The Dark Side of Astrology

DO you believe in astrology? I must admit I always glance at my horoscope in newspapers and magazines; believe them if they're good and dismiss them if they're bad. If you think about it logically, there are 12 signs of the zodiac so the likelihood of one-twelfth of the population having the same personality as you is somehow insulting and takes no account of the complexity of the human persona.

I once had a long and earnest discussion with a woman at a party about astrology. I told her I was an Aries and she went into a long and detailed explanation of how she could tell I was an Aries, picking out various points of my personality to back up her views. Trouble is, I'm actually a Gemini (ah, I can hear you afficionados, say, Gemini - devious) and when I told her this later she was furious. Oh well, can't win 'em all.

Every sign has its good points and the trouble with most astrologers is that they tell you what you want to hear so when they say you’re clever and creative with a great sense of humour, are you going to disagree?

I'm more interested in the dark side of astrology - those parts of our personality that we like to keep hidden. I reckon, if there is any truth in astrology, that if you turn it on its head you get a truer picture of what a person is like.

Here are the negative sides of each sign. OK, I might have SLIGHTLY exaggerated, but I am a Gemini after all so what do you expect? You can’t believe a word I say, or can you ………?

Aries:
Unless you are a masochist, never get tangled up with the sadistic Arian. They love to humiliate you, control you and inflict pain on you. They are the megalomaniacs of the zodiac and have an ego the size of the Empire State Building. Don’t cross them or you’ll find just how short a fuse they have – yes, they’re a notoriously bad-tempered lot. They have a propensity to invade Poland.
Famous Arians: Adolf Hitler, Hugh Hefner, Alan Sugar, Celine Dion, Piers Morgan

Taurus:
Taureans are completely materialistic. They know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. They are totally obsessed by wealth and fame and may end up as a stalker. Despite being so starstruck, they are jealous and resentful of anyone who has made it. They are stupid, dishonest and overbearing. If you suspect a Taurean doesn't like you, never eat or drink anything they offer you.
Famous Taureans: Lucrezia Borgia, Machiavelli, Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair, Pol Pot

Gemini:
Geminians are two-faced manipulators. They will pledge their undying love to you one day and the next start an affair with your best friend. They have turned lying and deceit into an art form. They rarely get anywhere in life owing to a complete inability to concentrate on anything for longer than two minutes. Never leave your spouse unattended in the presence of a Gemini.
Famous Geminians: Wallis Simpson, George Bush, Jeffery Dahmer, Naomi Campbell, Boy George

Cancer:
Moan, moan, moan, moan. Will they EVER stop complaining? They are permanently stressed out, worrying about every little detail of their life. If a friend phones you at two in the morning, sobbing about some problem, you can bet your life it’s a Cancerian. They are paranoid and think everyone is against them. They are meek and mild until someone upsets them, then they turn into Attila the Hun. They will kick out - but on the plus side, could well be wearing very nice shoes.
Famous Cancerians: Imelda Marcos, Nancy Reagan, O J Simpson, Courtney Love, Mike Tyson,

Leo:
The world doesn’t revolve around the sun; it revolves around Leos. Or so they believe. They are so arrogant you want to slap them – very hard. God help you if your boss is a Leo because they’ll treat you like a slave. However, Leos are so gullible that they are easily swayed by flattery – no matter how thick you lay it on, they’ll believe it. Never leave your child unattended in the presence of a Leo - they will try to adopt it.
Famous Leos: Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Napoleon, Mussolini, Castro

Virgo:
Virgoans are the trainspotters of the Zodiac – prissy, pernickety and pedantic. They are meticulously tidy and organised. They are cold, critical and cynical. The last person you want to get cornered by at a party is a Virgoan. They are totally boring and will regale you for hours (it might only be minutes but it’ll feel like hours) about their tedious hobbies. However, they often wish to be alone, which is a blessing.
Famous Virgoans: Greta Garbo, Ivan the Terrible, Mickey Mouse, Queen Elizabeth the First,

Libra:
You needn’t worry about not looking your best if you’re with a Libran; they only have eyes for themselves. Yet they are needy, clingy and insecure. They are emotionally unstable, always asking for reassurance. They want everything to be perfect and get uptight and nitpicky if they aren’t. They are weak and superficial yet absolutely convinced they are right.
Famous Librans: Simon Cowell, Margaret Thatcher, Peter Mandelson, Cliff Richard, Aleister Crowley

Scorpio:
What a bossy boots! Scorpios love power and will stop at nothing to get it. They’re totally ruthless. They love to belittle and demoralise you. They are secretive and will always try to make you believe they know more than they actually do. Their brains are in their – well, not their heads; they are obsessed by sex. They may look like a geek but they aim to take over the world.
Famous Scorpians: Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton, Charles Manson, Joseph Goebbels, Gordon Ramsay

Sagittarius:
Sagittarians are very good a making promises. Unfortunately, they never keep them. They are pathetically eager to please and want everyone to love them, rather like a boisterous, annoying puppy. And they dribble as much. They are completely tactless and will embarrass you in public. They are clumsy, crafty and craven. They have the common touch - emphasis on common.

