Peter Falk gained his wings this weekend. He was born September 16, 1927 in New York. What a superb actor. Sun in Virgo (craft/a working class hero), Moon (probably) in Gemini (that twinkle in the one good eye). His Uranus Return is right in the middle of the current cardinal afray; Uranus [...]

Venus Williams (17 June 1980) born with the Sun kissing Venus, sextiling the charismatic Moon-North Node conjunction in Leo (left. Neptune is in sporty Sagittarius directly opposite that Venus – again giving her star quality. With Pluto rising, she must have been her own worst enemy [...]

Ix Ah Wimbledon – pock, pock goes the little ball, ahh sighs the crowd, grunt grunts the player, “out” shouts the linesman. The rain, the strawberries, the tedious interviews (“yeah, I like played tennis, you know”) , the lovely game of tennis. In the midst of [...]

The island of Santorini “In tempi come questi, la fuga è l’unico mezzo che rimane per mantenersi vìvi e continuare a sognare. In times like these, escape is the only way to stay alive and continue dreaming.” The Italian film Mediterraneo (1991), begins with this quotation from the [...]

Nobel prize laureate and heroine of the Burmese opposition Aung San Suu Kyi celebrated her birthday this weekend. She was born on June 19, 1945. I wrote this piece about Aung San Suu Kyi back in November. And this piece about the ugly Burmese regime’s use of astrologers.

The establishment’s darling Damien Hirst The king of contemporary art in Britain is Damien Hirst, who morphed from enfant terrible to the richest artist who has ever lived in a matter of a decade or so. Despite his repeated efforts to shock the bourgeoisie, Hirst has been clasped [...]

This morning tanks rolled into a small village in northern Syria and started shooting at villagers randomly. How can a government turn its guns on its own people?  Modern Syria is an invention of 20th century mapmakers and politicians. The political boundaries of  the country may be firmly [...]

The Queen’s trip to Ireland this week shifted Anglo-Irish relations a lot closer to normal. The relationship between Britain and Ireland has often been like a bad marriage: with Britain in the role of abusive husband. He loves her and he hits her. He can’t understand it when she [...]

Bollywood produces beauties by the bucketload. If you’re a leading lady in Indian popular cinema, there’s a look you ought to have – long smooth hair, pale skin, almond eyes. It goes without saying really, that your sexual charisma needs to be pretty volcanic. Since all the other [...]

“That old black ram is tupping your white ewe.” Othello strangles Desdemona  from Othello Othello rose to the highest public office; he fell because of a fatal flaw, a personality defect so big that it opened its mouth and swallowed him. Right now we are witnessing a tragedy. [...]

Medusa, the snake-haired gorgon, turned men to stone just by looking at them. Some say she was enraged by her violation by the sea god. The only person to escape her fatal gaze was the hero Perseus, who used her reflection in his shield to aim the blow that cut off her head, which he […]

Here are previous posts I’ve written on the Royal Wedding, which you might like to peruse before the day itself.Celebrating PowerA general look at the day itself.Juno Lends a Helping HandThe marriage asteroid is deeply involved.The Bling of PowerThat ring.Kate Middleton’s Birth [...]

Last summer, I predicted a royal wedding this year. That was partly on the basis of how alarmingly these times in Great Britain resemble that watershed year 1981 – brutal financial restrictions from the government, blood on the streets, looming unemployment and an uneasy Liberal coalition [...]

“Some people say little girls should be seen and not heard, but I say, Oh bondage, up yours!” Thank you Poly Styrene, for giving me something to shout as I drive up to the school gates to pick up my little girls. The pioneer of feminist punk died today at the age of 53. If […]

Liz Taylor had glamour. Right up to the end she sparkled with magical, movie star enchantment. Neptune sprinkled her with stardust, but cursed her as well – with boozers, with losers, with no boundaries. She was such a Pisces. Look at those famous violet eyes. I’ll let you draw your own [...]

One of Hiroshige’s Views of Mount Fuji As a wedding gift, the dragon-king of the sea gave his human son-in-law two jewels – kanju and manju. He wanted to ensure the future prosperity of his semi-divine descendants. Those jewels were not just decorative though. They had wonderful [...]

Godzilla emerged from the depths of the ocean back in 1954, and trashed Tokyo. He may have been a plastic monster in a less than B-movie, but he also symbolised something important. Let me explain. A rather attractive Polish version of Godzilla. Godzilla – as you may recall (I had to [...]

I’ve just been asked to put up a chart for the earthquake, so here it is. As I pointed out before, Uranus is in the last minutes of Pisces, so the planet of surprises leaves the sign of the deepest oceans on a tidal wave. The imagery could not be clearer. I haven’t decided which [...]

Uranus leaves Pisces today or tomorrow (depending on where on earth you are) after eight eventful years. Get your life-jackets out, it’s going to be stormy.

We all know what the books say about the sign of the fishes: mystical, dreamy, impractical, gentle, unwordly… So it’s more than a little interesting that Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of that Orwellian behemoth News Corp was born with the Sun in sweet Pisces. He’ll be celebrating his [...]