WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Alasdair Gray, writer and artist
SYMPHONIC Alasdair Gray’s ceiling at Oran Mor
[Mark Wild] 
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 TERMS “polymath” and “visionary” may be overused but they’re entirely appropriate to Alasdair Gray, the novelist, playwright, poet, polemicist, painter, scholar and translator who has died aged 85.
Glasgow, Gray’s birthplace and home, hosts several of his public murals. The playful and beautiful celestial ceiling of the Oran Mor arts and theatre bar is a visual symphony in shades of blue, mixing symbols from astrology, mythology, science and natural history.
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