Anyone who believes their horoscope is a scientifically-watertight forecast of the future might be surprised to learn that astrologers pride themselves on “being vague wherever possible”.
Who said so? Only York astrologer Jonathan Cainer.
His confession came during the BBC Radio 4 election comedy, The Vote Now Show.
With all the political experts saying the General Election is “too close to call” they turned to someone who can see the future in our stars.
After all, Jonathan predicts a nation’s prospects on a daily basis in the Daily Mail. He must know whether Miliband or Cameron will have some good news on May 8.
Naturally, then, when asked who will win the election, Jonathan did not hesitate – to dodge the question.
Not satisfied, presenter Jon Holmes asks our Jonathan: isn’t foretelling the future part of the job?
“Not really,” Jonathan said: “The thing is, the job of an astrologer is to keep yourself popular by making positive predictions which everybody likes the sound of.”
The man who ran Haunted on Stonegate until it closed down in August 2014 said he could predict the next occupant of 10 Downing Street, but “I’d lay myself open to terrible mockery should I turn out to be wrong”.
So, pressed Holmes, you can’t divine the winner of the election?
To which Jonathan replied with refreshing candour (or alternatively with the sort of rashness which is typically Sagittarian):
The Diary featured the fantastic Iron Man suit up for grabs on the Items For Sale In York Facebook Group the other day.
Just the thing to trim your lawn before the Tour de Yorkshire, the hybrid 18 speed mountain bike/ roller lawn mower, was put up for sale by Tom Harding.
He explained that he came up with the idea to weld his pushbike to his Uncle Ronnie’s mower “after a mad weekend on the sauce with the boys”.
The invention got massive love on Facebook and, having a price tag of a mere £15, offers soon starting coming in.
But then Tom brought the auction to an end:
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