Astrology of Today’s News

Fred Astaire, the “greatest popular-music dancer of all time”, whose uncanny sense of rhythm, creativity, effortless presentation, and tireless perfectionism delighted audiences through almost eight decades, was born the same year as Noel Coward. But despite both sharing Neptune Pluto in Gemini opposition Saturn in Sagittarius, a Gemini Moon and Jupiter in Scorpio, they were very different temperaments. Coward was all mouth and words with 3^rd/9^th and Mercury emphasis. While Fred Astaire was more physically focused with a 6^th house Taurus Sun and Gemini Moon.

 Fred Astaire, born 10 May 1899 9.16pm Omaha, Nebraska, started dancing early, initially with his older sister Adele, prompted by their ambitious mother and they stayed together as a duo for over 20 years with Astaire acquiring his signature top hat to match the height of his taller partner.  Adele was gregarious, confident and comedic, while the studious, anxious Fred was perfectionist, nicknamed by her as “Moaning Minnie”. She ultimately married Lord Charles Cavendish, son of the Duke of Devonshire.

 Fred also had an inspirational Fire Grand Trine of Mars in Leo trine a 12^th house Uranus in Sagittarius trine Venus in Aries, formed into a Kite by Uranus opposition his 6^th house Moon. The 6^th house is Virgo’s natural home which would create his tendency to fuss and worry about getting everything exactly right and being health obsessed.

 But perhaps the clue to Astaire’s unsociable and uptight personality and his dislike of socialising, premieres and publicity was his unaspected Sun. This made him aloof, overly independent, wrapped up in his own world.

 His most memorable dancing partnership was with Ginger Rogers through the 1930s – Top Hat, Swing Time and Shall We Dance amongst others which provided vital escapism for Depression-era audiences.

 Ginger Rogers, 16 July 1911 2.18am Independence, Missouri, was not an easy match for Fred Astaire although they shared Jupiter in Scorpio, but her Mars fell in his entertaining 5^th which would help and her Saturn in Taurus conjunct his Sun would make it a working partnership. Their relationship chart had a fearsome composite Mercury, Mars, Pluto, Venus in Gemini hinting at the extreme lengths he would go to – rehearsing once for ten hours at a stretch leaving her feet bleeding.

 There are moves afoot at the moment to do a biopic about Astaire though his widow Robyn, a former jockey, 45 years his junior, insists he was “explicit in his will that he did not want his life story to be depicted on screen”. Though whether that will be enough to stop it is not certain.

Noël Coward’s comedy Fallen Angels was so shocking to bourgeois morality a hundred years ago it was nearly banned. Now restaged in London as a period piece about two “girls behaving badly” on a champagne-fuelled night, bemoaning their stale marriages to golfing husbands and lusting after a Frenchman both regard as the great love of their lives, it has garnered good reviews. Written when Coward was 23, he had a precocious grasp of the tensions of wedlock, and the trade-off between respectability and the hungers of the flesh. (The Lord Chamberlain’s office only reluctantly granted it a performance licence, alarmed by its allusions to premarital and extramarital sex.)

 Coward, playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time called “a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise”, was born 16 December 1899 2.30am Teddington, England into a poor background; and started performing on stage as a child, prompted by his mother.

  He had a packed communicative 3^rd house with an outspoken Sagittarius Sun conjunct Saturn opposition a 9^th house Neptune; as well as a sharp-tongued Saturn conjunct Mars in Capricorn and Venus in Capricorn so he would not be backward about expressing his opinions. He also had a restless, mischievous Gemini Moon conjunct Pluto opposition Uranus Mercury in Sagittarius adding another layer of penetrating and upsetting insight and wit to his repertoire. With Uranus Pluto he liked to upset conventional ideas. He also had a lucky Jupiter in Scorpio in his financial 2^nd house making his adult life more secure than his childhood.  The generation signature Neptune Pluto in Gemini sat either side of the North Node making him notable in the culture of his time.

