Two women in the news this week for raising the ire of dictatorial regimes are both of the Pluto in Scorpio generation. Kylie Moore-Gilbert, 28 May 1987, an Australian academic has been released after 804 days in Iranian prisons. She attended a conference in Iran and was arrested on espionage charges which she has … Read more
Suzanne Moore, the Guardian columnist, winner of last year’s Orwell Prize for journalism, has resigned over the paper’s lack of support for her when she was attacked by transgender zealots, who threatened her physically and her children. After she wrote a piece in which she said gender was a biological classification, ‘not a feeling’ … Read more
A depressingly vacuous court case involving two English Kardashian-type footballers wives centres on who leaked what from a private Instagram account. Coleen Rooney, wife of bad-boy Wayne, accused Rebekah Vardy of leaking stories of her private life to the media and says it caused her three years of ‘stress and anxiety’. RV in return sued … Read more
Douglas Stuart, a reluctant fashion designer, has won the Booker Prize with ‘Shuggie Bain’, an autobiographical novel, about the lonely gay son of an alcoholic mother in 1980s Glasgow. Described as ‘heartbreaking’ ‘both beautiful and brutal’ it fictionalises Stuart’s love for his mother despite her flaws and his determination to survive and thrive in a … Read more
Jan Morris, the celebrated travel writer and author, well known as a transgender pioneer, has died aged 94. She led an extraordinary life, a cavalry officer during WW11, marrying and having five children, climbing three-quarters way up Everest to witness Edmund Hillary conquer it in 1953, and reporting in Egypt on the Suez crisis with … Read more
Hungary and Poland have stuck a spanner into the EU works and threatened to stop Covid recovery funds getting to member states desperately in need. They have blocked approval of the budget over a clause that ties funding with adherence to the rule of EU law. The two countries have been criticised for violating democratic … Read more
Matthew MConaughey, maverick and versatile actor – True Detective, Dallas Buyers Club amongst many others – has written a kind-of memoir, “Greenlights”, replete with bumper-sticker musings and aphorisms, and tales from his up and down, boom and bust life story, from a drama-filled childhood onwards. Born 4 November 1969 7.34 pm, Uvalde, Texas, he … Read more
The Inauguration of January 2021 (assuming all runs to plan and time) does look a mix of successful and explosive. There’s Pluto on the Midheaven which is marginally surprising, more often turning up in dictator’s administrations given its tendency to over-control. There’s a successful and confident Jupiter in the 10th. But it is tied into … Read more
America Decides:- 1. Joe Biden. 2. Trump. 3. Incredibly drawn out, messy, inconclusive, lawyer-ridden process, probably including violence. (Thanks to Christian Adams cartoon, Evening Standard.) Memo for astro-election watchers: never ever get distracted by polls. They are invariably off. Following on from the previous November 1 post below and earlier thoughts on the Supreme Court, … Read more
The astro-signposts to look out for in what is undoubtedly going to be an acutely muddled and aggravated few weeks after the USA election. Even if Trump loses by a landslide he’s still got almost three months of the graveyard shift to cause havoc. If it is a closer result in key states, he’ll flail … Read more