Taking your Mind off Things

Taking your Mind off Things ©

By Michael Casey

As you all know me and George are in the same sewing circle, that’s me and George Clooney. He has my best thimble in his pocket, it’s his lucky charm, if you look carefully, you’ll see him use it in the next gangster film he’s in.  A sequel called, Ocean’s 26, and you thought he was sleeping with the fishes, no he’s having a whale of a time, he’s a bit of a marine biologist, and that’s a metaphor. In the Ocean he uses the thimble, to count all the stolen money with, as the electronic money counter is bust. Which sets up a sequence where he counts $100K ever so fast, rather like Spike Milligan as the postman beating the sorting machine, though I doubt any of you will know that film, Ocean’s 26 I’m talking about, everybody knows Spike Milligan, you ask his butler Prince, or Charlie as everybody calls him down the Windsor pub.

But, where was I, now that I’ve warmed up the toilet seat for you, it’s a specialist occupation, I began when Carry on at Screaming was filmed, but that’s History. Yes, I remember now, Taking your Mind of Things, I’ve inserted the title again, just so you won’t forget it, repetition aids memory, you ask any kids beaten by the teacher in the 1960s for not know their times tables. My own buttocks quiver every time I’m doing multiplication, or maybe that’s another metaphor, but I am very good at multiplication, maybe it’s my alluring Clooney like looks, Ok I really look like Hew Edwards the news reader, though I look far far younger. So, what has all this got to do with the price of lettuce? If you are not paying attention I’ll slap the back of your legs with a wet lettuce, and I may leave the snail on, and you never know where it will slither to.

Ok, the theme today is taking your mind off things, so can you remember what you were doing a few minutes ago? Have I distracted you, or am I so bad you have lost the will to live? I can hear all the heckles, and an echo from the past also just hit me, that’s the trouble with words they bring memories too, I’ve just awakened a ghost.

But I want to share something today. If you have a busy busy life, then mundane things, such as my writing, I’ll get in the jibe first, do relax. Mental chewing gum, or mental chocolate, does help to relax, then you can go back to your important job refreshed and relaxed. I was fiddling the other day, repairing my Rosary beads to be exact, first repaired with a ring of steel, a circle you have your keys on. Then I found some old plastic covered wire that I bent into shape, to relink my prayers. This repair was better, and is almost unseen, as prayers should be. Enough philosophy.

The point is though that occupational therapy as some might call it, does work, it distracts, so your mind has a rest from one thing, as you are absorbed by another. I suppose that’s what Play Time was originally invented for, make the kids run and jump about while the teachers have a coffee and cake. Mothers used to bribe teachers in the old days. Ted Heath the former British PM was a sailor, when you are in a force 10 in the Irish Sea, you’re not wasting your time on who is stabbing you in the back in Parliament. Your mind, heart and soul is dancing with the waves, Politics is forgotten.

I could give you more examples, but you have your own. You know Jack who is a reporter, but works in the soup kitchen on his day off, just to remind him to be humble, as his mother used to remind him, he’d never be as famous as Bob Hope. Bob Hope was the local rat catcher, who lived with Dorothy Lamore the girl with the big big smile. So, things distract us, we have our guilty pleasures, such as watching Kdramas with the sound so high, that flocks of geese take a detour. Anything that is a distraction is good, because we are not machines, we have to switch off and rest. We need oiling and resting, like a machine being serviced so that it can perform even better. Though oiling and resting does sound suspiciously like another metaphor.

I hope I’ve taken your mind off things, so you can get back to what you were doing before, and if you’re mind has gone a blank then I’ve really proved my point, yet another metaphor maybe. Because you are rested, and this writer has earnt his pay. Nothing.

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