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.

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.

Tut! David Cameron fails to buy up his internet domain names!

Sparklingly on-trend our new Prime Minister may like us to think he is - so it is distressing to discover that David Cameron has failed to buy up his .com domain name. The result of this oversight is that http://www.davidcameron.com/ - which at first glance looks like a Cameron blog - is now in the hands of a non-fan of the PM, one Reza Sorbati (of north London).

The opening two lines of the site's most recent post are representative of the hostile tone: "Ashcroft and Clegg help Cameron hobble to power. The electorate get a LibCon Coalition which is jeered into Downing Street on a sad day for democracy."

Nor can I be certain that davidcameron.co.uk is owned by the PM. The site claims to be a "gateway to sites on the Internet for [sic] david cameron!" But it appears to be a gateway to unrelated sites, such as those for cheap international calls or a new political party called... New Party. Davidcameronprimeminister.co.uk, too, is just another gateway.

It's astonishing that our Old Etonian leader ignored the internet while flourishing his fountain pen over self-tributes to his savviness and YouTube-ness. You'd think an online reputational presence de rigueur these days. I'd have expected at least his Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson to have mopped up the domain names for his boss, y'know, just in case. But perhaps this confirmed workplace bully and somewhat absent former editor of the News of the World was distracted by all those Guardian pieces calling for his resignation.

Still, Nick Clegg is not much better. Nickclegg.net is owned by ... Joker.com.

10 Downing St News: 'Tuesday night's the earliest, folks!'

Sunday Times astrologer Shelley von Strunckel tweets: "Oh, before I go, according to the stars, Downing St-wise, nothing will be settled until after 10:30 Tuesday evening. Just so you know."

Mark McGowan's 10,000 prostrations to David Cameron

Mark McGowan plans to prostrate himself 10,000 times in front of a "large photographic image of Conservative leader David Cameron on (election day) May 6th, 2010, opposite number 10 Downing Street."

He explains: "The prostrations can be seen as a sign of reverence to a noble man, David Cameron, the man who can lead this country out of the problems we are in. It should take me about two-and-a-half days to complete, I will start at 10am on Thursday 6th May and finish on Saturday 8th May, by which time this country will see a new leader. Gordon Brown, the Labour party and champagne socialism is over."

So, over to champagne Toryism instead. Except of course you can't get into Downing St these days without an invitation and the police won't allow him to loiter about outside for long. I just hope Mark doesn't end up with sciatica.

A 'bullying' Prime Minister, but what of Andy Coulson?

Tory leader David Cameron calls for an inquiry into Gordon Brown's "bullying" conduct towards his staff with the suggestion he's unfit for high office. Quite right. But what a pity Cameron didn't call for an inquiry into - and has not publicly addressed once - the bullying conduct of someone very close to himself, the Tory media boss Andy Coulson. Last year, the former editor's bullying of a sports reporter cost the News of the World £800,000 before costs - a record award for workplace bullying.

Sadly The Times, which laudably publishes a leader today on the bullying claims against the PM - labelling bullies "weak" - was not moved to comment on Coulson's offence at the time.

Come to think of it, why hasn't the National Bullying Helpline - which has confirmed Number 10 staff concerns about the PM - made an issue of Coulson? Questions, questions. Rhetorical.

Astrologers foresee a Tory victory - well, many of them do

Russell Grant: Tory win slim, Parliament well hung possibly

Diddums! The media Tory Boys are all depressed!

This loose amalgam of early middleaged, Oxbridge, cock-cunting, right-wing cat lovers - mainly subsidised by the Telegraph/Spectator club, with a blog thrown in to cover the winter gas bills - despairs at Gordon Brown's apparent resurgence in the polls and David Cameron's failure to impress. Why did anyone think that Old Etonian Cameron would ever mean much to scatterbrain Generation Google? His narrow aristocratic face alone looks bereft of 18th Century wig and gilded carved pine portrait frame - I hear a strain of Bach on harpsichord as I write - not a happy thought when there's news of National Health cuts to impart to porno'd-out plebs.

While the secular political pundits nonetheless expect Tory Boy to squeak into Number 10 in May, hobbled by a hung Parliament, what do the astrologers foresee? Your intrepid Madame - a trainee astrologer herself - had a perusal. To preserve your interest I have minimised the astro-jargon: just know there's a Saturn+Pluto (boo!)-Uranus+Jupiter (hooray!) tussle going on in the heavens.

Let's start with Russell Grant -"Will Labour retain power?" he asked himself at the Telegraph last year. "It is more likely to be a very narrow Conservative majority or a hung parliament."

"Quite definitively ... Labour will not win the next election," concludes the Brown-supporting Astrotabletalk. The site's astrologer Dharmaruci predicts in par 1 "it may be a hung Parliament." By par 11 however he's foreseeing "the Tories will probably win outright, rather than there being a hung Parliament." Ah, yes.

The august Marjorie Orr wrote of Gordon Brown in 2008: "He looks unlikely to emulate Tony Blair's three terms since his career and home life will go into major transformation gear in 2010. He's likely then or the following year to change career direction totally." So that's a Tory victory.

The Sun's Mystic Meg foresees a narrow Tory win - neatly echoing the current view of its owner Rupert Murdoch.

It's not all bad news for Gord. The unfortunately named The Daze thinks: "In 2010 Pluto starts to make a conjunction with Brown's natal MC, his progressed Moon is full in 2011 and in 2012 Neptune is conjunct his natal Sun. I wonder if these powerful astrological aspects do indeed suggest that Gordon Brown is with us in his high office for quite a few years to come." NB: for 2008, The Daze has Gordon misnamed George.

Astrology for the 21st Century foresees a likely Tory victory despite an astrologically low opinion of Cameron: "Leo-Libra mix is inclined to the self-satisfied, smug, and saccharine," it writes. "I don't see much good coming of him attaining power."

The Mail's Jonathan Cainer - rumoured to make over £1m pa from his phonelines - wrote of Brown in June last year, "Right now, his luck is on the wane, but while he won't bounce back to full popularity, his luck may just help him cling to office a bit longer, if he weathers these next few days." However, it was Cainer that predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the US election and that the global economic situation wouldn't be as bad as people expected.

New York's Caroline Simon (who predicted the economic crisis) of astrology website Blue Moon is doubtful of a Cameron premiership: "He can be too dependent on others’ approval and opinions to make his own decisions,” she adjudges. What else might Dave do in the event of a thrashing at the polls? "[He] could become adept at sculpture, pottery, carpentry or stained glass."

Even so, the majority view among astrologers is that Cameron will be the next PM by a slim margin. But the heavens do not exult.