New Year 2007

If I have heard Edmund Burke’s remark ‘All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men do nothing’ trotted out once in relation to the Iraq war, I have heard it a gazillion times. It implies that evil is out there at all times and complacent, peace-loving idlers who do not fight, actively conspire with the bad guys. It doesn’t say anything about evil triumphing because good men take up its uses. No: war is wrong, but not when we do it. We must do it to them before they do it to us: and they will. This is the Bush-Blair attitude, which, curiously enough is already starting to sound very, very old. We will look back on the first few years of the third Millennium and shudder.

The pacifist argument is often labelled moral relativist, whereas it is the exact opposite. It is morally absolute and says war is always wrong. ‘Naïve’, say the warmongers, as if it is wise to believe that waging war results in anything but the exact same, and worse, inevitably coming our way.

It has been hard being a peace-loving Brit over the last four years. Even when the Iraq situation is admitted to be a complete and utter disaster by everyone, a pall of apathy remains. Clear-minded people, outraged about the whole matter are depicted as ranting, sanctimonious opportunists, and the general attitude is to yawn. ‘My house price is still going up, so who cares?’ Our craven, mendacious, war-mongering leader is allowed to depart at a time of his own choosing, rather than being thrown out in ignominy. I still hold out hope that he will be interrupted in his retirement lecture tours and called to account for his actions at a war-crimes tribunal at The Hague. Not this year, perhaps, but eventually.

Already my remarks have been overtaken by events, as the news from America is getting better. An outbreak of sanity occurred in the US in the latter months of last year and this looks set to continue. Britain will have a new PM in 2007, and for all that he sat back and did nothing while the scandalous war in Iraq began, Gordon Brown’s instincts are probably nobler and more peaceable than Tony Blair’s (which says very little). Brown is proper dour, Scottish Presbyterian, and Scotland as a country is set to have a more decisive role in shaping national and international affairs. The clamour for Scottish independence will grow in the coming year.

So, despite everything, I remain optimistic.

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19th July
A perfect Mercury retrograde moment in politics this week, when Bush and Bliar were caught taking off the record at the St Petersburg summit. They didn't realise the microphones were still on, and the unmistakeable sound of Bliar crawling to his boss could be heard. He didn't quite get his tongue down Bush's throat, but the impression was pretty clear.

12th July 2006.
So, the World Cup is already fading into memory, with another glorious failure by the England team. I was one who backed Sven initially, since I can well remember times when England haven't qualified for the finals at all. But Neptune going over Eriksson's Aquarian Sun certainly made him behave in a pretty whimsical way.

Of course, it would have been far more impressive if I had come out before the event, but I had a hunch Italy would win it. This was not based on astrology, still less form, but just a gut feeling. So when they finally did it, I had mixed feelings: intrigue because I was right, but regret that I didn't back myself at the bookies. They were offering odds of up to 20-1 at the start, I hear.

As for Zinedine Zidane (23/06/1972), he had a Cancerian loony moment in the final. The impending Full Moon in Capricorn did for him, and it just had to be an insult to his mother that tipped him over the edge, didn't it?

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The discovery of the new planet(oid?) 2003UB313 seems to have preoccupied a few people, and I guess it's only fair that astrologers are excited. Tentatively known as, Xena, am I the only one who thinks the name '2003UB313' is a kind of mnemonic in itself, that trips of the tongue quite nicely? The issue of nomenclature is of course the most intriguing at these moments, with the truly bizarre and magical syncronicity that occurs. I must look up the attributes of Xena, though I always got her confused with Jason and The Argonauts and the cheesy Robin Hood series that were on Channel Five at the same time.

More Imagination, Not More Planets...

Of course, Xena may turn out to be a momentous discovery, though
we need a certain amount of perspective yet. I do use the outer
planets, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto in my astrology, but I am not a fan of using every available lump of rock orbiting around out there. Enough already! The basic planets have plenty of significance in themselves
and that goes double for the Alice Bailey 'esoteric interpretations'
school of mumbo-jumbo. The amount of meaning derived from a
chart depends on the astrologer's level of insight, not the number of symbols his software package can scare up.

