I'm No Dictator I'm the Loved Leader

I’m No Dictator I’m the Loved Leader ©

By Michael Casey

We all have our styles when we work, and sometimes you are better as a worker that a leader. And more to the point you enjoy it more that way. I once met another Michael who used to be a leader but he said it was bad for him so he stepped back from it. When I was a team leader it was fun, but whether I was the leader or just the worker I always worked very hard.

But what about our “real leaders” such as Mugabe 93 or Kim 33. They lead us why? Because they saved us from oppression, then treated the country like their own private possession. I freed the country, I was in jail for years now I am the leader  because it is my right. Now I’m 93 my wife will become leader next says Mugabe as he clings to power tonight. Am I the only one who is not surprised? Brainwash our own people and blame ancient history almost. Hitler has the same moustache and he brainwashed his own people too, Mugabe shame on you.

As for Kim, it’s my granddad’s country it’s my dad’s country, so I’m keeping it. Like a spoilt child. A really beautiful place is wasted by a spoilt and arrogant leader. God alone knows will Trump nuke it all, or will China decide enough is enough. But Kim is the Leader with his marching bands and his drum majorettes carrying bayonets. Giant statues in a hall of the people stand proud like phallic symbols. While the real people cannot stand out of fear and out of lack of food. So pardon me for being rude but the best symbol to see is food in plenty in all the stores, not a people weighed down by dance steps showing how much they love their deity.

Mandela and Ghandi had a dignity they were proud, the flame of power did not corrupt them. Now we have a lady who earnt her Nobel Prize, now she tarnishes it because of her closed eyes. Or is it fear?  

In God’s Waiting Room and I don’t mean Florida, Hitler and Pol Pot and Stalin await their fate. They still demand drinks and food from the waiter that serves them before their fate is revealed to them. And still they show no remorse, they made their people proud at first some might say, but then the evil, the cancer, the power lust and conceit filed their veins. Only they were good enough, their words were worth more, were better than anything anybody had ever said. No wonder young Kim follows their example and  his people carry a notebook to write down every single utterance. When really a pooper scooper would be more realistic.

Saint Michael enters the room holding his nose, these are “generals” who have led their people with ignominy and shame. You are cursed for all time, and with that Saint Michael with his sword flicks them out of the waiting room through the door marked eternal fire and damnation.

It’s always the case that leaders want to stay forever, that’s why you have term limits. 8 years is enough. A leader should have a deputy ready to take over assuming they win an election. Not forever in government via musical chairs, it’s bad for the country, any country. Let the people speak, let the people dance, even dancing in the street. No  one party is forever in charge.

Sadly this prayer of mine will not always succeed, but I let the music of the people speak, I let them take over. North Korea should be as happy and as rich as the South, and why is it not? Because people are afraid and cowed into submission, everything has to have permission. Zimbabwe should be as rich as it once was, will free elections be announced once their own dear leader finally exits stage left. Or will a Crocodile take over forever? The test of a leader is to announce free elections and then try and win them.

Churchill had his painting and his writing when he was not a leader, the whole world would have been a better place if Hitler had just stuck to house painting. Sadly Hitler had his Ego. If only people could throw their Ego in the rubbish and know that true leadership really is service. Wasn’t their somebody who washed others feet, and loved a friend  so much that he wept and even rose Lazarus from the dead. Wasn’t their somebody who died for all of us, whereas Dictators think we should die for all of them.

I know what kind of leader I like, and when you are choosing a leader just think would they make a good Marie Curie nurse. Or do they think of themselves first. Any leader should be like my dad, family first, self last always.

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Starting a new Job

Starting a New Job ©

By Michael Casey

My daughter started a new job today, or rather she started as a volunteer at a local Charity shop, so she’ll be working but not getting any pay. Its good experience of the real world for her. I told her I used to clean toilets and then talk to millionaires, in whatever order. I was everything at the CPNEC Birmingham, I’m very flexible, though not so much now thanks to my arthritis. That’s the thing with a job, be flexible, don’t say it’s not on your job description, though the ardent union people reading this will be angry by my attitude. While people argue the toss mess festers and worse, so I say just be flexible.