Famous Sagittarians: Britney Spears, Walt Disney, Steven Spielberg, Joseph Stalin, Billy the Kid

Capricorn:
Whatever you can do, a Capricorn can do it better; whatever you know, a Capricorn knows more. That’s what they believe. They’re usually wrong; but that’s what they believe. They are blunt to the point of rudeness and they have absolutely no sense of humour. They are hypercritical of everything you do but see it as just being honest. They are really annoying people you’d swim a swirling rapid to avoid. Never sneeze in their presence, unless you want to be sprayed with disinfectant.
Famous Capricorn: Howard Hughes, J. Edgar Hoover, Herman Goering, Quentin Crisp, Al Capone

Aquarius:
They are colder than the coldest fish – completely emotionless. Yet they hide their lack of feeling behind a smiling, happy-go-lucky exterior. Don’t be fooled as they have huge ambition and will trample over anyone in their desperate desire to get to the top. They are eccentric idiots. Their orange skin usually shines brighter than their intellect.

Famous Aquarian: Paris Hilton, Dame Edna Everage, Ted Bundy, Yoko Ono, Sarah Palin

Pisces:
Pisceans are slippery, sly sycophants. Despite being the fishy sign of the zodiac they love nothing better than to get their hooks into you and will exasperate you with their emotional neediness. They are bound to be addicted to something, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, sex, food or work – or maybe all of them at the same time. Many are deeply disturbed so avoid ever being alone in a room with one.
Famous Piscean: John Wayne Gacy, Aileen Wuornos, Jimmy Swaggart, Gordon Brown, Ivana Trump

Car Sharing

I HAVE heard all the dire warnings about global warming so to complain about car sharing seems inappropriate.

But I’m going to anyway.

Before I go any further, I should say I regularly give a colleague a lift to work and we get along just fine. We are both of a certain age (certain we’re past our sell-by date) and can be a pair of grumpy old women together.

Generally speaking, though, I consider giving lifts a necessary evil.

For a start, you can’t do any of those antisocial things like spit, fart and chew baccy. I don’t particularly want to spit, fart and chew baccy – but I want to feel I can if the mood takes me. And I’m not sure of the etiquette . Radio on or radio off? My passenger might not like my choice of Gran Radio – the channel that puts glamour into incontinence pads. But give them the choice, and you can bet your life you'll be subjected to some dire 60s country and western channel. There’s only so many times you can hear a mountain gal sing about her love for poor old dying Yeller without tossing her the humane killer.

So the radio is off and I have to, horror of horrors, make conversation. For some of these people I would feign unconsciousness to get away from at a party, but here I am trapped inside this metal tube with some gormless idiot chuntering on beside me for 20 miles.

I used to give a teenager from my village a lift to college. I'm not sure what she was studying - I'm not sure she knew what she was studying - but her area of expertise was relationships. I'd nod sagely at pearls of wisdom like, "Well Kelly thinks that Tyler fancies her but I could tell her for nothing that actually he thinks she's a total minger and I know for an absolute fact that he fancies Chantelle but I saw her snogging Dazza in the bus shelter and he's supposed to be going out with Mimi but I don't know what he sees in her, she's such a total scuzz-bucket and not fussy with it either, if you know what I mean, just ask Bruno, he chucked her because he was fed up of finding her with her tongue down other lads' throats and when he caught her with Simon - yes, that Simon - who's totally ancient and must be nearly 30, well he had no choice but to give her the elbow. "

STOP!

I'm not sure who was worse, her or the young lad who in a year of lifts never said one word apart from the occasional grunt which I took was either a yes or no answer to the odd question I'd throw his way. Then there was the trainee hairdresser who had no conversation at all unless it related to hair and all its associated products.

That's the trouble with living in a village with only an intermittent bus service, mums knock on your door and ask if you can ferry their little darlings to town.

The next time I'm asked to give someone a lift I think I might trade my car in for a black cab and make sure the interconnecting window is well and truly shut. I can sit back, turn on Gran Radio and spit out the window.

Fake Tans, Fringes and Wooden Clogs

I WATCHED a news item about fake tans this morning. Several young, overweight girls were convinced that looking orange was going to make them as desirable as Angelina Jolie.

