The pendulum swing of ‘progressive’ condemnation of disbelievers in their cause has run into another buffer over the backlash against banks closing accounts because they dislike the political views of a client. A highly critical No 10 has put in motion legislation to impose on banks free speech duties otherwise they could lose their licence.

  Though the government is hardly blameless either in the arena of free speech following last year’s Cabinet Office rules banning speakers who have criticised government policy from addressing civil servants.  

   It has been a weird few years for free speech in the UK including the ‘coercive control of language’ element to the trans debate. Andrew Neil described it as “a new form of McCarthyism. In woke companies, as well as in media, public bodies, charities and academia, people are being fired, sidelined, marginalised or generally penalised because they won’t kowtow to the latest fashionable views.”

   Is it the great bleeding heart of Neptune in Pisces which howls in pain over one slighted group being victimized (or not given centre stage) and demands the greater majority give up its rights to salve their wound?

  There is a fanatical streak in Neptune – Joseph McCarthy had a Scorpio Sun trine Neptune with Neptune opposition Uranus. When McCarthyism got under way in the US, the SA North Node was conjunct the USA Pluto (opposition Mercury) which is more than prone to obsessive thinking and bullying debate. But laissez-faire UK has never much gone in for fads and fetishes where opinions were concerned (I don’t think).

 Neptune in Pisces has not had an obviously outsize effect on the UK chart except at the start when it was conjunct the UK Pluto on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Neptune sextile Uranus in 2012/13. This is when David Cameron decided to hold the Brexit Referendum. (And because I am floundering around trying to find a pattern – the UK Pluto was activated years earlier in 1997 at Princess Diana’s death when the UK lost its wits in an outpouring of atypical national mourning. So the UK Pluto does have a powerful effect.) Along the way of the past few years tr Neptune has been sextile the UK Sun and Mars was well as trine the Midheaven, Moon and Neptune. With this year the Solar Arc Sun square the 2^nd house financial Neptune, keyed up by the recent Lunar Eclipse which may explain the banking connection – and tr Uranus was also opposition that 2^nd house Neptune earlier this year in the 18 degree spotlight.

  I’m still no wiser about quite what has sparked up this supposedly liberal intolerance in the UK.

  This year on the UK chart there is a deadlocked Solar Arc Pluto square the UK Sun which is waning now; and an approaching Solar Arc Saturn opposition the UK Uranus, exact in a few months – which will set up a conflict between the old versus the new, the forces of repression colliding with the forces for progress. Though in this topsy turvy situation with the ‘progressives’ turning totalitarian it’s tricky to see who is in which camp.

 Tr Pluto in Aquarius trine the UK Uranus from early 2024 for two years might be expected to activate a robust free speech debate – and more so when Uranus moves into Gemini in 2025.

  I faintly remember from philosophy lectures a concept about the social contract  – that in a fair and decent society there should be a ring fence of freedom around every individual which extends only in so far as it does not impinge on the rights of others. With the emergence of identity politics,  the loudest voices are clamouring for supremacy for their special interests at the expense of others who hold different views. They want society to be created in their image with non-believers banished into the desert as non-persons.

   Against everything that Uranus holds dear. What is weirder is that it is a total contradiction of essence of diversity. Putting value on difference.

  It may or may not be relevant that Farage’s Saturn is conjunct the UK’s Pluto and JK Rowling’s Mercury is in opposition. They tap into the UK’s cultural power issues.

Comments welcome.

Carlos Arcaraz, the Spanish tennis player, who defeated  Novak Djokovic to win the Men’s Final at Wimbledon, making it his second major singles win, is barely twenty years old.

  Born 5 May 2003 3am Murcia, Spain with a tennis academy director father, he started hitting the headlines as the youngest participant on the international circuit and winning as a teenager.

  He has a quick-witted 3^rd house Taurus Sun and Mercury which squares onto a dynamic Jupiter Descendant opposition Neptune Mars.  He has perseverance and endurance from Taurus, high vitality and the ability to take risks from Jupiter Mars and endless optimism with Neptune in the mix.

  What also marks his chart out as talented, lucky and determined in an inspirational and entrepreneurial Fire Grand Trine of Jupiter in Leo on his Descendant trine Venus in Aries in his financial 2^nd house trine Pluto. Charming and easy-going in one-to-one encounters, he’ll ooze confidence, be an influencer in society and will enjoy spending money. His Jupiter opposes Mars Neptune for one Kite. His Pluto opposes his Moon and Saturn in his sporting 5^th house for a second Kite – giving him toughness and an ability to shut off his emotional needs.

