TALES FROM THE UNIVERSE No 3 - This week's newsletter features: Jamie Carragher, Pep Guardiola, Jack Johnson, 'who owns language', It is all art baby, an exclusive poem, and more...

Yarns, gossip

Welcome (and find here nearly 7,000 stories by me, dating back to 2002, for The Guardian and Observer)

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1. Part 4 of BECAUSE THEY CAN PLAY F’CKING GOOD FOOTBALL is coming:

cover: Paradisio Publishing

On Wednesday the next part of my new Erik ten Hag book is published - as usual a sample of this is readable for free, the rest for subscribers at £4.99 a-month, the story coming in weekly chapters.

In part 4…

‘HUCKSTERS R US’

‘Erik lunches with the media’

‘Alejandro Garnacho and the zephyr of Fulham’

And copious more plot in the tale of Ten Hag’s first term as Manchester United manager.

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2. Tune

Jazz is looking at the stars and wondering at the time.

Christmas in the heart

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3. It is all art, baby

the sound of dawn

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4. Poem: down from the prairies

pic: paradisio publishing

down from the prairies

we came down from the hills
the prairies
the tiny village 

hit the sprawling metropolis; 
to play Stockport Lacrosse Club: 
we raided them - at halftime, 7-2,

we roved their turf
sacked and pillaged: 
it was glorious;

then, they roared back,
as spring sung,
the skies cleared

leaving the stars watching on
beyond the white:
7-3, 7-4, 7-5, 7-6, 7-7; BUT THEN

7-8, we fell behind; BUT THEN we drew level
8-8; NOW: in the mud and cold
we scored, SURELY the winner: 9-8!!!; 

the boys cock a-hoop, clock running
down. but no: the final seconds and 9-9, 
and, almost, LAST moment, 9-10; 

Stockport’s fans - their boys’ folks - whooped whooped
WHOOPED!!! and the whistle went; 
our boys fell to the grass, sticks got thrown;

IT WAS: heartbreak and the glow of 
adventure on the return to the 
village; back to our prairies.

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5. Rumination

know yourself; know people

And:

who owns language: you do and no other item…

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6. Man City WARES:

Pep Guardiola in the Champions League: after the 7-0 over Leipzig is he is good enough to finally lead Manchester City to it ? Or will he, yet again, trip himself up…??

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7. Man Utd WARES:

No Casemiro: a harsh red versus Southampton means 4 domestic games out - with Christian Eriksen a long-term absentee, this further shows how Erik ten Hag needs a Declan Rice, Frenkie de Jong, etcetera this summer. Man Utd were good today in a harum-scarum, 3 red card game, for sure.

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8. Book Club

The Big Smoke - Adrian Matejka

The Big Smoke: about Jack Johnson, a son of former slaves and the first black world heavyweight champion (1907-15): read this baby and fly into a life that feints and punches to its own percussive rhythm.

P. S. Sylvester Stallone, in 2018, helped get JJ a posthumous pardon from a president named Donnie Trump, who said of the charge it was “a racially motivated injustice”.