Teaching You All That I Know

Teaching You All That I Know ©

        By

Michael Casey

Well first of all, I don’t know how to use Word, my copy seems to have gone funny, but I don’t exactly know how to fix it. So while you mock me I’ll teach you all that I know. It’ll take an hour maybe to write this, and 5 mins for you to read it. Though as I always say, I talk I don’t write, that’s why there is spit on the paper or rather the screen. So gather your friends around and then you can skip all those classes and get to my level, of stupidity. Yes I know what my level is, and Education does not stop when you leave school, even if it is Medical school, and yes I can hear the card at the back of the class say I’m a specimen.

Yes,  I’m a self-taught writer, I’ll even go as far as to say it cannot be taught, not unless you are an American and you want to waste 4 years, and then are exactly the same as the other 200 Liberal Arts students, who just cannot write. See I’ve butchered you all before I even start. If you’ve Googled me, I did spend 20 years Listening to BBC Radio 4, the best speech radio station in the world. And this was before I picked up a pen, I did read by the yard too, and watch films galore. Being in a large family with lodgers making it larger too, helped the process. Environment does motive and makes you remember, not unless you are a  dullard, if I quote Kim who runs the Korean takeaway,  it’s his cousin Ku,  who guards President Biden now by the way. Then it still took me a year to learn  how to do it. I knew I was good enough when my 1988 play Shoplife was accepted for the stage, and yes it wasn’t finally produced. Would you invest £2,000,000 in today’s money in a new piece, or a Standard? So I’ve been writing for over 33 years now.

Which brings me to the first thing to “teach” you. The Five Ps as presenters call them. Practice Prevents Piss Poor Performance. As simple and as easy as that. I was sent on a Presenting course just before Easter 1998. It took 2 days and my company paid, to help prepare me for the future, being made redundant. Here’s all I learnt. Just empty your pockets on a table. Then speak for 1 minute on whatever you pick up first. Simple easy. Now if you have a few friends around  to mock you, and try it for themselves that is called a learning situation. Take turns, pick a different object and gieve it a try. You then expand to 2 minutes talk on whatever object has been removed from your pocket or anybody else’s pocket. Repeat with a lunch break and beer.Then 5 mins talk, you’ll give 15 minutes sniggering time to prepare.

The next day I had to talk for 15mins, which was optimum time if you remember what JFK was supposed to have said. Anything should be explainable in 15 mins. Ok, so you all get it? Me, when it was my 15 minutes of fame, I had everybody laughing, I did want to learn for comic reasons after all.  I told everybody about my Paris misadventure, which involved food poisoning, and avec vous des asparin de bas prix, and I ended up with asparin tampone, which means in a tube, but my French was not up to it, so I was expection string.

So I had mastered Speaking, Presenting, Teaching. To prove it I then went on holiday to Pilsner Czech the home of lager. There I presented for 90 mins off the cuff, to 20 English students. So the training worked. When I got back to StatsMR I wrote it all up as my Czech Story, and the whole company realised Michael can Write. So there you go, as Jon the Hippy would say. By the way StatsMR did Market Research into alcohol sales, and I was born in the shadow of a brewery.

Later in my life I spent 3 years at Crown Plaza Nec a 4 star deluxe business hotel, I nuts have had 100,000 min conversations. So I polished my speaking skills and making people laugh, or stand up skills. Later still in my life I was an Esol English Teacher in an Islamic School. Did I mention Excellent, Excellent and Exemplary on my external assessment. So there you go. But the thing is if I can do it then so can you.

Now I’m going to teach you Logic next. Ok, if you are in a big family what is it like? Overwhelming? We let my small sister push Jean the cat out the way and eat kittycat. We opened the corner cupboard where  the jumpers lived and put every single on her. She could put her arms down as she had too many jumpers on, she was 6 of 6 after all. She was bright red with10 jumpers on when mum came home from shopping and told us off. You’ll kill the child she screamed in her Kerry accent, though we could only hear it on the phone, that’s 20 years later when we actually had a phone. Though  this misadventure did not stop us from folding the sister up and putting on a shelf in a wardrobe and clicking close the door, and struggling to open the door up again. I did something similar to Neil at work maybe 30 years later, the temptation was just too much, if I hide here then jump out. So I locked him in.

I’ve digressed but I’ve just taught you that if you REMEMBER then you have material for stories later on, maybe nearly 60 years later on. It just depends do you have a memory, or have you tried to blot out everything. I seem to have total recall for stories, anything that does not interest me justy won’t go in. Otherwise with my 42 years exposure to computers I should have been more than I was. So shall I finally give you that  nougat  or is it nugget, whichever is more palatable, this is all you need to know, save that £40,000 in University fees, and start a business instead.

Here it is, the 5 Ws Who What Where When Why. If you apply that to every situation, then you’ll be a Detective, or you’ve grown up in a big family, with your eyes wide open. If you take me, Michael Casey as an example, ok a very  battered ,cheap and tacky, left  over from the pound store example. Then you can ask Who is Michael Casey, What is Michael Casey, Where is Michael Casey, When is Michael Casey, and Why is Michael Casey. You have just Spocked me, and everything is revealed, a bit like opening a  box of chocolates, or undressing me, either to whip me, or to cover me in ice cream and lick it off, prior to breeding with me.

Ok, did you just puke, just put your head between your legs and breath deeply, was that a shock? Have you screamed and  locked yourself in the bathroom. Or are you laughing, and do you want to know me, but not biblically? I hope you are laughing, Michael Casey the fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham, is how you Google me,  or Blacklist me. If you use the tools the 5Ps and the 5Ws, that will make your life a box of chocolates. Or maybe you want to undress me, please don’t whip me, not unless it’s whipped cream ice cream.