  Long term with Saturn in his 5^th plus that entrepreneurial Fire Grand Trine I’d imagine he’d become a sport organiser/executive.

   He’s on a lucky roll this year with tr Uranus conjunct his Jupiter/Uranus midpoint despite tr Saturn heading downwards through his First Quadrant for some years ahead which can be a drag on ambitious projects.

Marketa Vondroušová, who won the Women’s Singles, the first unseeded player to do so, was born 28 June 1999 (no birth time) Czech Republic. She comes from an athletic family and started playing tennis at 4.  She has a Cancer Sun on the focal point of a yod inconjunct Pluto sextile Neptune so will veer between over and under-confidence. Like Arcaraz she has a high-vitality Jupiter opposition Mars which in her case squares onto an ever-hopeful Neptune.

  Neptune oddly can be a strong factor in top athletes’ charts.  

  She’s also got fortunate winds behind her this year and next with tr Pluto square her Jupiter and tr Uranus conjunct her Solar Arc Jupiter. Though she will have moments of frustration through this October with tr Pluto square her Mars.

The Commonwealth Games look to be in jeopardy with Australia’s hosting of the 2026 event now being cancelled because of rising costs. Increasing hostility to colonialism, empire and the like and the passing of Queen Elizabeth may ring the death knell for the entire Commonwealth edifice before the end of the decade.

  The Commonwealth was first mooted in the Balfour Declaration of 15 November 1926 mainly in regard to the dominions of New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Africa – it referred to autonomous communities within the British Empire, equal in status, united by a common allegiance to the Crown. It was put into statute on 11 December 1931. The London Declaration of 28 April 1949 allowed for India’s continued membership after  transition to a republican constitution and established a precedent that republicanism was compatible with membership of the Commonwealth.

   The 1926 chart is certainly in a turbulent phase with tr Uranus opposing the Venus, Sun and Saturn in Scorpio and squaring the Jupiter and Neptune through 2023/24; with a grind-to-a-halt tr Pluto square the Mars in 2027/28.

  The 1931 chart will be undermined by tr Neptune Saturn in Aries square the Mars in 2025/26; with significant disruption in 2027 as the Solar Arc Uranus is conjunct the Pluto and opposition the Saturn.

  The 1949 chart indicates paralysis this year with tr Pluto square the Mars and hitches and glitches until a perhaps terminal blockage with Solar Arc Pluto conjunct Mars in 2027.

  Maybe it is time for what was a legacy of the past to move on. Though as in all things that the wokery decry in outrage, it did good in its way and may well be missed.

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Cerberus and Charon, gatekeepers to the underworld and land of the dead, are the chosen names for the life-threatening heat waves blasting Europe and elsewhere. Man-fuelled climate change may be a partial cause but before melting into a frazzle of anxiety about the end being nigh it is instructive to look at wiki’s list of heat waves over the centuries. They are not exactly new events. 1913 saw the hottest record temperature ever in California’s Death Valley at 57C which the present spike is likely to equal.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_heat_waves

 Astrology and weather forecasting are not well-aligned but looking back over notable heat waves and droughts in the past – for some there are astrological parallels.

 1913 had Pluto square the North/South Node axis with tr Neptune trine/sextile.

  This year tr Pluto is also square the North/South Node axis; and is trine Uranus, sextile Neptune.

  Previous highlighted droughts:

1540: Neptune conjunct North Node trine/sextile Uranus opposition Pluto.

1743: Neptune trine Pluto conjunct the South Node.

1757: Neptune conjunct North Node trine Pluto and opposition Saturn  with Pluto square Uranus.

1896: North Node opposition South Node square Uranus (Saturn) with Neptune trine the South Node.

  Those are only a few. The Nodal connections seemed to be markers which means the Eclipse charts will be a guide. Pluto is in there for some adding a mega-factor. And Neptune in its hallucinatory, heat-haze, not watery guise, adds a layer of panic.

Any additional thoughts welcome.  

Derek Malcolm, ‘a giant among critics’ and film world darling, has died. His early life was stranger than any movie and he wandered through a chequered career before finally finding his fate as one of the world’s leading film critics aged 40.