He achieved enduring success as a playwright, publishing more than 50 plays from his teens onwards –  Hay Fever, Private Lives, Design for Living, Present Laughter, and Blithe Spirit, have remained in the regular theatre repertoire. He also composed hundreds of songs, in addition to well over a dozen musical theatre works (including the operetta Bitter Sweet and comic revues), screenplays, poetry, several volumes of short stories, the novel Pomp and Circumstance, and a three-volume autobiography. In the Second World War, he ran the British propaganda office in Paris.

  A life well lived. Coward had penetrating insights and a talent to amuse and entertain.

Quotes: “It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit”.

“Never trust a man with short legs his brain is too near his bottom.”

Actress Sydney Sweeney’s unglamorous choice of a role playing Christy Martin, the first great female American boxer, a working-class lesbian and survivor of domestic violence, appears not to have gone down well in the US. Whether that is due to the subject matter or Sweeney’s divisive reputation as a Maga supporter isn’t clear, though the critics praised her ‘powerful characterisation.’

Sydney Sweeney, born September 12, 1997 at 12.42pm Spokane, Washington, has a creditable cv of good movies from The Handmaid’s Tale, Sharp Objects, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Euphoria, The White Lotus and Immaculate. She appeared to fall foul of media hysteria in a confected scandal about a jeans advert and her dating of Scooter Braun (don’t ask something about Taylor Swift).

 Her mother is a former criminal defense lawyer and her father works in the hospitality industry. At school she was active in numerous sports, soccer, baseball team, snow slalom skiing, wakeboarding, taekwondo, jujitsu, grappling, and kickboxing. She said she began practicing combat sports at age 5 to help manage her hyperactivity.

  She is a Sun Virgo conjunct the North Node on her Midheaven sextile a 12^th house Mars in determined Scorpio inconjunct a 5^th house Saturn in forced-to-be-self-reliant Aries which hints at a good deal of buried anger and a tough start in life some of which will have been channelled into sport given that the 5^th house rules sporting activities. A Saturnine yod can be self-defeating and needs maturity and self-discipline to get the better end of it. Her Sun is also trine a hard working and creative Moon Neptune in Capricorn sextile her Mars in Scorpio. Pluto on her Ascendant will make her difficult to understand; it is sextile her Uranus and in a dogmatic square to her Mercury.

 It is a heavy and tricky chart which may explain why she attracts a degree of hostility. Her career will carry on regardless for many years to come with increasing success towards the end of this decade. Though 2027/28 will be challenging as her Solar Arc Saturn will oppose her Mars for a setback.

 Christy Martin, 12 June 1968 Mullens, West Virginia, scaled the heights as a boxer but married her much-older trainer who dominated and then nearly killed her. Like Sweeney she has a yod focal point Saturn in Aries. In her case it is inconjunct Pluto Uranus in Virgo sextile Neptune; and her Saturn is also in another yod sextile her Sun Mars and Venus in Gemini inconjunct Neptune – so she was clearly marked out for a singular path in life.  Her guardian angel comes in the form of her Jupiter in Leo which is trine her Saturn, sextile her Mars and square her Neptune. Like Sweeney she has a Capricorn Moon – so they would connect.

Paddington Bear has returned in a new stage musical as a fun Christmas distraction from the drear and gloom elsewhere. Critics love it  – “imaginatively staged, immaculately performed and utterly winning”; “funny, feel-good, family-friendly musical that looks set to run and run”. It brings ” the stowaway bear gorgeously to life”.

  Paddington, star of 35 million books, published in 20 countries in over 40 languages, in movies and adaptations for television was the inspiration of author Michael Bond. He was touched by the stories of Jewish refugee children sent to England during the war with labels round their necks; and that combined with a lonely teddy bear in a shop window near Paddington Station which he took home for his wife’s Christmas turned into one of the most successful series of children’s books ever. Paddington Bear from “darkest Peru” was sent to the UK by his Aunt Lucy carrying a jar of marmalade.

  Michael Bond was born 13 January 1926, a year which produced a good many notables, including Queen Elizabeth 11 and David Attenborough. He had a Capricorn Sun on one leg of a yod sextile Uranus in Pisces inconjunct Neptune which was exactly conjunct Ceres. Neptune on the apex of a yod can produce a dreamer and an escapist which in this case was turned to good use. And Ceres, the nurturing and nourishing archetype which rules mothers, family bonds and relationships as well as food, gives deep empathy.

