Bernard Cribbins, a much-loved, and very funny, character actor has died aged 93, after an astonishingly full and varied career on stage and screen, with awards for his work in children’s television on Jackanory, The Wombles and more recently CBeebies as well as The Railway Children. He did vaudeville, knockabout comedy with Peter Sellers, West End farce and even found success in the pop charts, with two Top 10 novelty songs.
He was born 29 December 1928 12.35am in Oldham, England into a poor family who suffered during the depression years so he left school at 13 and was pleased to be offered a job as assistant stage manager at the local theatre, which set him off on his 75 year career. He worked right through to his late eighties.
He was an earthy, practical and ambitious Sun Capricorn in the communicative 3rd house with an influential Pluto in his 10th. His Sun was in a mischievous square to Uranus and a confident, lucky, talented Earth Grand Trine to an amiable 7th house Jupiter trine Neptune. He had affectionate Venus in his 5th house of children and entertainment, though he didn’t have any of his own, and it was in an enthusiastic trine to Mars in chatty Gemini in his vocal 9th house. His Mars was opposition Saturn which would give him grit and discipline from a tough childhood.
A wonderful mix of soft and hard, hard-driving and creative, friendly and controlling.
The killing of the al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Afghanistan has been met with jubilation in the USA. He was Bin Laden’s second in command and is believed to have plotted the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen that killed 17 US service members, was an architect of the 9/11 and was indicted for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.
How relevant an event it is in the greater schemes of things isn’t clear, given that Al Quaeda is no longer the force it was and Zawahiri has been ill for some time, his duties undertaken by other younger members of the terrorist group.
Zawahiri, 19 June 1951, was a Sun, Mars, Mercury in Gemini square Saturn in Virgo so being undermined by tr Neptune hard aspects last year and this; with tr Uranus square his Pluto when he was killed.
What is of marginal interest is that the Al Quaeda chart has an 18 degree Leo Sun, exactly in line for the explosive Mars Uranus North Node conjunction of the moment – whether that signals its death knell or a shift in a different direction isn’t clear. Though it will have dented morale, there’s no doubt.
I’m searching around for a history-changing moment to accompany the rare Mars Uranus North Node coming together this week and the above may not be it. See post June 17 June 2022 – construction of the Berlin Wall, death of Mao, 1947 bombing of King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 1871 Germany unification.
The USA/Al Quaeda relationship chart is being triggered this year by the Eclipses and under immense pressure in 2023/2024. It’s difficult to see Al Quaeda rising from the grave but there may be other ripple effects yet to be seen.
The England Lionesses victory over Germany in the EURO 2022 final has sent fans into a delirium of joy with hopes that women’s football is finally becoming established as a force to be reckoned with. Encouraging more schools to offer equal access to football and pressure for more Premier League clubs to allow their women’s teams to play in their main stadia will be key aims.
The first women’s football league was established in 1969 so the foundations have been laid over the past fifty years.
Looking across a few key players and coaches what is significant is a constant smattering of determined Scorpio planets and in three of them Sun Neptune conjunctions. Neptune often occurs in top athletics though it seems counter-intuitive.
Chloe Kelly, 15 January 1998, the forward who scored the winning goal, is a Sun, Venus, Neptune in Capricorn, with an energetic and upbeat Mars Jupiter in stubborn Aquarius. She is the youngest of seven siblings and honed her game playing against five older brothers in the local caged pitch.
Hope Powell, the former coach who progressed the game for women, 8 November 1966, is a Sun, Venus, Neptune in Scorpio.
Baroness Sue Campbell, 10 October 1948, former chairman of UK sport is also credited with the advancement of the women’s league. She is a Sun conjunct Neptune in Libra with a super-determined Mars in Scorpio and mercury also in Scorpio.
The present coach, Sarina Wiegman, 26 October 1969, is a Sun Scorpio opposition Saturn in Taurus with a do-or-die determined Pluto trine Mars, sextile Neptune.
Ella Toone, 2 September 1999, a forward, a confident and controlled Sun Virgo trine Jupiter, square Pluto with Mars in Scorpio. She comes from a sporting family and at school excelled at every team sport – table tennis, tennis, netball, hockey, cross country athletics.