As I laughed in my own superior way, I suddenly remembered what lengths I went to as a young woman to try to look like Charlotte Rampling or Farrah Fawcett - a bit difficult for a Devonian stumpwort. But I had a go at trying to force my reluctant body and its accoutrements into some semblance of "fashion".

There was the year of long, sleek hair which necessitated me ironing mine every morning to remove its slight waviness. Then curly hair came in and my hair was not wavy enough. I'd post a photo of me with my Afro perm if it wasn't so embarrassing but the picture above will give you some idea.

I tried fake nails for all of one week until I realised it was impossible to do anything with your hands while wearing plastic talons stuck on with some inadequate glue - such a waste of two perfectly good opposable thumbs.

There was the era of fake lashes, so thick and heavy that for a while I went around with my eyes half closed, bumping into things. I was later similarly ocularly handicapped with the long side fringe that covered one eye.

There was the spell of the chalk white face with white lipstick during which I looked like an escapee from a tuberculosis ward.

Do you remember wooden clogs? I was banned from wearing them in the house after stepping on my mother's toe while wearing several pounds of seasoned oak.

I've looked like Rowdy of the range with my fringed suede jacket and skirt and leather boots - I shudder to think how many poor cows gave their lives to make me look like a poor cow. I spent a few months looking like a man, with sharp trouser suits, shirt and tie and a few more months looking like a Stepford wife with long floral skirts and floppy-brimmed hat.

Then there was the power dressing era with shoulder pads so wide I could hardly get through the door - shoulder pads on a jacket with rolled up sleeves, of course. I could go on .... and on and on but my fashion phases and faux pas are too numerous to mention.

What were yours?

Men In Frocks

SOME of you men seem just that little bit too quick to leap into women's clothes, if you ask me.

Carnival time? Oo, let me dress as a St Trinian's girl in school uniform with stockings and suspenders.

Panto time? Let me be the dame with big bosoms.

Fancy dress? No, I don't want to be Superman, I want to be Wonder Woman.

To be fair to men (I can hear the dearly beloved choking on his cornflakes. 'That must be a first,' be mutters), women, too, sometimes dress as the weaker sex (men). Look at Kate on The Apprentice in her suits, shirts and ties. But that's different. That masculine dress only serves to accentuate her femininity - all long blonde hair, make-up and shiny teeth.

Now it's fine if you're a transvestite. Variety is what makes this world an endlessly fascinating place, but no self-respecting transvestite would go out in public in his wife's wig she bought in a Woolworth's sale in 1976. He wouldn't dream of stuffing two great pillows up his jumper and think anyone would believe they were heaving bosoms. And he certainly knows better than to plaster on lipstick a la Bette Davies in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?.

I must admit there is a tad hint of jealousy in this rant of mine. It's just not fair that most men in heels have better legs than mine (heck, a piano has better legs than mine) but these "fancy dress" men look exactly what they are, a man in a frock.

Would you have been fooled by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Some Like It Hot? Me neither. Men in frocks. Nathan Lane in The Birdcage? Man in a frock. Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie? Man in a frock. Eddie Murphy in just about every film he's made? Man in a frock. Eric Idle and Robbie Coltrane in Nuns On The Run? Men in nuns' habits.

The only exception, strangely, seems to be Dame Edna Everage. Lots of people believe she's a real woman and, let's face it, she really does look like a man in a spangly frock.

On the whole, though, you men wouldn't fool a short-sighted baboon from 100 yards. If you don't believe me, take a look at the photo below. I rest my case.

Claims to rival MPs' expenses

I’M thinking of being more creative with my expenses. The firm I work for allows me to claim for petrol used for business and for the occasional meal (with receipt) if work takes me out of the office for a long period. But that’s about it.

With all the row over MPs’ expenses, I now see that I have approached the subject from entirely the wrong angle.

Expenses are nothing to do with being REimbursed for money you have paid out during the execution of your duty but more to do with being ‘imbursed’ for money you have paid out during the execution of making your life as cushy as possible.

Then there is the notion that nothing is too trivial or fantastical to be included.

I have drawn up my next claim with these principles in mind.

I don’t have a moat that needs dredging but I do have a house that could do with a moat being built around it. After all, one needs to keep out the hoi polloi.

Then there is the cost of employing a groom to brush the unicorn and the little woman who warms my slippers before I slip them on of an evening.

The ferret needs a new toothbrush and I need a facelift.

This morning I spent £1 for a bag of wine gums in aid of the local children’s hospice. Does it seem a bit mean to claim that back on expenses? Who cares.

I have always thought a housekeeper would make my life as a working woman easier. I’ll be a little less tired at work so it’s to my employer’s advantage, surely.....

Yes, creativity is the answer. I must submit my expenses claim today.

Can’t wait to see what the answer will be.

