WILL STONE fact-checks the colourful life of Ozzy Osbourne
Requiem for free musical movement
At 11pm on December 31, an important part of my life in the form I choose to live it came to an end
Hamburg's FC St Pauli fans unfurl a banner in solidarity with Attila the Stockbroker
[St Pauli FC] 
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
BEFORE 1992 and open borders I always toured mainland Europe solo as a poet and acoustic performer, although I had long thought of forming a band to play my songs.
My experiences crossing borders with other bands — the ludicrous, petty nonsense to which we were subjected for no good reason whatsoever, simply because we were punk musicians — meant that I stuck to my solo poems and songs and the minimal, though constant, nonsense I experienced travelling alone with a hand-held mandola and a rucksack full of merch.
The irony about border checks is that I have never taken illegal drugs. I have never smoked and hate pills and injections. I prefer beer.
More from this author
Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Given the global plague of Agent Orange, the bard channels his energy into community self-help
In which we accompany the Bard into Cymru to meet his musical accomplices, young and old
The bard ditches an unspecial relationship, encounters a new subdivision of metal, and discovers the cure for a stiff neck
