The Lady magazine and its (first?) astrologer

This week I make my debut in The Lady as its (first?) astrologer. My weekly horoscope column is terse and prescriptive and will (probably) improve your life. It is accompanied by my feature on why astrology is not rubbish - an idea suggested by editor and Virgo Rachel Johnson.

If there's one thing I've learned in the past few weeks on Twitter about the doubters, sceptics and preachy knockers of astrology (such as Prof Brian Cox, the very touchy Piscean who cannot bear criticism) is that complete ignorance of the subject in no way hinders blinkered ridicule. Science has sired a generation that just 'knows' things without research in the same way priests of old heard voices.

I hope you find my column entertaining and true. For a flavour of the magazine, click here The Lady. The digital edition sets you back £1. The print copy £2.

Dictator's wife Asma al-Assad - thin, as approved by US Vogue's Anna Wintour

Asma al-Assad

A faint sneery rustle of controversy over US Vogue's embarrassingly timed profile of Syria's first lady, Asma al-Assad, 35. As Middle Eastern and north African regimes topple all about its borders and beyond, and Syria itself beats down rioters and restricts internet access, here comes a piece of scented puffery which lauds the wife of President Bashar al-Assad, who won 97% of the vote in the 2000 election.

You can't buy that kind of charisma. Or may be you can.

Apparently, the first lady is the nation's Mother Theresa. Wisely, she leaves the jewels at home while ministering to the dirt poor. She's a strange kind of saintly figure, however. The Vogue piece recounts how she cruelly tells a bunch of children that their school is to be closed down. As infantile blubs start up she reveals she's only joking - 'I just wanted to see how much you care about Massar,' she says of her charity.

It's a very telling anecdote. Living saints should not be overly conscious of the favours they do unto others. Note to the first lady's PRs.

As for Vogue, oh dearie dear. Yet another cock up. Why they ran the interview is revealed in the opening lines. She is 'glamorous, young, and very chic... a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement.' Yes, she is thin: this will have endeared the first lady to editor Anna Wintour who most certainly would not have commissioned the profile had the subject resembled the late Golda Meir or some other aged gargoyle. We all know about Anna's obsession with thin.

If only she had read the astrological Old Moore's Almanack, which from the vantage point of January 2010 foresaw the current revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere, while secular seers had their antennae up their arses. If only.

Read the profile while it's up, here

Anthony Burgess, the Tarot and his inner Madame Arcati

Anthony Burgess and his palm

Given the supernatural flavour of the festive season - Christ's cot, the Pope and Shrek meld into a methane-fuelled hallucination - it is with some delight I learn today that the late Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange, was something of a Madame Arcati himself.

Not only a student of the divinatory arts, such as astrology and the Tarot, he also wrote a short story back in the early 60s called Chance Would Be a Fine Thing which was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in October. I am deeply bitter I missed this. Someone will suffer. We now have to wait till 2013 before it's published in a collection of newly discovered work.

We can thank the scholar squirrel Dr Andrew Biswell, director of the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, for unearthing this work. In a Telegraph report Dr Biswell says: “[Burgess] had a strong interest in horoscopes, tarot cards and predictive dreams. In the second volume of his autobiography he even claimed to have predicted the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963.”

The celebrated Tarot reader Mary K Greer recounts: "[Burgess] is known to have read cards at a village fete in the 1950s disguised as ‘Professor Sosostris the famous clairvoyant.'"

Professor Sosostris - has a ring to it.

Old Moore's Almanack 2011: More political sex scandals - and a royal wedding?

Is the Cosmic Deity a Tory?

This I ask myself as I leaf through the newly published 2011 edition of Old Moore's Almanack, the astrological annual that's been going since 1697. Foreseeing the reintroduction of "life-values that have been largely missing for 20 years," (ie, since Maggie Thatch was booted out), traditionalist stargazer "Dr Francis Moore" writes approvingly of "discipline, self-discipline, respect and responsibility" in Pluto's wake as it hot tracks its bulldozer through debt mountains via puppets George Osborne, Vince Vable and co.

If I didn't know better, I'd imagine Tory spinner Andy Coulson had dictated Old Moore's diatribe. But let's not be unpleasant. What else does OM predict for the coming year?

Writing at the start of 2010, and presumably before the coalition was slicked together, OM wonders aloud whether another general election will be called in 2011. Sounds as if the government will be riven by subterfuge and plots - foreign to Westminster as we know. July '11 is particularly horrid with "scandals involving individual ministers and illicit affairs". One can only hope there will be a sufficient number of elected LibDems left to go around.

The story of the LibDem whose epic sexual escapades kept the local coppers busy in earlier times has yet to hit the headlines. I'm saying nothing, for the sake of national unity. And the story of the ex-party leader who extra-maritally fucked a famous author in Brighton is also Arcati-classified.

Prince William is unlikely to contribute to bunting sales with a wedding before 2011 - indeed, Kate Middleton sounds like a right madam and is unlikely to tie the knot if the future king doesn't build a domestic shrine to her first. You go, girlfriend! Listen to those Loose Women tarts. Still, OM thinks there could be a royal wedding next summer, "at which the Queen will be a happy and conspicuous participant."

This will come as some relief to those who recall her demeanour at the Charles/Camilla registry job. She did everything but break wind, audibly. Happily, HM is not due to do a Dignitas on us and could very well out-live David Cameron's smug smiles.

Piers Morgan is warned of "over-exposure" in the media next year. Surely not. For loads of other predictions, Old Moore's Almanack 2011 is on sale at £2.50. And visit Old Moore's website.