Leah Williamson, 29 March 1997, the team captain, is a self-reliant Sun, Saturn, Venus in Aries trine Pluto, sextile Uranus Jupiter in Aquarius. She started football very young, and is now studying accountancy part-time.
A ray of sunshine to uplift gloomy spirits. Nothing like a sports victory to blow away cares.
Two trailblazers for equality and civil rights in the USA have died. Bill Russell, the NBA great who marched with Martin Luther King Jr, and in 1966 became the first Black man to hold the role of head coach in a major US sport. And actress Nichelle Nichols, one of the first black women to be featured on American television in a non-subservient role when she played Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek series.
Both were motivated by the rebellious, status-quo-upsetting and progressive Uranus square Pluto of the early 1930s in their charts.
Bill Russell, 12 February 1934 11.15am Monroe, Louisiana, was born in the racist, segregated south but moved to California when he was 8. His parents were supportive and taught him not to respond to racist taunts which were the norm throughout his life. He had an ambitious chart with a 10th house well-organised Sun, Saturn and North Node in Aquarius trine an enthusiastic Jupiter; with a charming Venus conjunct his Midheaven and Moon, as well as an ambitious Mars in ‘dancing’ Pisces. His Mars Mercury in Pisces opposed Neptune in his sporting 5th house. Just as significant was a super-confident and extra-lucky Jupiter opposition Uranus square Pluto in his 3rd. A focal point Pluto is often ahead of its time and can attract resistance and hostility.
In 2010, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honour, for his athletic accomplishments and his advocacy for human rights.
Nichelle Nichols, 28 December 1932, no time, Robbins, Illinois, was a creative Sun Capricorn trine Neptune with her Neptune in a showbizzy conjunction to Mars and square her Venus and Mercury. She initially wanted to be a singer and dancer but was given the Star Trek role. She considered leaving at the end of the first run but a chance meeting with Martin Luther King changed her mind. He said ‘You simply cannot abdicate. This is an important role. This is why we are marching. We never thought we’d see this on TV.’ She later saw it as a role model for black people, but also for women with ambitions to become astronauts or scientists.
She had the Pluto square Uranus perhaps tied into her Capricorn Moon so was destined to be a catalyst for change.
Her Pluto was sextile an exuberantly confident, energetic and lucky Mars Jupiter in Virgo.
It still staggers me reading about what they had to live through and the unimaginable and ingrained prejudice they faced, which has not exactly disappeared.
Crazed fans, fawning critics and unhinged lawsuits – welcome to the whacky world of mega-music stars like Beyonce. Her 15.5 million twitter followers ensure that reviews in the music press err on the side of adulation to avoid being deluged with hate mail. Which hasn’t stopped a former band mate alleging that Beyonce practised “dark magic”, effectively wrecking her life. It might sound like sad paranoid ravings except it has rung a chord with a chunk of social media obsessives. They soaked up the occult and Illuminati conspiracy blarney which Beyonce and Jay-Z evidently put about early on in what many believe to be a cynical effort to boost traffic.
Opening Pandora’s Box not wise in these credulous and deranged times.
Even allowing for self-protective flattery, reviews of her first solo album in six years have been largely upbeat. “A joyous soundtrack to a hot girl summer”. The Telegraph predicted it “will be filling dance floors for years to come”. The Guardian said it was “unapologetically escapist”. Pitchfork’s Dylan Green claims it’s “the most unabashedly fun new Beyoncé record since 2006’s B-Day”. The Times says “This is an album about letting go and having a good time. It doesn’t seem like a bad way of dealing with the age of anxiety.”
Beyonce said it came out of the pandemic – “Creating this album allowed me a place to dream and to find escape during a scary time for the world. It allowed me to feel free and adventurous in a time when little else was moving”.
Two points of interest in her chart. One is that the tr Uranus Mars North Node are exactly in opposition to her 4th house Scorpio Moon now. Drat it – having looked up, the birth time is unverified and no idea where this one came from. But as it happens it is spot on so I’ll stick with it. So she will be facing emotional or domestic upheavals at some point – and tr Pluto sextile her Uranus also hints at a transition into a different space this year as well.
