In Blue. Wassily Kandinsky: Saturn in Scorpio, Venus in Sagittarius The weather changed yesterday and a dry, icy wind sent tiny clouds fleeting across the sky, trees rattling and swaying, branches to the floor, drifts of leaves whirling up like spirits. Autumn had arrived overnight. Today, [...]

The Neighborhood Bully – John George Brown Politics just go nasty again in the UK. Let me explain. In this country, there’s a “Leader of the Opposition” in parliament who is the head of the main party that’s out of office, and whose job it is to question the [...]

On 11 August 1988, three men met in the dusty city of Peshawar on Pakistan’s northwest frontier. On that day, Osama bin Ladin, Ayman Zawahiri, and “Dr Fadl” decided it was time to set up an international jihadist organisation that would make spectacular attacks on the [...]

The petition that started this wave of revolution was sponsored by a group calling itself Rebel. Uranus, the rebel planet, is currently trining Egypt’s Moon which represents the people. Egypt, or the Egyptian people, have caught, amplified  and expressed the planetary energy of now. What [...]

Hands off our national treasure My friend down the road never “bakes a cake”, she “does a Nigella”. I’m sure she’s not alone. Is there a kitchen bookshelf in Britain that does not have a thumbed edition of How To Eat or Feast or some other of Nigella [...]

Rupert and Wendi: A Perfect Match I wrote a piece about Rupert Murdoch a couple of years ago, because he’s a fascinating character. At the time I wondered what had happened when Pluto went over his Ascendant  — and how come he was still standing – since he seemed to be doing OK at [...]

The angels are calling Nelson Mandela. He may not go yet, but they are very close. When a death is at the right time, often Jupiter, the planet of benevolence and generosity arrives, ready to shepherd the soul on its journey. Mandela’s Jupiter Return is on June 3Oth. When Mandela was [...]

Agia Sofia: layers of meaning Photo: Osvaldo Gago, wikimedia commons If you stand still in the middle of the vast space of the Agia Sofia, Istanbul’s great mosque/church, as the masses of tourists swirl around you and the silvery light filters from high up windows, you can almost feel [...]

May 25th sees the final eclipse in the Gemini-Sagittarius group that’s spanned November 2o1o until now. You can see it’s at 4° Sagittarius. In the way of these eclipse groups, it has overlapped at one end with Cancer-Capricorn and now it’s overlapping at this end with [...]

The “Minutemen”, American revolutionaries ready to snatch up their weapons at a moment’s notice, confront the redcoats. Their flexibility, speed and the urgency of their cause was a big factor in their victory. Allied to the fact that they were on home territory. Even though [...]

It turns out that the seven-times Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong cheated. Apparently, he was doped up to the eyeballs, bullied other team members into joining him and lied and lied and lied. The US Anti-Doping Agency says Armstrong was the leader of “the most sophisticated, [...]

On that day, 41 Liverpool fans might have survived had those in charge acted more swiftly. It’s taken 23 years to expose the police cock-up that caused the Hillsborough Disaster – and the cover-up that followed. On that day in April 1989, 96 people were crushed to death in a football [...]

What with all those shiny bodies flinging themselves around giant stadiums filled with cheering crowds – the marching, the uniforms, the survival of the fittest, the faux-historical ceremonies – there’s always been more than a touch of fascism about the Olympics. Jesse Owens going for [...]

As you probably know, Oxford is a World Heritage Site. There’s Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre, Broad Street, St Giles… all beautiful, historic, and full of life, much used, much loved. Radcliffe Camera: probably one of the world’s most famous library annexes. The [...]

Those bankers are incorrigible: first they cheat, then they lie, then they try to cover it up, and then they shop each other. A charming bunch of people we have taking care of our money. It was revealed  today that traders at Barclay’s Bank have been fiddling the figures to make [...]

About two thousand years ago, peace reigned across the Roman Empire. From Alexandria to the Hadrian’s Wall, all opposition had been crushed and people were able to trade, farm and prosper without fear of being molested by marauding barbarians. Meanwhile, in the bustling, wealthy, [...]

To celebrate the sweeping victory of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party in yesterday’s election, I’m posting links to all the pieces I’ve written about her and her country over the past 18 months. Aung San Suu Kyi: Embodying the People’s Dream Burma: The Ugly Face of [...]

PM David Cameron was last spotted eating a Cornish pasty two years ago. Ooo – the spin doctors have been getting themselves in a twist this week here in Blighty. I’ll explain briefly for my non-UK readers. First, Chancellor George Osborne cut the top rate of tax for the very, very [...]

The 1998 World Cup winning French football team was an emblem of French diversity. The National Front said it wasn’t “French” enough. France is having a weird and unnerving time of it. Everything that seemed certain about the country is being shaken, questioned and has yet to [...]

Rebekah Brooks: she made it up the greasy pole Oh, the irony. The woman who made a living dragging people’s good names through the mire is being dragged through it herself. Yesterday, she was arrested (again) at her home near Oxford. Rebekah Brooks was until last July the chief sewage [...]