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Astrological reflections on the 7/7 attacks in central London seem kind of redundant, though the closely following Saturn into Leo ingress is probably significant. This is the 'punk placement' of Saturn, where notoriety will do just as well as fame, if not better, thankyou: 'If I cannot build, I will destroy'. We have truly reached a point of an unwinnable war, where the terrorists we have created, welcome death, leaving us nothing left with which to threaten them. As in most 'war' situations, we are being attacked by our own Shadow.

Political Rant Dept.

The depressing part of it, is that we are probably stuck with this state of affairs while Tony B.Liar remains in office. And who knows how long that will be? I have suspected for a while that, even if only in the privacy of his own shower stall, he knows he has done something very wrong vis-a-vis Iraq. Pulling out now, however, would require a level of diginity and statesmanship quite beyond his scope and a public admission of failure of which he is humanly incapable. This is all part of his antiquated, faux-patrician outlook: 'never apologise, never explain', which is of a piece with the neo-colonialist mentality that planned the whole Iraq misadventure in the first place. More pertinently, withdrawal would cast him personally out of the Bush Mafia's golden circle, horrors, so it simply isn't going to happen.

Peace-loving Piscean Robin Cook, bless him, was never going to be Prime Minister. But his untimely death leaves us looking round in despair for someone with both the clear-sightedness and clout to oppose the outrages that Bliar perpetrates. Bliar will smile as hard as he can while leading us all to ruin.

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16th April

So much for my horseracing predictions, below, which appeared in the Daily Mail on 8th April. I should leave tipping to the bookies, though I am quite suspicious of horse-racing form anyway, and the fences at the Grand National are much too high.

The Royal Wedding happened on the same day, neatly missing the eclipse in Aries. This was clearly a complete accident, but how symbolic is it that Charles and Diana's wedding in '81 was on an eclipse, and this one contrived to avoid it? A few astrologers think Charles hasn't got a royal enough chart and that he won't become King, but he kind of does. Leo rising and Moon in the tenth house are regal symbols and suggestive of a life spent in the public eye. Yes, he is a private Scorpio as well, but I think he can't make his mind up - he wants the deference and respect, but can't stand all the phoniness and PR that go with it.

The UK election is now in full swing, for anyone who cares. The old party divisions are pretty well in the past and this new, much less polarised scene will continue until people vote on who actually has the answers, rather than blindly supporting either left or right-wing, like a football team. Now that Mercury is direct, we should have fewer gaffes and a more straightforward debate, and then see who actually bothers to turn up and vote, if anyone.

Tony Blair has clearly had enough (at least for now, it would be just like him to change his mind again). He should have resigned after the Iraq fiasco, and though people say that this is harping over old ground, I hate the way the war is discussed as some kind of abstraction. As if it was a completely surgical, sanitised proceedure that overran Iraq, and tens of thousands of innocent people weren't killed for no reason.

April 9th

The Grand National takes place at the same time every year, the first Saturday in April, so it is an Aries event. Perfect. Aries is a sign of competition, which likes speed, the chase and the feeling of being first. Friday 8th's Solar Eclipse adds greatly to the Aries flavour and gives possible pointers as to the race winner.

Horses are born in season, so all the runners in the National have their star-signs between Pisces and Gemini in the zodiac. The exception to this is the strongly fancied Hedgehunter, an Aquarian horse born on 25th January 1996. Mars, the planet of races and contests is in Aquarius on the day, so this could be a good omen for Hedgehunter, though there is also a suggestion that he may run out of steam.

Since the horses are so closely packed together by star-sign, we look for extra clues to horses with an Aries type name. The Pisceans L'adventure and Strong Resolve, the Aries Polar Red and the Gemini Risk Assessor all leap out as likely titles who chime with the conditions of the day. Of these, the 80-1 shot Polar Red is perhaps the best bet, as an Aries horse (born 31/03/97), with red being the colour of Aries and the astrological conditions favouring the outsider.

The National is being run slightly later this year, 4:10pm, and the exact chart for the race does indeed suggest an unexpected result. Ironically, this puts the front-runners in an astrologically poorer position, otherwise the Piscean horse and 7-1 favourite Clan Royal (born 14/03/95) would be looking very good. Between Friday's Royal Wedding and the current position of Saturn in clannish Cancer, it would be fitting symbolism if this most aptly named horse were to come home first.