What will be more concerning is her Solar Arc Mars conjunct her Sun, exact around now; and her Progressed Mars square her Uranus again around now. Neither of which sound restful or indeed good for for self-esteem since they tend to induce upsets. Her Solar Arc Sun will also conjunct her Pluto over coming months which is blocked. Tr Pluto moving into Aquarius in 2023 which start by being conjunct her South Node and then opposing her Mars in 2024/2025 which will be infuriating and aggravatingly stuck.
Diana Kennedy, who found her spiritual and culinary homeland in Mexico has died aged 99. She became a “culinary anthropologist” after a series of happy coincidences that transformed her itinerant lifestyle into a national treasure. Born 3 March 1923 into a quiet English family, her education disrupted by WW11, she emigrated to Canada and on a vacation to Haiti met a New York journalist who was Bureau Chief in Mexico, married him and moved there.
He died of cancer ten years later and through his contacts she started publishing nearly a dozen books, which transformed American views on Mexican food. Her first book, The Cuisines of Mexico, published in 1972, became a bestseller. Along the way she joined an elite group of cookery writers like Elizabeth David who sparked a deep interest in the food of other cultures.
She made repeated voyages round the Mexican countryside, by bus, train, later by her own campervan (sometimes with a pistol in the glove compartment), and was in constant demand in cookery schools of America. She moved permanently to Mexico in 1976, purchasing a few acres, where she set up a smallholding of pigs, goats, chickens and fierce dogs and established a centre of research, teaching and sustainable living.
She had an innovative Sun Uranus in Pisces in a creative and healing Water Grand Trine to Pluto and Jupiter in Scorpio; which may have been formed into a Kite by Sun Uranus opposition Moon (North Node) in Virgo, making the Moon the driving planet (depending on birth time). It would make sense to have a Virgo Moon so prominent.
Since there’s no birth time sadly the astrocartography is missing. But her Sun Uranus in Pisces are conjunct the Mexico 10th house Pluto with her Jupiter trine the Mex Pluto so her discoveries would help to spread the country’s influence. And her Moon North Node falling in Mexico’s 4th house of roots and home/domestic matters also makes sense.
Her relationship chart with Mexico also had a fated Yod of Neptune sextile Venus inconjunct Pluto – tied together in mysterious ways.
The most offensive waste of money since the Beckham Peltz wedding or indeed the upcoming Boris Carrie country-pile splurge has ended with Rebekah Vardy losing her court case against Coleen Rooney. Two waste-of-space famous-for-nothing types squalling over leaked gossip of the sort which garners headlines on which both depend to bolster their vanity always seemed a pointless exercise.
Running true to form, Rebekah Vardy is stamping her feet, blaming a flawed judgement and insisting she wasn’t wrong in her muddled testimony.
Born 17 February 1982, she has a troubled, even harsh chart with an angry, anguished and aggravated Pluto Saturn Mars conjunction in Libra trine her Aquarius Sun and square her Venus and North Node in Cancer. Her Sagittarius Moon may even be sextile Mars Saturn and either conjunct Uranus or Neptune.
Her life until she married footballer Jamie Vardy in 2016 appears to have been a train-wreck.
Her parents divorced when she was 11 and she moved from city to city, was sexually assaulted by a family friend on a weekly basis for three years, which was dismissed by her mother leading to a rift, which left her homeless at 15. “I was made to feel like it was my fault.” She attempted suicide with pills and vodka.
She married first at 17, which fell apart after six months when she slept with singer Peter Andre, whom she later disparaged because of the size of his genitalia. A six year relationship with a footballer followed which ended acrimoniously, with him claiming she dumped him to upgrade to a wealthier type. He said as his parting shot that he showered her with expensive gifts, took out an “extortionate mortgage” on their Nottinghamshire home and lent her his Mercedes but nothing was good enough. “Becky liked the finer things in life. She wanted the biggest house on the street, expensive handbags,” he said.
When she married Jamie Vardy neither his parents or Becky’s mum and stepdad attended. The groom’s family blamed Becky for causing the rift and mum Lisa said: “I don’t have anything directly to do with my son any more. It’s a shame and very sad.”
She now lives with him in an eight-bedroom farmhouse, worth £3million, with an indoor pool, sauna, tennis court and gym, in between Dubai holidays staying at the Atlantis (a suite costs £1,800) and the Four Seasons (suites up to £14,000 a night.)
