WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Distant socialising
Among other things, writer JAN WOOLF reflects on statistics as an anaesthetic, disinfectant as the only Covid joke in town and how 'normal' has become a contentious word
CHANNELLING VERA LYNN: The Rolling Stones
[Jim Pietryga/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
IDEALLY THIS POSTER WOULD SHOW YOU THE WAY — spotted on London Underground before lockdown. An image that says it all. Well, if not all, quite a lot in an ideal world.
Much of the news this week has been delivered through the anaesthetising mutations of statistics, as if in lockdown we can do the rapid calculations required to know if we, or those close to us, are at risk.
Have you ever met anyone who is statistically suffering? Or is comforted by a set of figures?
More from this author
JAN WOOLF finds out where she came from and where she’s going amid Pete Townshend’s tribute to 1970s youth culture
JAN WOOLF applauds the necessarily subversive character of the Palestinian poster in Britain
This is poetry in paint, spectacular but never spectacle for its own sake, writes JAN WOOLF
JAN WOOLF relishes a book of poetry that deploys the energy of political struggle, rooted in post-war working class history and culture
