When I started this blog on the 23^rd February, 2015, my first post was a self-introduction and then a justification for the uninspiring name of the site, mikeandenglish.

It was a genuine explanation but I have tired of the title’s literalness and so have today changed to something quite different, gravyfromthegazebo.

I understand this would seem to indulge in the cleverclogness I nobly eschewed then, but I actually wanted words more reflective of the site’s increasing move to poetry and other creative writing/images. So I have.

The ‘gravy’ refers to Ray Carver and his poem by that title and the many references to this as an expression of personal joy: his simple pure gravy. I’ve always liked Carver as a writer and wouldn’t say I tried to emulate his style as a writer myself though I have been influenced by it. Those aware of my often lengthy and convoluted prose would say the influence has been scant.

The ‘gazebo’ refers to the one poem of mine directly influenced by a Ray Carver short story – yes, Gazebo – and of all my poems it is one I have always liked for what it says about writing and, I hope, saying so a little bit like Ray might have done.

If I haven’t already posted it on this site I will later.

I am reassured by WordPress that changing this domain name through them means all searches through the previous will be redirected here. We shall see. I also changed so that those of you accessing will no longer see advertising when doing so. It seemed about time to get this altered.

If it works, the image headers for this site will randomly change across the few I have so far uploaded.

So pleased to have three of my found prose poems here today. Thank you Malcolm.

Jimi Hendrix’s 1968 Electric Ladyland iconic/infamous album cover has been ‘referenced’ 51 years later by Icelandic vocalist Kristin Anna with her album I Must Be the Devil.

I’m sure mock-ups and spoofs have been created in the intervening years, but this might well be the first release in that time which directly and purposefully switches the gender profile.

Ford Consul Capri, around 1961/62. The original Classic was made “suitable for the golf club car park” when this was considered aspirational, I guess. The ‘Capri Project’ was code-named Sunbird – the mystique of cool motoring.

Never a Mustang, but remember Schumacher…

Gary Boswell, poet/writer, edited the two poetry anthologies The Bees Knees and The Bees Sneeze for Stride in the early ’90s.

I knew Gary at the time from his reading and poetry workshops I arranged at my school in Devon after the first publication, along with other writers from that book, including then Stride publisher and poet Rupert Loydell, and also my getting three poems in the second of these two wonderful anthologies for younger readers.

I also met Gary many years ago, quite by accident, in the Ulverston, Cumbria, carpark. He or I should have written a poem about that. I don’t know for sure, but I think he still lives in the area – possibly now Grange-over-Sands – and I know he has written for local papers like The Westmorland Gazette, and elsewhere on his other great love, betting, linked to sports like non-league football, women’s grand slam tennis, UK National Hunt Horse Racing and US flat track horse racing.

There is a lay-by mobile cafe on the A590 between Grange-over-Sands and Kendal, seemingly no longer is use, and as Gary would appear to have or have had a range of jobs, whenever I passed it recently on a visit again to Ulverston, I naturally wondered if this was his:

Perhaps I’ll write a poem about this one day…