 Bond’s Neptune Ceres is also opposition Venus in Aquarius square a conscientious, hard-working Saturn in Scorpio – an enduring Fixed T square.

 He was working as a Blue Peter (children’s tv) cameraman when the inspiration came to him. He had another inconjunct of Pluto to Mars. That Pluto was being triggered by tr Uranus conjunct its Solar Arc position when the first Paddington set foot on the page. And his Solar Arc North Node was opposing his Neptune and triggering his T square and Neptunian yod when the inspiration first came to him two or three years earlier. After publication he was able to become a full-time writer.

 A heart-warming tale from a more innocent time in mainstream entertainment.

Steve Witkoff’s real estate developer with no diplomatic experience and now, extraordinarily, special envoy to the Middle East and de facto envoy to Vladimir Putin, is off to Moscow with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (of ‘Gaza Riviera’ renown) to carve out a Ukraine peace deal – without Ukraine

  Kyiv’s allies fear Putin will dangle deals across the negotiating table as allegations of a “pay to play” system which benefits those who do business with the president’s family.

Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, argues that the Trumps’ approach amounts to “nothing more than an old-fashioned grift tethered to a superpower”.

The 28-point peace plan negotiated by Witkoff and Kushner in October seemed remarkably generous to American corporate interests.  The deal called for $100 billion of frozen Russian assets to be invested in the reconstruction of Ukraine, but with the US creaming off 50 per cent of the profits. The remainder of the confiscated Russian money would be ploughed into a joint US-Russian investment fund with few known details about its purpose. “We know this is not about peace. It’s about business,” Donald Tusk, the president of Poland, said.

 Marco Rubio has pulled back on some of the original plan. But the Witkoff/Kushner negotiating duo is still in place.

Steven Witkoff, March 15, 1957, New York, is a Sun, Mercury, Venus in Pisces in an overly confident opposition Jupiter in Virgo with an unpleasant, hard-driving Mars in Taurus conjunct Algol square Pluto. That square will be rattled this month by tr Uranus hard aspects and again in the spring of 2026 so something will go up in the air; plus an undermining tr Saturn opposition his Jupiter in the second half of January 2026. Tr Pluto square his Neptune won’t improve his tattered nerves through this month till January followed by a turbulent tr Pluto opposition his Uranus on and off all 2026.

  His relationship with Trump hits that odd dip come June 2026 when tr Neptune gets to 4 degrees Aries, which will make for a mood of high uncertainty between them.

Jared Kushner, 10 January 1981, an ambitious, controlling Sun Capricorn square Pluto, with Saturn Jupiter conjunct in Libra (fly high and then crash?) trine Mars in Aquarius conjunct the South Node. There’s no verified time for him but he does have Solar Arc Neptune conjunct his Mars and SA Mars square his Neptune at the moment, neither of which look anything but panicky and unsuccessful.

 His relationship chart with Trump has that odd fated yod of Mars Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Mercury, tying them together irrevocably for good or for ill. Their association will be rattled by tr Uranus square the composite Saturn from May 2026 onwards, though 2027 looks like their nadir.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/nov/30/all-the-presidents-millions-how-the-trumps-are-turning-the-presidency-into-riches

Tom Stoppard, one of Britain’s cleverest playwrights has died at the age of 88. His writing was witty and playful, he took ideas seriously and delighted in philosophical and political argument. He was a writer who managed to combine an intellectual’s delight in complexity with an entertainer’s talent for having fun. “Stoppardian” became shorthand for rapid-fire wit, shimmering wordplay and bathetic juxtaposition.’

An early success on stage with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was followed by thirty years of prolific output on stage with Arcadia and Jumpers amongst others and screenplays including the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love. He wrote the adaptation of John le Carré’s The Russia House, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and became the go-to writer for blockbusters in need of a bit of spit and polish (including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Star Wars adventure Revenge of the Sith).

  He was born Tomas Straussler on 3 July 1937 in what was then Czechoslovakia, where his Jewish father worked as a doctor for the Bata shoe company. His parents fled from imminent Nazi occupation when he was still a baby and went to Singapore, where his father died in a Japanese prison camp. Tom and his mother and brother had escaped ahead of the Japanese invasion and went first to Australia, later to India. There his mother met and married an Englishman, a Major Stoppard.

