WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Deep state of anxiety
Richard Norton-Taylor's book on the secret intelligence services raises worrying questions about their intentions and fitness for purpose, says JOE GILL
PROTECTING THEIR OWN: Armed guard outside Parliament following the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing by Salman Abedi, previously assisted by the security services
[Katie Chan/Creative Commons] 
JAMES CROSSLEY applauds a lucid biography of the German radical preacher who reemerged as a hero in the GDR
Prizes all round: the Bard hands plaudits to the Miners Gala, OT&JC, Joe Solo, Black Sabbath’s frontman and the Lionesses
Star cartoonist JAMIE BRITTON is in awe of a graphic novel of epic proportions that explores class, religion and globalisation via the strange cultivation of Ginseng in the US Midwest
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
The State of Secrecy: Spies and the Media in Britain
by Richard Norton-Taylor
(IB Tauris, £20)
IN 1985 my late father Ken Gill had a meeting with Cathy Massiter, a whistleblower from GCHQ, Britain’s eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham.
As he told me afterwards, Massiter recited a personal conversation between him and his sister that, word for word, took place at our home. It was entirely mundane and proof of the fact that our house had been bugged by the security services and that GCHQ was listening in.
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