Can you remember your 1^st ever job? Mine was walking the streets, yes I was a prostitute, are you shocked or worse? You cannot imagine women wining and dining me etc. Well you are wrong and I’m pulling your leg, but at least I know the measure of my audience my readers. What kind of boy do you think I am? Say Sorry or I’ll stop writing and I’ll never talk to you all again.  Six hours later and you only now say sorry. What were you all doing, you went out to dinner with your girlfriend and then watched the MU match on tv. Then you etc and etc. 

Ok no need to carry on, well just stop carrying on, this is not a Carry On film. Google Carry On films if you have never heard of them. Carry OnUp the Kyber might be a good start.

Ok so where was I, I was walking the streets, it was first ever job. No I wasn’t a prostitute, I was a MARCH Assessor.  Which means Men Are Right Clumsy Hooligans, ok I’m joking again, it meant Maintenance and Repair and Costing for Highways. Which meant I walked the streets all day. Thankfully I did not walk the streets at night. Though I do have great legs and look good in drag. OK, enough of this maybe a bit of that or even the other later, which means something else if English is not your 1^st language, maybe Korean or Polish is your 1^st language. At least learning English with me is much more entertaining than what you learn at school with Miss Smith from Leamington your exchange English teacher. My accent is much nicer, you can tell just by the words on the page. And if you understand that then you are far too good to be reading this you should be a writer.

So there I was with a clipboard in my hand walking all over the Black Country  streets looking at the roads for Wheel Track Deterioration. This is like the marks on the road surface caused by the traffic, eventuation you will get rutting and holes. So by sending an idiot out with a clipboard you can see how worn down the roads are and decide if you need to resurface them. Yes I was that idiot, and it happened to be the hottest summer in decades. One day I walked 26 miles, as much as a Marathon, in 90degrees  plus of heat. My face  changed from white to brown, I have a photo somewhere of me with my new suntan. Yes I was young and fit then, years later in Ireland I walked a marathon in a day too, from Killarney to Cromane Lower. Now I’m still fit  but only with  encouragement. As I talk to you I again realise I am Ronnie Corbett and Joyce Grenfell’s lovechild, but maybe you have to be a Radio 4 producer to recognise that. But I’ll work  for Capital Radio too, if they are inspired enough to use my 1200 or so short pieces.

Walking the streets meant I learnt the value of good shoes and decent socks, and of washing my feet as soon as I got home. Just as my dad did, though he came home from Hell every day, a 400degree+ steel works, the District Iron and Steel in Brasshouse Lane Smethwick. This was another thing that bonded me and my dad, we did physical work.

You get strong legs if you walk all day, ask any policeman or prostitute you may know, both would be arresting experiences, but I jest. Little did I know that I’d spend a lot of my life on my feet running around. In computer rooms and print rooms, or all around the hotel CPNEC Birmingham. Though all this standing DID save my life because when I needed veins I had them in my strong legs ready to be transferred to my heart for my unplanned quadruple heart bypass. So was God saving my life by having me walk and stand all my life? And as a writer I have to be quick on my feet to get the words on the page all lined up like soldiers to march across the page and into your hearts and minds. Then again I could just be talking a load of silk stockings, like I wear for 50 Shades of Michael.

All this started with me talking  about  my first job, now our worker has just returned home and I’ll ask her how her day went. I might help her celebrate by buying Dr.Pepper, she will be Dr.Casey in future after all.

Catching Up

Catching Up ©

By Michael Casey

I was up in the middle of the night again, I did have a few weeks without the need but last night or rather this morning I had to get up. I discovered an old piece on the computer, remember I have 1200 to 1400 stories in my back list, so if I’m too dazed by pain I may just pick an old story to keep you all interested, and then just post it.  I posted a piece in pain at 4am or so which was very funny but it’s from Easter 1998, so later on when I got up for a drink I decided to remove it. It had 20 views but I could not see any more details for some strange reason. So I had a drink and went back to bed. Then when I was fully rested I got up for breakfast and beta blocker, just so that my heart does not tic itself to my death. Remember too I wake every 2 hours, such is my life, but it’s better than being in a cold grave and pushing up the daisies.

After breakfast I wondered where the people from the story are now. I tracked one down on the internet and sent an email greeting, but would any of you want anything to do with the likes of me? Especially after 19 years.  We will see. I went shopping too and a little Pakistani lad was in the queue with his dad, I told the dad I was Santa and would be growing my beard for Christmas. I was dressed in red trousers and red coat, and I do have silver or white hair already. The dad laughed, later on as I walked down the road the child spotted me and told his dad it was Santa, so I told the dad conspiratorially not to tell his infant where I lived. Other than that  I’ve not really thought of Christmas, though Ocado send me an offer, so I filled or fridge with it. They are very nice people after all.