 He had a Cancer Sun and Mercury square a forced-to-be-self-reliant Saturn in Aries; with his Sun trine a determined Mars in Scorpio, sextile a creative Neptune in Virgo – and his Uranus in a creative trine to Neptune and a risk-taking opposition to Mars.  Imaginative and artistic, attention-seeking, adventurous, he also had a super-confident Jupiter opposition Pluto which was trine/sextile Venus Algol in Taurus.

  He was married three times and had various relationships with Felicity Kendal and Sinead Cusack amongst others.

  He only discovered when his mother died in the 1990s and with the fall of communism what had happened to his family, with all four grandparents dying in Auschwitz – that plus his father’s death may be part of his Venus Algol conjunction.  

 His creative 5th and 7^th harmonics were strong, even more so was his writers 21^st harmonic and his global-renown 22H.   

“Like Samuel Beckett, but with much better jokes.”

“Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, playwright of dazzling wit who turned high concepts into hits.”

The killing fields of Sudan have become a new Trump initiative after the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman’s recent visit. Wracked by war for two-and-a-half years, Sudan lies in ruins. Previously Trump had written it off as “crazy and out of control.” Now he has pledged to work with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to end the violence.

With nearly 12 million driven from their homes, famine conditions and atrocities a regular occurrence, there is abject despair in the country. Gulf states are concerned about instability on the Red Sea — a key trade route — and fear the rise of Islamists in the region as does Egypt. Russia has been meddling supporting one side of the conflict. Most wish that both combatants could be ousted.

 See previous post: Sudan – a humanitarian disaster too far 24th September 2024.

 Sudan, 1 January 1956, has a chart suggestive of a troubled trajectory – with a destructive and vengeful Mars Saturn conjunct in Scorpio in a ruthless, bleak square to Pluto conjunct Jupiter. Across this winter tr Uranus will oppose the Saturn and square the Pluto for more turmoil and turbulence. The Solar Arc Saturn is conjunct the Venus as news of recent horrors emerged – and apart from tr Uranus square the Jupiter from June 2026 onward, repeating in early 2027 there is not much of cheer.

  Trump’s chart relocated to Sudan is not inspiring – harsh words and high hopes – but nothing much substantive to indicate it is a success zone for him.

 This winter looks rattled where his other two ‘peace-making’ efforts were focused. Israel has its Mars at the same degree as Ukraine’s Venus and Sudan’s Saturn and Pluto – all of which will be in line of jolting transiting Uranus hard aspects this December and again next spring. The conflicts have no connection with each other but none of them look like turning into done deals on the peace front anytime soon.

The Belgian PM has put a spanner in the works of using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine. He says it would violate international law and would destabilise financial markets. Belgium hosts €183bn, about two-thirds of the Russian assets immobilised in the west, at the Brussels-based central securities depository Euroclear. He warned that Euroclear could be sued by Russians with a claim on the assets, landing the Belgian government with a multibillion euro bill. He also said it would prevent the EU from reaching a peace deal, because the Russian assets would not be available for the reconstruction of Ukraine. He clearly reckons Ukraine will lose the war and that Russia would then be asking for its sovereign assets to be returned. As has happened in other cases.

The assets are seen as a key element of upping pressure on Russia, as well as a means of funding Ukraine’s defence at a time when many EU governments are grappling with tight budgets or deficits.

 Bart De Wever, 21 December 1970 11.40pm Mortsel, Belgium is a conservative and Flemish nationalist. He has a 4^th house Sagittarius Sun in a controlling square to Pluto in his 1^st house, both final degree – and both to be undermined over the winter by tr Neptune Saturn in hard aspect. He also has Saturn in Taurus opposition Mars Venus in Scorpio with Jupiter also in Scorpio. Not a man to budge easy.

 His chart relocated to Kyiv puts a focus on financial matters for him. But what intrigues me is his relocated chart to Moscow which puts the abusive, lying Nessus exactly on his Midheaven and intolerable-suffering Chariklo on his Descendant. There will be different ways of reading the meanings of these two positions but there may be more to his trenchant resistance than meets the eye.

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