Surviving the Credit Crunch

MY better half, who runs his own firm, was asked: “How do you start a small business?”

His reply: “Buy a big one. And wait.”

The old jokes are the best.

So, how are you all surviving the credit crunch? I spent days with my calculator, number-crunching, to see if I could manage if I were made redundant. I worked out that if only I could live a frugal life and the dearly beloved would shove a few quid into my piggy bank every week, I could just about keep my head above water. Unfortunately, he’s rather relying on my pension to keep him in his old age. I knew I should have married a rich man.

In the event, despite some scares along the way, I have kept my job. So, despite my dreams of living the frugal life at home tending my vegetable plot in my patchwork skirt, I am still on the work treadmill. And it’s just as well.

I’m just not the type of person who is any good at knitting jumpers out of llama hair plucked from barbed wire or making furniture out of cans and discarded cardboard boxes.

During all that number-crunching, I was forced to confront the fact that I am a wasteful individual. Our house-keeping bill for two people (and two cats) is huge. I am a dreadful shopper. I’m a sucker for a bargain or a buy-one-get-one-free offer (BOGOF). I'm lured in with the promise of something for nothing and the hint that I may have put one over on Tesco or Sainsbury.

In reality, I buy too much of something I didn’t particularly want in the first place and either end up giving it away or throwing it away. And Messrs Tesco, Sainsbury et al bog off to the bank with my money in their hands.

I am full of admiration for those people who can produce a seven-course banquet for 12 with last night’s left-overs and a tin of peas. I could spend £50 a head and it would still taste like an average meal from a back street cafe.

I even, for the first time in 20 years, darned a pair of socks. I’m ashamed to say, I hardly knew how to begin. As you’ve probably guessed, my socks somehow metamorphosed into a pig’s ear.

A friend at work gave me a brace of pheasants — unplucked and undrawn. I’m a country girl, a farmer’s daughter, and I knew exactly what to do with them.....

I gave them to my mother who plucked them, gutted them and gave them back to me, all cooked.


I haven't given up, though. I am really trying to be more fiscally responsible. I've started to embrace the "make do and mend" ethos. I have got to grips with darning and no longer throw away a pair of socks because they have one small hole. Good grief, last week I even mended a hem that was coming down. Not that everything has been a rip-roaring success. My attempt to make soup out of a chicken carcase and left-over vegetables tasted just like.... some tasteless concoction made out of a chicken carcase and left-over vegetables.

So one last recession joke.

What's the difference between an investment banker and a pigeon?

The pigeon is still capable of leaving a deposit on a new Ferrari.


Click here to read a blog by a friend who knows what she's talking about.

How To Impress Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell

I ATTENDED a course at work where there was a brief section on time management. The conversation, inevitably, turned to making lists and prioritising tasks.

Little did my colleagues know they were in the company of a list expert. I can hardly get out of bed in the morning without making a list (1 Turn off alarm. 2 Kick better half awake. 3 Block ears to swearing. 4 Swing legs over side.)

I can undertake no job without first writing everything down in extraordinary detail. You might think it’s a displacement activity but in my case it’s a way of giving myself a kick up the arse (must be double-jointed) to get going.
Yes, lists are a valuable tool, not only for hard-pressed working women like me but for people from all walks of life.

If only talent show contestants would make a list before they subjected themselves to ritual humiliation from the likes of Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan.

1 Take singing lessons (or juggling-with-four-small-gerbils lessons, or dancing-with-a-goat lessons, or singing-operatic-arias-while-gargling-with-neat-vodka lessons). With a bit of luck they might realise that they're just not cut out for showbiz and never reach…

2 Attend audition, let alone further along the reality show line to

3 Pass audition by default because the Incredible Farting Duck disgraced himself on stage before the Tap-Dancing Tarantula stung him and was in turn trampled to death by a marching band from Grimupnorth made up of 22 hefty young people brought up on a diet of black pudding and chips. Then it’s…..

4 Appear in The Talent Factor and be so excruciatingly bad that the audience at home has to hide behind sofa, and they would spare themselves

5 When a supercilious Piermon Cowgan (how frightening is that? An amalgamation of Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell?) tells them they would rather sleep with Jeremy Clarkson than have to listen to one more second. Incidentally, anagram of Piers Morgan Simon Cowell: A Merciless Mooning Prowl.

That kind of self-knowledge would be handy for Hollywood stars too.

1 Sleep with co-star.

2 Get married at Vegas.

3 Sleep with another co-star.

4 Get quickie divorce.

I’m sure there must be thousands of other handy lists in the world of show business but I must go. I have to:

1 Boil the kettle

2 Put coffee in mug

3 Pour in boiling water

4 Add milk

5 Stir with spoon

6 Drink