Two psychological thoughts. One is that bad experiences don’t necessarily produce good people or result in a well-rounded, pleasant, compassionate temperament with a sense of decency and perspective. The other is that abusive and dysfunctional nurturing in childhood produces individuals over-sensitive to criticism, even where it is legitimate, since it taps into their deep well of inner shame.
She now has five children from various liaisons.
Her present husband, Jamie, 11 January 1987, is a Sun, Mercury in Capricorn which squares her Mars, Saturn and Pluto which does not sound easy or harmonious; with her Jupiter in likes-money-Scorpio conjunct his Pluto – so hints of a wannabe power-couple ambition. Admittedly her Venus is conjunct his Sun which will help slightly.
Their relationship chart has a possessive, controlling composite Sun square Pluto with an enthusiastic Mars Jupiter conjunction and an illusory Venus Neptune. He’s very welcome to her, frankly.
She will bounce back in 2023/2024 with tr Pluto square a Jupiter midpoint – she has a titanium-strength protective shield which will deflect anything that feels threatening. Kind of like Trump/BJ etc.
When “a professional life ruiner” ran into the “Erin Brokovitch of revenge porn” by flaunting her daughter’s private photos on an internet site he met poetic justice and a prison sentence. Another Netflix crime sleaze-a-thon “The Most Hated Man on the Internet” shines a spotlight on the antics of Hunter Moore, notorious in the 2010s for revelling in his bad-boy image, posting explicit photos of people (mostly women) without their permission. Pleas to remove the photos, were laughed off, with little recourse for those whose lives were upended, some driven to suicide.
Charlotte Laws, 11 May 1960, turned Moore’s actions in posting unauthorized and unshared photos of her daughter Kayla into a personal crusade, contacting other victims and lobbying authorities until they took action. Along the way she was harassed, vilified and flooded with death threats. Luckily she’s a stalwart Sun Taurus square Uranus and trine Saturn in Capricorn with a confident Jupiter trine Pluto and risk-taking Jupiter square Mars, with probably a Scorpio Moon. Nothing much would push her off course.
Moore, 9 March 1986, is a Sun, Moon and Jupiter in Pisces (not conjunct) with his Sun square a high-wire, uncompromising Mars Uranus conjunction in Sagittarius and his Jupiter square Saturn. His Moon is likely trine Pluto, square Saturn, maybe sextile Neptune. Without a birth time there’s not much indication of a driving sexual motive. Another campaigner against him said: “he didn’t care about destroying women’s lives, he just cared about content. He was an unempathetic asshole.”
His strong Uranus would make him a disrupter, happy when he was causing waves. Both his pleasure-seeking 9th Harmonic and his 18H are strongly marked with Uranus Neptune and his 9H with Saturn as well – it may be he was one of that emotionally-dead geek mentality who just wanted to make money or grab attention with zero empathy for anyone who might be tramped on in the process.
As it was he ended up in prison for “aggravated identity theft and aiding and abetting in the unauthorized access of a computer.”
As an entertaining footnote, at one point Anonymous – an internet vigilante group comprised of highly-skilled hackers – targeted Moore, wiped his servers and backups of previous files, emptied his bank account and donated all his money to women’s refuges. His social security number was wiped. A death certificate was created, declaring him dead in the state of California, this invalidating his passport. Learning that he was still living at his parent’s house in Sacramento, Anonymous shipped hundreds of dildos to his address. [Love it – shades of arch hacker Roddy in Mick Herron’s spook novels.]
What goes around, comes around.
It is a delicious irony that with such a flyaway Mutable chart he should run into a determinedly Fixed mama bear. Their relationship chart had a composite Sun Venus opposition Uranus – on different agendas. With a hostile composite Mars Jupiter trine Pluto.
When he pleaded guilty in 2015 and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison tr Jupiter in Leo was conjunct Charlotte’s Uranus and square her Sun for relief. Jupiter was also admittedly trine his Mars Uranus but that couldn’t outweigh his First Saturn Return giving him a sharp grow-up message at the same time. He’s now out and lying low.
The closure of the UK’s only dedicated gender identity clinic for children and young people at London’s Tavistock clinic is a dramatic decision after an independent review, found it left young people “at considerable risk” of poor mental health and distress “.
It follows days after a barrister won part of a tribunal claim that she was discriminated against because of her objection to self-ID.