  He was born 12 May 1932 in London, long after his father, on returning unexpectedly from military service in World War One had shot his mother’s lover. After a sensational murder trial he was let off on justifiable homicide, having claimed he was defending his wife’s honour. They remained unhappily hitched thereafter and never spoke of it. 

  Young Malcolm was boarded at crammers from the age of four, thence to Eton, where he learned to ride and discovered a gift for words. His family home was oppressive so he escaped during school holidays in daily visits to the cinema and later  squeaked into Oxford, the Warden being one of his mother’s lovers, and joined the Film Society.

  Thereafter he tried to get into publishing, became an amateur National Hunt jockey, started an acting career in the theatre. After three years in repertory on the South Coast, he became a gossip writer, racing correspondent, then deputy film critic before ascending to the role itself in 1971.

 What is is fascinating about his life looking backwards is it seems blindingly obvious what he was designed to be. Yet he was forty before he found his destiny. Or it found him.

 Another twist came on his father’s death in 1969 when an aunt wrote to say he was not his biological father at all. Maybe happening around the same period of his life that was not a coincidence.  

  He had a Taurus Sun conjunct Chiron – ‘damaged and chosen’  – and that sat on the midpoint of a trine between influential Pluto and the North Node in filmic Pisces which seems apt; as well as being in a confident square to Jupiter in flamboyant Leo.  His Mars in Taurus was in a showbizzy trine to Neptune, sextile Venus which would suit him for the glamour world of stars and film makers.  His Moon in Leo was probably opposition Saturn square Mars – which fairly describes a bleak childhood.  His Mercury in upfront Aries was conjunct Uranus and square Pluto – giving him a facility for words, a mischievous sense of humour and a quirky take on life.

An out of the ordinary life produced a singular talent.

Royal favourites from ordinary backgrounds enjoy immense privilege while their patrons are alive but are ousted at speed once their rarefied position disappears.

  What is intriguing is that the three recent ones – Angela Kelly (Queen Elizabeth’s dresser), Billy Tallon (Queen Mother’s steward) and Michael Fawcett (senior valet to the then Prince Charles) are/were all Scorpios. Discreet and determined, plotters and strategists.

  A West End play this autumn will celebrate ‘Backstairs Billy‘ Tallon, who worked for the Royals since he was 15 and was with the Queen Mother from King George VI’s death in 1952 until she died. Given the stories that came out of Clarence House over the years one assumes the reality will be toned down. He was described as ‘loyal but louche, diligent but drunk, discreet in word but indiscreet in life’, he rarely left her side and presided over what became known as ‘a glorious gin palace’. Her capacity for tippling was legendary and he had carte blanche to feed his own alcohol habit which eventually killed him when he was 72. The miracle is the Queen Mother tottered on to 101.

Billy was an elegant, bouffant-haired flunkey, who was gay with a steady partner, but not above seducing young pageboys. The parties in his quarters, according to all reports, were wild. He only survived five years after her death, having become institutionalized after almost an entire life in service.

  Born 12 November 1935, he was a Sun Scorpio trine Pluto, with his Sun conjunct her Scorpio Moon and his Gemini Moon conjunct her Pluto, both of them having Jupiter in Sagittarius. It does rather confirm her birth date of 4 August 1900 which was always questionable.  Their relationship chart was complex with an exuberant Mars trine Jupiter trine Neptune; and a dominating Mars opposition Sun square Pluto – as with all servant/master relationships it is always a moot point over the long haul who has the upper hand.

   Angela Kelly, 4 November 1957, Liverpool, is oddly a Scorpio Sun square Uranus which does not sound an easy fit for a restrictive Royal setup especially since her Uranus was conjunct Queen Elizabeth’s Moon.  But both share an upbeat Mars Jupiter conjunction which would help and Angela K’s Neptune opposed the Queen’s Taurus Sun for caring and/or softening the chemistry between them.

 Their relationship chart had a friendly Sun Venus conjunction opposition a possessive/controlling Pluto  – so an important partnership but one in which power played an outsized role.  