Which brings me to today’s tale. Catching Up, when you meet old friends or enemies and you shoot the breeze. With friends it’s all about how’s life and where are you working or living now. How are the kids and so on. You share a joke about that fat slob of a guy with the body odour you all used to work with. Then your friend’s face drops, I married him, she pulls back her coat to reveal her pregnant belly. I’m having his triplets. So how do you respond to that? Do you pretend not to have heard what she said? Or do you limply say Three must be your lucky number. To which she replies, it is, this is our third set or triplets. What can you say to that? I suppose he must work very hard at his job. He does, he invented a new kind of deodorant, must dash now, one of the servants is picking us up in one of our Rolls Royces. A red Silver Shadow stops and a uniformed chauffeur helps your friend into the Rolls Royce. You wave weakly. She gives you the finger, just as the Queen might do.  That’s the trouble with friends you never know where they might end up.

Me, if anybody sees me, they blank me, or pretend not to see me, or maybe that’s just my Priests. 17 hours in the confessional once, the Priest told me to go away and never come back, I was using reverse logic on him, it was very revealing. I have enough material for 3 books at least. But my lips are sealed. Do you doubt me, would I lie to you I am a writer or over 1.2 million Words  now? Liars make the best writers after all, or is it Imagination, you’ll have to ask your own priests.

But where was I, here explaining Catching Up. Now parents love their children but as children grow older they love their parents less. They are busy with their own lives now. But when you meet an old friend you lie and say how wonderful your kids are and how much they spoil you. They are forever sending Ocado to your door with food galore. Even if you haven’t spoken to them in a year. You pretend that you still have a relationship when really there is only mutual hatred. But they do still send you Christmas cards, so that is something. But to your friends you lie and lie and lie. You can’t lose face can you, and you are not even Chinese. You have to have a good memory if you lie a lot, so your tales of great children are more and more disjointed. Your friends know you are lying but some are kind and remind you of your own lies so you can get the story or rather the lie straight. Others are just evil bastards you should not talk to anyway but it is a spiral of your own making.

There is humour when you catch up too, like do they remember when you nearly fell in the canal, I rocked back on my chair laughing so Barry had grab the chair’s arm or I’d be Jacques Cousteau in a  Birmingham canal. We do have more canals than Venice you know, but not as nice. Steve said Barry only saved me because it was my round next, he’d have been pintless, so he saved me. I did tell you that the vicar Paul fell in with his bike once, it would have been a Baptism for him, but I digress.

If you have been reading Chapter One of The Butcher the Baker and the Undertaker on this site at the end there is a bit about a drunken man Patrick trying to chat up a girl, who claimed she was really a man. Well I wanted to add a hook to that chapter 10 years after I’d written it, and as the  real event happened on April Fools’ Day 1998, in fact just before I went on my Czech misadventure I think, but it was April’s Fools’ Day. Well it was me, as I cannot handle alcohol, I am that April Fool. If I can find the story I’ll post it. But take it from me the event really happened and is immortalised in my stupidity at the end of Chapter One of BBU. So you can imagine  people can laugh at me forever. But it does make the book funnier and hopefully gives chapter one a good ending which will make you all want to read more.  

So if people who know me from my computer room part of my life when we catch up that is always remembered, and if they forget I’ll tell them about it. Life is more than Catching Up, it’s about loving up. It’s about your mates down the pub, at work, in your band, in your football team, or in your chess club or even in your stamp collecting club. Whatever binds you together, will always be part of your collective memory. Like the time fat johnnie saved that girl from being mugged, by throwing a dustbin at the potential mugger. He was too fat to chase after him but he got his photo and the police did the rest. Everybody said he was stupid spending that kind of money on a phone. But it did the job, the girl’s dad turned out to be rich and gave fat johnnie a job when nobody else would.  Fat johnnie was so grateful he turned over a new leaf and became a body builder, he lost 4 stones or 30kilos. Last time I caught up somebody said he married the girl’s younger sister, his new phone is twice as expensive. And all because he threw a rubbish bin at a mugger. Yep Life is funny that way.