April 5th

As I predicted elsewhere on these pages, it looks like Charles and Camilla's wedding may be subject to some Mercury retrograde malarky. Turns out that the 8th April will be the Pope's funeral, so the Royals may need a rethink. This is all newspaper talk, mind you - in fact, this may be exactly the sort of thing Charles and Camilla were looking for, as they seemed to want a low-key occasion.

The other story is that Tony Blair will probably announce a May 5th election today - sorry, but I so hope that Mercury retrograde will come around to bite him. The Tories backed the Iraq war as well, so they don't deserve to get in either, and though there may be a lot of tactical voting, the Lib Dems have got too much to do. But despite a few decent things they have done (minimum wage, overhauling the pub licencing hours), Tony Blair's precious legacy will be as a weak, opportunist war monger.

April 4th

Well, how about that? The two players I pick out at random in the article below turn out to be the ones dominating the headlines the very next Saturday. Keiron Dyer and Lee Bowyer (teamates, mind you) were both sent off for fighting with each other during Newcastle's home game with Aston Villa on 2nd April. Though I predicted that both these Capricorns were having a hard time, I must admit I didn't expect this to happen!

March 30th

France football coach studies the stars

A story that caught my eye over this Easter weekend was that of Raymond Domenech, head coach of the France national football team. Apparently he is a devotee of astrology, strange chap, and he admits that this influences his team selection.

In a recent documentary about star signs on French TV, Domenech ('France national coach and Aquarius with Virgo rising') related how he has problems with the Arsenal forward Robert Pires because he is a Scorpio, who always work against his interests. Among his other revelations were that Leos make bad defenders. “When I have got a Leo in defence, I’ve always got my gun ready,” he said. “I know he’s going to want to show off at one moment or another and cost us.” He denied that star signs were the sole reason for selection but went on to add that “all parameters have to be considered and I have added one by saying there is astrology involved”.

France's 0-0 draw against Switzerland on 26th March was the latest to be concluded with resounding jeers.

Jean-Pierre Escalettes, the president of the French football federation, was required to put a positive spin on his manager’s hobbies. “His passion for theatre and astrology means that he has a life outside football and that is for the best,” he said. “He is not playing for his future against Switzerland and Israel. The French team needs tranquillity.”

As The Times reporter Matt Dickinson points out, one shudders to imagine what would happen if the England football manager admitted to such extra-curricluar interests. We only have to remember Glenn Hoddle's use of a faith healer before the 1998 World Cup and the reporting of his views on reincarnation that eventually cost him his job.

The obvious response to the examples of Domenech and Hoddle is that a little knowledge is dangerous. For sure, used in the right way, astrology could provide invaluable insights into a sport where motivation, team building and a certain amount of psychology are such an important part.

As an avid football watcher, it is interesting to see how the fortunes of various players fluctuate according to their major transits. A couple of players at Newcastle United, Keiron Dyer and Lee Bowyer, both Capricorns, have been struggling for form over the last year, perhaps due to the opposition of Saturn to their natal Suns. This is one of the most testing transits of all, and Dyer in particular has suffered abuse from his own supporters during what must have been an extremely difficult period.

Harry Kewel, the once highly-rated Australian forward at Liverpool is another prominent Capricorn suffering from unfulfilled expectations, and the pressure increases when players like him earn so much money. Yet a manager armed with astrological knowledge might take other factors into account. So a player who loses form or who is struggling with injuries isn't necessarily lazy or has 'lost it', but is just going through a tricky spell, and for a finite time. Likewise, the same manager might snap up someone for a bargain fee if the selling club have become disillusioned, but it is clear that the player's astrological fortunes are about to change.

It will be interesting to test this theory on the fortunes of Thierry Henry, for example, as he approaches his Saturn return in Leo over the next eighteen months. Perhaps Henry, with his natal Sun-Saturn conjunction will cope better with the situation, but such a transit will surely make its presence felt, even for a player who seems to get everything right, both on and off the field.