 Michael Fawcett, 6 November 1962, a Sun Neptune in Scorpio with Mercury and Venus in Scorpio as well, he does resonate with King Charles with his Venus conjunct Chas’ Sun. F’s Sun Neptune squares Mars in Leo which is conjunct Chas’s Pluto for a tricky crossover where again power and submission are issues – though it tends to be a shifting seesaw over time.  Fawcett’s Jupiter opposes Chas’ Saturn so he would have a cheering-up function. Their relationship chart has a workmanlike Sun Saturn conjunction in a chained together square to Pluto which would be helpful for large scale projects – with a dash of adventure thrown in.

  Queen Victoria’s favourite John Brown, 8 December 1826, wasn’t a Scorpio and was anyway a relationship of a different order. His Sagittarius Sun fell in her 7^th so he would be there as a steady support in the absence of Prince Albert after his death. Brown’s Mars in Aquarius was conjunct her Jupiter and his Jupiter was in her playful 5^th house.

  Mars Jupiter is a running theme in these relationships and given the relentless pressure of a Royal lifestyle maybe one of the functions of the favourite is to act as the equivalent of the court jester – to add sparkle and cheer to the grind and gravitas of monarchical duties.

Singer and actress Jane Birkin, France’s favourite “petite Anglaise”, has died after a long battle with cancer. Famous for the erotic ‘Je t’aime’ which the BBC banned and the Pope deplored when she was entwined in a tumultuous relationship with Serge Gainsbourg, she became embedded into French culture, acting in 70 arthouse films, and singing and writing as well.

  She was born 14 December 1946 3pm London, with a war-hero father, a diva mother and a miserable childhood at boarding school. She broke into movies early on, married composer John Barry 13 years her senior which only lasted three years, had a daughter and then met Serge Gainsbourg, the French singer/songwriter. They never married but remained friends for life even after a turbulent relationship which was at times she has said violent and she remained distraught after his death in 1991.

  She had a Sagittarius Sun conjunct Mars in her 7^th house so would prefer to be in in a partnership and would be attracted to challenging and assertive men. But she would have contradictory impulses  with a freedom-loving, unconventional 1^st house Uranus. Her North Node conjunct her Ascendant suggests a lack of a strong sense of identity and a need through life to stand on her own two feet and be independent. A complicated mix.

 She had a seductively charming and sexy Jupiter Venus in Scorpio in her 6^th house of work but it squared a bleak Saturn Pluto in her 4th, a legacy from her unhappy childhood. A creative, musical and filmic Neptune in her 5^th house  gave her performing talent as a channel for her pent-up feelings. She had three children, one with John Barry who died in her late forties, and one with Gainsbourg and a third with a film director whom she never married.

  Her Jupiter Venus which is often a fashion-business astro-signature would also explain the Birkin bag, which Hermes named after her.

  Gainsbourg, 2 April 1928 4.55am  Paris, had his Saturn in her 7^th conjunct her Sun and opposition her Uranus so he would be critical and restrictive leading to eruptions. Though his Midheaven also fell in her 7^th so his relationship with her no doubt helped on the career front. Most notably his Sun, Jupiter and Uranus in Aries fell in her 11^th giving them a bond of friendship when togetherness became too fraught.

 Their relationship chart was dominated by a high-vitality composite Jupiter Mars which was in a cruel, dominating opposition Pluto with a tussle for the upper hand built into the dynamic. Not healthy but they both survived it.

Milan Kundera and Victoria Amelina, both distinguished East European writers with first-hand experience of Russian authoritarianism, have died within days of each other.

Milan Kundera, 1 April 1929 Brno, Czechoslovakia, started out as an enthusiastic Communist party member in his youth but was latterly expelled as he spoke up in 1970 during the clampdown that followed the 1968 Prague Spring, of which he was one of the leading voices, publicly calling for freedom of speech and equal rights for all. He was blacklisted, fired from his teaching job and eventually moved to France, losing his Czech nationality. His novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being brought him to prominence and he was nominated several times for a Nobel Prize.

 Victoria Amelina, 1 January 1986, Kiev, Ukraine, was raised in the shadow of Russia, learning the language and attending a summer camp for Russian youth. Her grandparents had lived through “the great famine” of the early 1930s, in which millions of Ukrainians were starved to death under Stalin’s orders. They protected their children by raising them to speak Russian. She worked in IT, became politically active in 2013, when she joined the bloody protests after Ukraine’s President Yanukovych rejected closer ties with Europe in favour of Moscow. She wrote two novels, the second of which was shortlisted for the Unesco City of Literature Prize and the European Union Prize for Literature. After the start of the war she trained as a war crimes researcher, working with a human rights organisation called Truth Hounds, recording the atrocities witnessed by survivors. She was killed when a Russian rocket exploded in a pizza restaurant. A few days before the attack she had sent a draft of her first non-fiction project, War and Justice Diary: Looking at Women Looking at War, to a friend with a note attached: “just in case”.