Cake for Beginners

Cake for Beginners ©

By Michael Casey

My small daughter has just come home from school with cake in a plastic tin, we used to used old biscuit tins now kids will use plastic containers, to bring home their burnt offerings. Things that would kill the gods and end their immortality stone dead. Luckily for us my small daughter is becoming a good cook, even if they use electric ovens at school. Ask any chef, fire is king, I remember when we had fire alarms at the hotel all the chefs would come out in their whites and curse the idiot smoking in a non -smoking area. The gas  is automatically cut of when the fire alarm sounds , so any false alarms delay dinner, which should be cooked with a flame called gas.

My mother used to make fairy cakes that came in a packet, mix the mixture with an egg thrown in and a splash of milk then you had fairy cakes. And yes, I was first in the queue. I remember being scared by a bull dog breaking through the old back fence and how I was consoled with a fairy cake. This would be maybe 55 years ago.

Sundays meant Madeira cake which was a slab of yellow stuff that we had with a pot of tea at maybe 6 o’clock a few hours after we’d had the Sunday dinner. Mum used to buy it on the Saturday with the hope we would not find it till she sliced it out the next day. I can also remember how if we did not devour it all then it started to taste funny days later, and either mum would eat it herself with butter spread on top or the birds had a feast.

Mum also used to bake an occasional soda bread which was solid and dense but tasted good with butter on. Or as a side order with bacon and mushrooms, though I seem to remember soda bread at its best was when I was in Kerry on holiday staying with my aunts. My uncle Patrick might walk through the fields and pick out a few mushrooms and that’d be part of the breakfast with bacon and sausages and tomatoes. My aunty Bridie was great, as was Delia too and no I not forgetting all the cousins, but it is a Clan so I cannot mention  everybody.

Delia would drive me or me and my dad or me and anybody all over Kerry as we visited the Clan. Tea and cake at every place, you could but on a stone in 2 weeks and I did. The Irish by the way drink more tea than the English, trust me I know. Delia was a great chef too, in fact she even worked as a chef in the hospital amongst her many many talents. Love and Laughter being her greatest. Though she did play a trick on me. I was accused of not sharing a Christmas cake she had once sent back over to Birmingham. It was a very nice cake, I could not possibly condemn myself, all I’ll say is I don’t remember IF I did share it.

 So when Delia heard the story she hid the next cake somewhere where I could not find it, maybe in my own suitcase. All I do know is that when me and my sister got back to Birmingham my sister magically produced a cake, a cake made by Delia our aunty.

Now the generations move on and my daughter is fast becoming a great cake maker, though I doubt if she will be as big as my 17.5 stone aunty. We are also spoilt because we have a Polish store nearby which means we eat their cake too. As we don’t know any Polish we pick by the picture on the wrapper and leads to many interesting experiences. Though 9/10 times it’s good. Different people like their cake differently, so sugar levels differ dramatically. Polish pop comes in 2.25 litre bottles too and they only charge 1.49 which is a bargain.  So you can have your Polish cake and eat it washed down with fizzy pop. I haven’t been brave enough try Polish beer, maybe for Christmas when I allow myself a few beers. Remember heart meds don’t mix with any alcohol.

It’s nearly time for tea, or coffee in my case, I will be sampling my daughter’s new cake, freshly baked from school today. Then I would watch the Great British Bake Off but that has finished, so I’ll watch Star Trek instead. Do you think Captain Kirk and Spock make fairy cakes together, as they boldly go where no man or iceing sugar has done before.

Homework Then and Homework Now

Homework Then and Homework Now ©

By Michael Casey

Taylor Swift is singing behind me, our family study gets pretty crowded now that I share the front room with my daughter doing her A levels.  My daughter brings all sort of people with her, yesterday it was the Black Eyed Peas, who knows who it will be next. Thankfully it’s only their voice that fills room not their gyrating   bodies or their disco balls. There is only enough space for one set of balls in the house after all.

A nice beat is nice as you do your homework, or a gentle piano piece, anything that helps as background music. They say that certain music stimulates the brain and helps study. Though I’m sure parents will disagree and say it just drives everybody nuts. I can remember my mother banging on the front room door screaming for my brother to turn the volume down as Mr Dixon was on night shift. My brother was listening to Cream music on a reel to reel tape recorder via a Toblerone   shaped  speaker. I still have that speaker in a corner of our living room. It has survived 50 years. My brother did get into Queens Oxford, my other brother inherited the speaker and he was a Freshman in 1975 at Downing Cambridge. You can check it out if you don’t believe me. Me, I just met Eric Clapton at CPNEC Birmingham at the  start of this Millennium.