The tectonic plates in the zeitgeist are shifting with the inexplicable mania force-fed into the cultural mainstream by the extreme transgender lobby finally being challenged effectively.
In recent years Stonewall, having won its key lesbian/gay arguments by 2014, searched around for another reason to exist and landed on trans rights, which it proceeded to promote vehemently. At the height of its power, more than 950 organisations were signed up to its diversity training programme. Many/most have now exited. See previous post April 16 2022.
But the Tavistock story has been on the go for longer. 18 years ago a nurse blew the whistle on the fast-track, ask-no-questions policy of shunting teenagers onto hormone treatment. Nothing was done and over the years numerous safeguarding issues were flagged, all discounted. A 2005 review raised questions about puberty blockers saying there was a lack of robust evidence for their use. More than 40 clinicians quit over a three year period, saying their concerns had been “shut down”.
Allegations include that children are rushed to medical treatment, that doctors were “converting” gay children into thinking that they were trans and medics were failing to consider other mental health issues that vulnerable young people were suffering. Two Trans groups who were campaigning hard and appeared to have considerable influence at the clinic were Mermaids and the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES).
Both of those groups were set up in the mid 1990s – Mermaids 1995 and GIRES in 1997/1998 – as Pluto got under way in Sagittarius, 1995 to 2008. I’ve always associated Pluto in Sagittarius with narrow-minded fanaticism and to a degree is associated with Al Quaeda who emerged at the same time – extreme religious or political beliefs. Certainly dogmatic.
Pluto is poised to shift sign for the second time since 1995 into Aquarius and there does appear to be an uprooting from the past. Pluto often accompanies a rise and fall, sometimes on the next sign change and sometimes the one after.
The Gender Identity Research Education Society was registered as a charity on 13 February 1998 which gives it an Aquarius Sun which is being given a sharp reality check by tr Saturn conjunct at the moment. Tr Saturn in Pisces will dampen its enthusiasm further in 2023 and put the brakes on its pushy-confidence by hitting the Jupiter square Pluto; plus it will sag under a devastating and confused tr Pluto conjunct Neptune in 2023/24.
Stonewall, 24 May 1989, is also in considerable disarray with the Solar Arc Saturn Neptune conjunction in square to the Pluto last year and this; and tr Saturn pouring cold water on its Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus in Gemini in 2023.
What is puzzling is why the Tavistock Clinic should have gone so far astray since it used to be a renowned institution. Started in 1920 with its first child patient seen on 27 September it has a Libra Sun, and Mercury and Venus (not conjunct) with a super-strength Jupiter in Virgo, opposition an innovative Uranus in a healing Water Grand Trine to Pluto and a Scorpio North Node.
Stonewall also has an emphasised Jupiter on the focal point of a Yod to Pluto sextile Neptune Saturn.
When Jupiter gets it right it is a social force for good. When it gets it wrong it turns into a blinkered, narrow-minded zealot, arrogantly dismissive of any criticism.
Obviously anyone suffering from genuine gender dysphoria should be offered effective help and treatment as well as sympathy. Best estimates put number of transgender individuals in UK around 1% and much the same for the USA.
Add On: The British Psychological Society, 24 October 1901, will have had some members working at the Tavistock. The BPS social media feeds indicate both a no-questions-asked transgender stance (no pre-therapy required and under sixteens capable of giving medical consent to puberty blockers) and senior psychologists objecting to a ‘revered’ institution lending its’ name to such an activist agenda.
The BPS chart has a Scorpio Sun catching this October’s Solar Eclipse and the Lunar Eclipse hitting on its Mercury in Scorpio – so a challenging year at a crossroads with crises forcing a rethink. That is only the advance warning of tr Pluto square the Sun from early 2023/till late 2024 which will pull down old attitudes and structures and necessitate a rebuilding out of the ashes on the far side. It could even hint at the possibility of an internal ‘civil war. Not necessarily just on this issue but on general strategy. The Solar Arc Saturn is also conjunct the South Node at the moment suggesting it is getting dragged backwards.
It was founded at the time of the revolutionary Uranus opposition Pluto which will have put it through several tumultuous periods in the past, though this is its first hard Pluto Sun transit.
[I’m not great fan having first hand experience of where the BPS and other such organisations have been on the wrong side of history before on other issues.]
