day  blog away with his thoughts ablaze, a strong drink on his desk. If ever I get lucky I’d have an old fashioned desk and a big sturdy chair, and space for a pitcher of orange  juice right beside my computer screen. I’d have a  nice old fashioned clock on the desk too, so that I could time how long it took for people to comment on my newest blog. 200years from now I’ll be dust, but perhaps my great great grandchildren will still wonder why my hair was so white and why did a Shanghai girl marry me.

I hope it’s a great story just like  Charles Dickens.