I used to listen to a large Bush radio while I did my homework, Folkweave used to be good and BBC Radio4 and other shows. The radio was my company and support as I was all alone as my brother had left home, to be a coal miner in Newbold Vernon, he may have invented the Gap Year in 1974.

The radio, or a voice from a radio fills a void and you are not alone while you do your homework. Do 40 mins of Latin is not as arduous if you have the radio for company. So 40years ago I heard the repeats of great comedy shows while I did some homework. That extended my Comic Reach a few more decades backwards. While I struggled with the Ablative Absolute that only Boris and Jacob would find easy, 40 mins really was 90 mins. Why, because it was so hard you had to spend that long just so you had done a respectable amount for Mr Proctor our Latin teacher to mark. I even had Double Latin on a Friday afternoon, so I have suffered. So I know how important music while you work really is.

My girls litter the house with their books as they do homework, and they plug earphones into their ears as they study this and that. However this year my big daughter did her GCSEs, which everybody takes at 16 here in England. She got good grades and goes to a good school, the same one her  clever cousins went to.  She is now studying her A levels, Maths, Biology, Chemistry and Philosophy. So when she decided she wanted better food in exchange for better pass grades I abandoned our regular supermarket 5 months ago, to feed her better quality food. She does eat rice with everything on the Chinese side of her diet, remember she is a Birmingham/Shanghai girl. But we all enjoy the improved diet, wholemeal bread all the time is a great new favourite for me too.   

Now we share my “study” ok it’s just the front room where my computer lives on a horrid metal trolley thing. I promise myself one day when you all buy my books on Amazon

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

then I’ll have a nice house and a desk like Charles Dickens’ one, you can google to see a picture of his study. Yes I know I’ll probably be dead before such a thing happens, but I like  to dream. On the practical side I had to throw out a settee and make way for a table for my daughter to work at. Sprawling around the house is not an option at this level of study. Her younger sister steals it to do her school work on now too, as it’s a power thing, a proper study desk. It is twice the size of my computer trolley.

I can even remember when we went as a family looking for a homework table for another brother when he passed the 11 plus exam, now that must be 50 years ago. Well the table worked he did get to Cambridge. It was a drop leaf table with a wooden curved back chair with a red seat that I think could come out. I’m can clearly remember looking through the plate glass of the shop window and dad and mum and us kids talking about would the chair and table be good enough for my brother. It may have been a Sunday too as the furniture shop was closed, it may have even been in the city centre. Thinking of all this it is little wonder that I’ve ended up as a writer, undiscovered and penniless, will one of you just print this off and leave it in Rupert Murdoch’s loo, then I may finally have the Dickens Desk and a house to put it in.

That was 888 words, which may be lucky if I were Chinese, so it’s nearly time to finish and head for bed . My daughter has finished for the evening and all is quiet she has half tidied up her desk. It does annoy me the clutter the girls leave behind, as I keep this room tidy always. But now it’s like having the Odd Couple share my space with me, but as I face the opposite way to them , I only get annoyed when I turn around. They have introduced me to some good music that they play as they study and I follow a few things on Spotify now. My 100 CD collection is stuck in the 1980s and 1990s as I don’t buy any new ones, so Spotify is good as it expands my mind musically.

All in all I am like my dad, buying a table so my kids can study, just as he did, even though they do have a big one in their bedroom already. It’s the drop leaf table I used when I first started writing decades ago.  But now my girls think studying in a bedroom is so passe. A study is what they want, just so long as they don’t want me to die out the way so they can have more study room.  

Locks and Keys

Locks and Keys ©

By Michael Casey

I was wondering what to talk about tonight, I’d been busy watching Stranger Things on tv with my daughter, so I’d been enjoying that as we watched  our cat Totoro stretched out on the sofa. I mention Totoro as in Stranger Things the cat as eaten by a monster, so keep a tight hold of your cat if you watch the show. I’ve just  helped out with a bit of homework too and now I’ve sat down and its 9.40pm as  I look up at the clock, I just decided to talk about locks and keys as I looked around the room and was wondering what to talk about, and I looked at the door. So that’s how logically illogical I am in my choice of talk material.

