Giovanni Bellini‘s Adoration of the Sleeping Child. Let me tell you about the last time Chiron conjuncted one of my personal planets, because it was very lovely. My second baby was just one month old and I was living in the delicious fog of love that descends almost uncannily on so many [...]

Jules et Jim (1962). Ghosts from long ago summers. This is a true story, but it’s a little off the wall, so bear with me. I had a kind of waking dream the night before last in which the ghost of an old, old boyfriend came and spoke to me. Now in real life I […]

Two kids from the wrong side of the tracks play pretend. Norma Jean Mortensen teaching Bernie Schwartz how to kiss – one of the sweetest scenes on celluloid. That great movie Some Like it Hot. still makes me laugh. Of course, Norma Jean and Bernie had blossomed into Marilyn Monroe and [...]

Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Brazil. Is the mother goddess giving a helping hand? In Brazil, Dilma Rousseff; in Australia Julia Gillard, who’s next? Are sisters finally doing it for themselves? Here’s what I think happened in the heavens that might give us a clue. On the [...]

David Cameron with his first son Ivan in 2002. Ivan died in 2009. It’s remarkable how often in families a death and a birth happen in quick succession. Poor David Cameron lost his father today just weeks after his wife gave birth to that darling baby. My wise friend Judith, who has seen [...]

My mother phoned up this morning to tell me that she had her very own gusher staying with her – in the form of a dear friend who talks a lot. He’s lovely but he chatters so much that she feels as if she’s drowning in a sea of words. I happen to know he’s […]