Wednesday 18 October 2006

My horoscope (2)

Last Friday I was writing a post about superstition when I realised that it was the 13th of the month, so I thought it would be prudent to get some advice from the astrological top brass about how we Pisceans might survive the day. Here is the advice given (without fee, the generous souls) by eight experts I found on the internet. It is hard to say which of them was the most hilariously unhelpful.

MSN Astrology
You might be feeling a little stir crazy today, fantasizing about leaving your job or your romantic relationship behind you. You have been going through a challenging period where you have had to be more disciplined and focused. Free-spirited Pisces likes to handle things much more spontaneously. But don't make any hasty moves today. You don't want to end a situation or relationship that is teaching you and helping you to grow.

astroadvice.com
You've got lots of different directions you can go today but, if you follow a creative path, you will end up in a place that pleases you both financially and aesthetically. Children will play a role in a decision you make.

Jonathan Cainer
You can create a case this weekend, for getting upset and worried about many things but none of them, I promise, are as serious as you suspect. [Pretty perfunctory, this one; you have to pay to find out more]

astrology.com
Take the path of least resistance—wait for everyone else to get on the same page. A part of your past involving a female relative or some female energies becomes a pressing matter. Part of you wants to pull the covers over your head, but go deep. You'll come out of this with a new point of view.

astrology.com (via Washington Post)
Your new and improved take-charge attitude is starting to work today. Results are still coming slowly, but people are getting behind you more and more. No one else sees things like you do, and that is working in your favor. Resist taking on any more right now. Instead, take the path of least resistance and wait for everyone else to get on the same page as you. They can pick up the slack while you stand on the sidelines, cheering everyone on like a coach.

daily-horoscopes.com
People can't keep their word. There are likely to be unkept promises and mix-ups in personal talks and communications. Enjoy your good taste and refinement to the max, but stay within budget.

myhoroscope.com
If you do one thing this morning make a list of everything you need to do today as you are likely to in a very forgetful frame of mind. On the plus side someone who likes you a lot more than you may realize is going to let you know just how much they like you.

Mystic Meg
Your mind is at its sharpest and you are ready to say yes to learning extra work skills. Even though it may be hard to see, your opinions count for a lot at home, so do give them in a tactful way. Later, the moon in your house of love can turn even a grumpy partner into a real romantic.

There seemed to have been an awful lot happening to me on that day and I was undecided which advice to take: follow a creative path? pull the covers over my head? make a list of everything I need to do? Perhaps just “enjoying my good taste and refinement” while “giving opinions tactfully” would be the best way to cope with it all, provided that my mind is really “at its sharpest”.

But I am not merely a couple of fish, but a Chinese sheep as well (sometimes, confusingly, referred to as a goat): what does this tell me about myself?

Well, it seems I have a knack of getting off on the wrong foot, I can be charming company, I sometimes hold back my emotions, and I am not fully appreciated for my true nature. Further, I am first to complain about discomfort, naturally pessimistic, mild mannered and even shy, a lover of art and nature, creative, cultured and well-mannered. While being Intelligent, Artistic, Gentle, Kind, Cultured and Sensitive, I am at the same time Fussy, Insecure, Ingratiative, Self-Indulgent and Dependent.

This is almost dead right, though hopelessly wrong towards the end, but it is disappointing to realise that I am by no means the unique possessor of all these qualities: I share them not only with Michelangelo, Buster Keaton, Laurence Olivier, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Rudolph Valentino and Orville Wright but also with all those countless millions born in the same year as I and every twelfth year before and since.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

One might have a little more confidence in the manufacturers of fatuous Chinese astrologiocal character combinations if they were able to express themselves entirely through words which actually appear in the OED rather than making up silly words like "Ingratiative". But only a little more.

And I said "might".

Tony said...

Indeed, indeed. But it might have been only a typo, like "astrologiocal".

Anonymous said...

Not sure I get your drift:

astro·logi·ocal (ästr-oe-löj-ee-okl) - adj. silly; meaningless; of or pertaining to the empty, ill-founded; of little use; puerile.

[Source: OED 2005 SMU Edition]

No typoes here.

Tony said...

You didn't fool me for a second: There's no such word.

And that's not how you spell the plural of "typo". Or rather, that is how you spell it but literate people would omit the "e".

Pull yourself together, man.

Anonymous said...

There is in the OED 2005 SMU Edition, as any fule kno.

Or the OED 2005 Silly Made Up Edition for those fules who don't.

There's no need to throw rotten tomatos at my spelling.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully your literate mates can tell me whether it is accepted usage to start a new sentence with a capital letter after a colon when introducing a sentence that comes as fulfilment of a promise expressed or implied in the previous sentence.

Tony said...

I don't need to ask my literate mate, he's a fool. The answer is that it is acceptable, if not accepted.
And I'm not rising to the "tomatos" bait.
You do have time on your hands, don't you?
This sequence of comments is now ended; I cannot think why I allowed it to begin.

Anonymous said...

Or the OED 2005 Silly Made Up Edition for those fules who don't. I agry with grumio..