In Stranger Things tonight there was a couple who hid their feeling from each other, it was only when they were talking to an investigative journalist that the allowed the barriers to fall down. Russian Vodka did part too. Tonight in the news we hear about a mother who is under lock and key in Iran. All I ask and pray is that she can come home with her baby to her family here in England. But I doubt if I have any readers in Iran, but I do know God is Good, so I’ll leave it to him.

I’ve just reminded myself of a piece in the Bible when Saint Paul was in jail and the Angles came and walked him out of his jail, and he walked past all the Roman guards till he was in the street and free. In the background behind me I can hear Where is the Love by the Black Eyed Peas, when we are locked up we all wonder where is the love, we feel we are all alone. Love has lost us, or rather our heart is locked, our heart is frozen. Love unlocks our hearts and minds. Example opens our minds and our hearts, example is the greatest Key of all. It’s been my dad’s birthday this weekend, and I’ve been thinking about him, he’d be 96 if he were still alive. I try and have as big a heart as his. He is the standard.

In actual fact he made me lock up our house every night including the entry gate we had, my brother used to call it the ceremony of the keys. So I supposed my ardour for locking up stems back to that over 45 years ago maybe. Keys jangle and clatter and bolts and bars slide into position. When I was 19 I had the keys to a building in Birmingham City Centre, if you know Superfi on Smallbrook Queensway I used to work above it in the office. We even had a remote control for the metal shutters on the steps of the building, we used to shoo the drunks and the night-clubbers away so we could get into work for the night shift. Then we had to go up the spiral stairs and unlock the shutters on that too, before reaching our floor and door and yet more locks, and finally the lock to the computer room door. Four locks before we got to work, foreplay would have been more fun but that’s another story.

Life is about locks too.  As we grow we learn things and unlock things in our hearts and mind. Education is another key that breaks down barriers, reminds us that we need each other and work better as a team. It should also teach us that the more we know the more we realise just how little we really know. Though some people are smartarses and really smart arses know less that nothing, except how to spread manure as donkeys do.

So teachers, and by teachers I start with mothers as they are our first teachers, they unlock our potential with love. My mother taught me to read by teaching me from the local newspaper, from the cartoons I seem to remember. I hope she is happy now that I am a writer, 1,200,000 words now. 14 books on Amazon Kindle, though it seems only Poland loves my stories, the rest of the world just like them. I have yet to find the Key from being an Undiscovered Writer to being one that is read and bought. Being  read is better than nothing, maybe when I die my daughters can have the royalties, penniless in death, rich afterwards.

The greatest thing you can be is a Key, you open minds, you open imagination. You help people realise their potential. My mother said You Are As Good As Anybody, and she is right, we all are equal. Its opportunity which helps, its keys that help. Water, Health and Education these are the keys to a good society. We may bitch in Birmingham about stuff but we have the fundamentals. If you live somewhere where you don’t have those keys, then you should change your society.

North Korea springs to mind, just Google earth and see the lack of roads in the north compared to the South. Nuclear weapons hidden in the Metro system because the West cannot reach there and they don’t care about their own people. That’s why it may just be that only a female revolution in North Korea topples the Dear Leader.

I’ve digressed but I know the best medicine comes from the nipple from all our mothers.  Mothers teach us love, they teach us right and wrong, they teach us patience, they look after the sick and broken in our families or as nurses it’s the females, the best gender which does the most caring. I suppose as its Sunday I’ve ended up with a Sermon. The Key is Love, and yes it’s very complicated, I have my own scars too. But the Key to life is love, and family and as my mum used to say the Family that Prays Together Stays together. So if I do have just one reader in Iran Please put this family back together again. Because God is Good, and my mother taught me that.

Casting Like a Fisherman

Casting Like a Fisherman ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve been having a quiet morning after my early start for the doctor’s and I’ve looked at the newspapers and it’s still early, 12.30pm so I can talk to you before I have some dinner. I was wondering what to talk about today, I’d posted something to keep you all going while I was looking at the newspapers, Writer’s Block  a piece from 2013, so I was relaxed but undecided about today’s chat.  I was casting my mind, a key word is all I need then away I go and an hour later I have finished something new. So Casting came to mind.