  What stands out in each chart is a stark Mars Pluto conjunction – describing the fear of their upbringing. Mars Pluto can give courage and unrelenting determination in the face of ruthless/brutal authority figures who hold the power of life and death.

 Kundera was a Sun Aries conjunct Uranus squaring onto Mars Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn, so he had a stark and resourceful chart. He was evidently a believer in astrology, not surprisingly with such a Uranus in his chart.

He said: – “The hands on the dial of a clock turn in a circle. The zodiac, as drawn by an astrologer, also resembles a dial. A horoscope is a clock. Whether we believe in the predictions of astrology or not, a horoscope is a metaphor of life that conceals great wisdom.”

 Amelina was a Sun, Venus, Neptune in Capricorn which was sextile a ferociously single-minded Mars Pluto in Scorpio. She would head for danger without a second thought.

  Both had their North Node in Taurus hinting at a life long search for peace after turbulence.

  Both had marked writers’ 21^st Harmonic.

  We in the west have no idea how easy life is compared to the experiences of those who grew up and have to cope in eastern Europe on the borders of the marauding bear.

Spain is heading for a surprise early election as the PM Pedro Sanchez, despite low showing in the polls, hopes the electorate will react against the far-right (anti-feminist/anti-immigration/anti-LBGTQ+ and tough on Gibraltar) party VOX. Santiago Abascal, the eccentric and excitable Vox leader, is unlikely to win but he could be kingmaker in a new right-wing coalition. Sanchez in since 2018 has done much to calm the issue of Catalan independence, has coped with Covid/Ukraine and has an inflation rate of 1.9% to his credit.

  The winner is expected to be Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the mainstream conservative Popular Party (PP) but without an absolute majority.

 Sanchez, 29 February 1972, a Sun Pisces square Neptune and square Saturn has been through a disastrous few weeks recently but he does have tr Jupiter trine his Mars over the election which will lift his spirits though that could also be as a result of being relieved of the burden of office.

 His 2 June 2018 Term chart, is not in good shape and looks undermined and seriously rattled at the moment.

  Feijoo, 10 September 1961 Galicia, a Sun Pluto in Virgo with Saturn Jupiter conjunct in Capricorn. He does have tr Pluto conjunct his Jupiter now which normally would bode well (except look at Huw Edwards with the same) – but he also has an upbeat tr Uranus opposition his Sun/Jupiter midpoint now which will bring a stroke of luck. So despite a confused Solar Arc Pluto conjunct his Neptune he might make it and then live to regret it since late August onwards for a couple of years ahead looks like a minefield of sink holes.

  Santiago Abascal, 14 April 1976 Bilbao, the VOX leader, a Sun Aries square Saturn, with Venus in Aries in a seductive/manipulative opposition to Pluto square a fiery, volatile Mars, will be buoyed up with tr Pluto square his Sun/Jupiter midpoint till late July and again on and off through 2024. So something is going his way.

 Though the VOX 17 December 2013 chart is not as clear cut with too much Neptune around this year.

 Former bullfighter Vicente Barrera, 29 July 1968, VOX’s poster boy, a Sun Leo with a Saturnine yod,  is not quite as sanguine about victory now as he was a few weeks back and is facing a disastrous mid August inwards.

  Elections are always a pot pourri of influences, good and bad, and polls are rarely to be trusted. But Feijoo and Abascal might just cobble a coalition together.

 What is certain is that Spain is moving through an exceptionally pressured year with its Solar Arc Pluto conjunct the Scorpio Sun this year, which will feel stuck. Then tr Uranus moves into the 4^th house opposition the Midheaven in 2024 which could see the start of internal unrest for several years thereafter.  2025 to 2027 in particular look exceptionally tough going with tr Saturn Neptune in an undermining square to the Spain Mars in 2025/26 and tr Pluto opposition the Spain Saturn and square Uranus in 2024 to 2026.