If certain sections of society are to be believed, the last month has seen me enjoying a "wealth of renewed vitality, ideas and opportunity", during which I "greatly benefitted from a thorough examination of the facts" and saw my relationships "thriving". Rather confusingly, I should also have been "operating solo" which would have left me "wounded initially" but more "clearminded" - no doubt because I've been "indisposed, dejected or simply bored" of late. If I had any sense, I would have taken a good look at my tax returns, met an estranged friend and had a film developed on March 3rd.
If you know exactly what I`m talking about then presumably you're a Piscean too, or more to the point, you're a Piscean who reads horoscopes regularly. From the day you pick up your first Just Seventeen magazine at the age of 13, you are introduced to the whole concept of having one month of the year when all the horoscopes are devoted to you, while the rest of the signs of the zodiac get an insignificant paragraph-long prediction. Until March 20th, it was my month so I've been having a good look at what's in store for me in the year ahead.
Well, I've never read so much nonsense in my life - I'd forgotten just what a lot of claptrap horoscopes are. They're either ridiculously vague - I had one which promised an "abundant celestial flow which will help you to progress in leaps and bounds" - or bizarrely specific: "those born near the 11th will enjoy cool cocktails while lazing beside warm seas". Any day now I expect we'll get horoscopes like those a friend describes reading in India which trumpet "Bakers! Beware cat hair on the 16th. Those who sell chapatis should watch for the lotus lady thereafter."
Then there's the whole problem of contradictions; when one magazine astrologer promises you joy in love, you can be quite sure another one will tell you it's a grim idea to touch a boy with a 10 foot pole in the month ahead. Most irritatingly, most of them end on a positive note, so even if you're having a "serious emotional challenge", you're promised "a clarification and a resolution" if you only trust Mercury ascending later in the month. While I'm used to having emotions that make a see-saw look stable, I've never known months to obey the rules of fairy tales, with a happy-ever-after ending guaranteed at the end of 30 days.
Horoscopes just don't make sense to me, or at least not the all-purpose magazine ones that know nothing of your date or time of birth. Their basic premise is that there are 12 different types of people in the world, each experiencing the same 12 emotions, problems and feelings at any one time. Well, personally speaking I met twice that amount of different personality types on my way to work this morning, while I usually find that reading everybody's horoscope for the month, will mean I've just about covered my own problems for the day, never mind everybody's for a whole month.
Horoscopes belong to an era when reading tea leaves, examining chickens' innards and checking on the state of holly berries were regarded as efficient methods of planning ahead. Seeing as there was every possibility that a plague, a yokel from the next village or a flash flood might carry you off, it's hardly surprising that people were anxious for a bit of help with the planning, even it if did come courtesy of a chicken gizzard. But the one thing contemporary life is short on is surprises: from when we get up to the time we go to bed, most of us know what the day will hold and have a fairly good idea about the next day, week and month.
Yet horoscopes have never been so huge as now - I'm sick of being asked what star sign I am, and have vowed to follow the example of one friend who always replies "asparagus". Every women's magazine will devote at least a page to them as well as regular features on subjects such as "What Your Starsign Says About Your Bathroom" or "His Stars, his Shoes and You". Still more interesting is the fact that they're popular in every sector of society, while other things which promise good fortune like the lottery, bingo, and increasingly, litigation, are most popular among those who need to gamble on a light at the end of the tunnel to get through some rather grim digging.
Friends have tried to explain their love of horoscopes to me, a love which seems to involve an unusually sophisticated kind of reasoning. It's not really about believing that you're going to find a lasting love by the month's end or thinking that the new moon in Neptune is going to have any kind of bearing on your deathlessly dull job in IT. It's just that for once, you read what you want to hear and that makes a nice change. Other friends truly believe in the varying personality traits assigned to the different star signs, and insist that horoscopes often offer insights into what you should do and who you should see. Well, the horoscopes may not say it exactly, but they'll say it obliquely they say.
Which makes me think that horoscopes operate as a curious hybrid between a wise counsellor, your own conscience and a best friend who happens to know the future. A friend of mine recently got together with somebody she had fancied for ages, because a horoscope in one of the tabloids said the initial R figured large that day; she took it as a sign, invited R out and the rest is history. Clearly they got together because they both really liked each other, but such is the extent of the ridiculous angst you get when you fancy somebody, a sign was needed before she could take the last tiny, but possibly humiliating, step and ask him out.
It's precisely because so much of a routine working life is set in stone that we enjoy horoscopes so much. Work seems monotonous, relationships seem cyclical, being single seems interminable, and finances seem laughable until a horoscope comes along that tells us what we know already. Deep down, we think that it's probably time for a change of job or that somebody doesn't value us enough, but it takes an outsider to validate that for us. We rely on horoscopes to tell us that we're right and that it is time to do something or that we should just sit tight and wait for change. At least that's my theory and I'm sticking to it, safe in the knowledge that all round the country people will be reading this and saying "Look at that - so typical of a Pisces".