I used to work with a guy who was a fisherman, or angler, they catch then return the fish, which my dad would say was stupid, you should eat your catch. If you’ve noticed the old stone building that accompanies some stories, that really was where my mum was born in 1920s and lived with 8 other siblings till she was 12 and the new house was built. If you spit from there then you have the sea, the Cromane Lower peninsula opposite Inch and Dingle where Ryan’s Daughter was filmed. The building has since been rearranged  by my 1^st cousin’s son, the stones are part of his improved house with the windows now overlooking the sea.  So if you google earth you won’t see it. But you could find my cousin with the information given.

As you can imagine the sea plays a big part of life in Cromane Lower, my uncle used to have a boat and caught a few fish too, as well as having 4 cows and growing a few things. They had peat bog too, and this is a welcoming smell when burnt on the fire. The old house had become the cow shed for 4 cows, and I bumpt my head on the cow shed door because I gave up sugar in my coffee between 2 Christmas visits in 1977 and 1978. I grew 2 inches taller just by not having sugar in my coffee. Is that 40 years now, where did the years go?

Fishing is an important thing in the Kerry life and worldwide where fish and people meet. Angling is a rich person’s sport by comparison. I never understood it at all until my former boss explained it to me. By the way it’s a Pole not a Rod, if you hear rod then they are micky mouse anglers, fishermen. It’s a Pole. A carbon fibre pole can set you back 1000 pounds yes that much. It screws into each other and can reach 20 metres though it could be even more. One night in one of my computer rooms an angler brought in his pole and it stretched out half the length of our computer room. You would not believe it till you saw it.

I’ve just had a quick bite to eat, did you notice the flow of word change? Anglers have to have good eyes to spot their prey, and to be quick to chances. My old boss, Andy was his name, was a carp fisherman if I remember rightly. Now Carp Hunters are a breed apart, it’s like child with a bamboo rod and a hairnet on the end v a man and his carbon fibre pole. The carp is very clever and can grow very big, the fisherman is hunting it, like hunting for Red October. It’s a game of chess, not ludo or snap, yes a game of chess. 

Andy described all this to me over 20 years ago, he has since moved on as have I. If Andy knew I’d written nearly 1,200,000 words now over 14 books he’d be amazed. We bumped into each other 15 years ago when I was working at a hotel. Now Andy works at the GBBO, the Great British Bake Off, he looks the image of Paul Hollywood the baker, not unless he has really changed his life path, as I have.

Back to Casting, as I said I just cast my eyes over the fridge and had a snack with Cranberry Juice, which is supposed to be good for you. I think a surgeon told one of us this once. Now where was I? Yes casting takes many forms, you have to throw your bread on the water. If you say you cannot do something then you are already defeating yourself. Give it a try. Faint Heart Never Wins the Belle. What’s the worst thing that can happen? Laughter but  is it harsher than a slap in the face or a punch on the nose? Always try things, a new job, a new dress, especially if you have legs as good as mine. Don’t be afraid to try something new.

I tried hotel work, and I ended up the best person there. Then I had never taught before in my life but I just stood up and did it. I got 2 excellents and an exemplary for my teaching on my external assessment  for  Esol. I knew I could do it because I had previously spent 3 years in the hotel CPNEC, talking to maybe 100,000 people. I’d also had my writing experience. I am the lowest common denominator, If I can do it then anybody can. Give yourself confidence by practice, you do 15 mins a day, but every single day then after a few months you are polished. In my case I improved my Spanish just by using that method over 20 years ago now. So after 40 years since the exam I still cn string a sentence together.  So try that method for yourself, 15 mins a day but every single day. But you must read/speak aloud.

Now it’s getting close to finish time for today. Ok, I just need to eat again and I can see 1000words approaching so I’ll give you all a rest. My point for today is, cast your nets wide, don’t be afraid of failure, your family will always love you, yes they may laugh at your mistakes. But if you don’t try you don’t know. Ask that girl out, ask that boy out even if you think he’s too young for you.  Don’t live in such fear that you are always stuck on the side lines, get off the bench and join in. Though if you are a writer you are always partially on the side lines watching not part of it. Cast your nets even when you are tired and worn out, never give up, never give in. Didn’t somebody once say cast your nets again, trust yourself and then your nets will be full to breaking point. But you must keep on casting, listen to Him or listen to Doreen, but always try.