Kelvin Mackenzie, an acerbic newspaper editor of the 1980s, famously fired the Sun newspaper’s astrologer with a letter of dismissal that started: “As you will already know…”. While the Sun’s astrologer may or may not have predicted her own departure, others are apparently more successful at predicting theirs.
Fans of the Daily Mail’s astrology column are mourning the death of astrologer Jonathan Cainer, who passed away in May at the early age of 58. Cainer’s writing style was often flowery and hard-to-decipher, but amid the cryptic comments he could sometimes be specific and spookily accurate. His last daily forecast for his own Sagittarius star sign was: “We are not here for long. So make the most of every moment.” Jonathan Cainer has been succeeded as the Daily Mail’s astrologer by his nephew Oscar Cainer who presumably also saw that coming. Actually he did as Jonathan and Oscar made a video together to say so.
Astrology and fortune telling is, of course, mainly dismissed by science. It is even decried in the Bible, the Jesus-visiting actions of the astrology-driven three wise men/Magi aside. In truth, however, astrology has historically been the key driver of astronomical science, especially in early observations of the motions of the planets and of the Sun and Moon. And now it is helping find lost cities.
A precocious 15-year-old schoolboy in Quebec, Canada, was examining ancient Mayan maps of star constellations (used for their own astrological predictions) when he realised that the positioning of cities closely tallied with the maps. Except that one city in the Yucatan peninsular in Mexico appeared to be missing.
The Canadian Space Agency was so impressed that its engineers detailed the Radarsat-2 spacecraft to look for evidence of the “lost city”. And lo and behold, a city was found where he suggested. Or rather the “space archaeology” images apparently found a square-shaped depression, which detractors say is just a field.
Ah well, if ever this schoolboy called William Gadoury (astrological star sign not disclosed) wants to become an expert in his field, at least he has now found one.
