With the world (and chunks of the USA) looking on aghast at the depths to which Donald Trump has dragged the Presidential election, I’ve been pondering on where he gets his contempt for women, other races, tendency to wild conspiracy theories and total inability to lose with dignity, opting instead for a scorched earth, … Read more
Can a playboy prince, with a rackety reputation, three failed marriages and an explosive temper take the place of his revered, steady-hand-on-the-tiller father? That’s a question perplexing the upper echelons of Thailand’s military junta government. Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, born 28 July 1952 5.45 pm Bangkok, Thailand, made his pet poodle an Air Chief Marshal … Read more
Bob Dylan, has been – extraordinarily and probably controversially – given the Nobel Prize for Literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”. His songs include Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They are A-Changin’. He is the first American to win since novelist Toni Morrison in 1993. … Read more
Singer, song-writer and actress Janet Jackson, sister of the late Michael, is expecting her first child at the age of 50. Her husband since 2012 is Qatari billionaire Wissam Al Mana. Born 16 May 1966 7pm Gary, Indiana, she has a 7th house Sun, Mars, North Node, Mercury in Taurus opposition a 1st house … Read more
Marilyn Bell is an extraordinary woman who started long distance swimming aged 10 and was the first to swim across Lake Ontario in Canada when she was sixteen, against two experienced adults who had to give up. She was in the water for nearly 21 hours, swimming more than the planned route because of … Read more
The Trans-Siberian Railway, the longest train line in the world, stretching more than 5,700 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok, crossing two continents, 16 large rivers and eight time zones, was officially opened 100 years ago in 1916. Though it was set under way by an Imperial Edict from Tsar Alexander III on 9 March 1891. … Read more
Warren Beatty has emerged from family seclusion to make his first movie in a decade – Rules Don’t Apply, described as a biopic about the eccentric, reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes but in reality about two would-be lovers coping with the money and misogyny in late-1950s Hollywood. Beatty plays Howard Hughes in a supporting role. … Read more
The noise around the Brexit-will-it-bankrupt-the-UK debate has an irritatingly low sense-to-sound ratio. I wondered whether Solar Returns for the UK might give any pointers. The 1993 Solar Return when the UK crashed out of the ERM certainly showed up strongly with Uranus Neptune in the financial 8th opposition Mars; with Sun also in the … Read more
Below are a couple of pieces I wrote when this hoary old chestnut came up a couple of years back, for the umpteenth time. Did my sun sign change? Noooooo. You are precisely as you have always been. How could an intense passionately emotional Scorpio suddenly morph into an elegantly detached Libra? Not possible. Your … Read more
Rosetta, the highly successful European Space Agency comet probe has reached its final resting place, 720 million kilometres (450 million miles) on the other side of the Solar System beyond Jupiter, and shut down. Its observations have transformed understanding of the mountainous balls of ice and dust that wander among the planets; and added … Read more