You feel and act younger than you really are, so it is not surprising that your sense of humour is so important a part of your personality.

But you have a deeper insight born of genuine intelligence, and this is the other main trait that shows through:  you can enjoy a laugh with the best of them, but underneath it all there is intelligence and talent that you often feel could be better used than in your present job.   Have you ever thought you could maybe write a book, but have never had the time?  Or become more involved in something like music?  These are the sort of things I'm picking up.

Another thing I detect: although you like people, you can sometimes be a bit shy and unsure of yourself.  You hide it well, so your friends don't realise it, but you do get these doubts sometimes.  Sometimes you're too private:  don't be scared of confiding in a real friend.

To sum up: you are a very special, humorous and intelligent person, and your friends always appreciate you - despite your occasional doubts.

Yet "psychics" everywhere make good money just by spouting this sort of thing, and people emerge from their caravans oohing and aahing about how accurate the gypsy-wife was.   Add in the factor that the crystal-gazers have had many years experience of summing people up, and of getting them to reveal things without realising it, and you can see what mugs some people are.   So why are people so gullible?

Anyway, here are some episodes from my own life, illustrating why I am becoming more and more hostile to this sort of superstition.

Madame Rosina
It was 1990 in Torquay, the sun was too hot for me, and I was bored and tired, so on the spur of the moment I dropped into Madame Rosina's.  In the small waiting area there was one woman before me.  She was acompanied by a friend, and I soon realised from their conversation that she had lost a son in a motorbike accident.   When it came to her turn the receptionist went through to see Rosina, returning a minute or so later to usher the woman through.

She emerged after 15 minutes, and said to her friend, "Oh, she's good.  She knew.  The first thing she said to me was You're grieving, aren't you? "

Well, even I could guess that this came more from the receptionist than from any special powers, and I felt it nothing less than fraudulent that Rosina should pretend to know the woman's problems through second sight.

My own reading?  Madame R got everything wrong about me, and got more and more flustered as she struggled to get back on track.  In the end, she resorted to asking me questions and then saying things like "Yes, I thought so".  The only thing I learned in her company was that a tenner is better in your own wallet than in Madame Rosina's.

Numerology
January 2002, the programme is Richard and Judy (no I do not generally watch it, thank you!) and in a couple of days it will be 02/02/2002.   There in the studio is some ridiculous woman declaring that two is the number of harmony, and that at two minutes past 2am on the 2 Feb, the world will experience a suffusion of harmony, or some such rubbish.

Bad enough that this nutcase should be invited to appear on TV at all.  What was even more depressing was that when Richard started asking some much-needed and well-aimed questions, he got glared at by Judy as if he was being rude, and was generally cut off by her;  she then started cooing sympathetically with the "numerologist".  Why did she do that?   Surely no-one can really believe that there is anything in 2/2/2002 that will produce magic in the universe!

Richard's unanswered question was "On what authority do you say that 2 is the number of harmony?" and I can answer that, and other questions, for him right now:

• On no authority: it is just made up.  You might as well say that 14¾ is the number of laziness.   Who the hell's to say you're wrong?
• What does "the number of harmony" mean anyway?   Nothing at all.  It is meaningless, and even if it did have any meaning it would be rubbish.  Numbers are numbers, with no magical powers or even any physical existence.
• Presumably the expected magic would appear at hourly intervals that day in the various time zones, carefully excluding from its calming effect any peoples who did not use the same calendar.   Give me strength!  

I did not watch any more, and can only hope that the spey-wife was run out of the studio by the scruff of her neck.   Depressingly, I don't suppose that happened.

A Full Horoscope
Some years ago I thought a full astrological reading would make a nice birthday present for a girlfriend, so having discovered the exact time of her birth, I sent my cheque to Equinox of Covent Garden.

The book is fairly well-presented:  A4 size, with about 50 pages of charts and text.   And if the various charts of planetary positions mean little to me then I can understand that it would be of interest to some people.  But the reason the book was never given as a gift (I ended up buying another present instead) was the very poor quality of content.   Page upon page of stuff that probably bore no relationship to any one person's character - unless you take the thing as a whole, and count the inclusion somewhere in those pages of every human trait known to mankind.

I never believed at all in astrology, but I did hope that the book would at least be better written, and would make a good present.   No such luck.

A Possible Defence
Strangely enough, I don't really knock people who go to palmists etc so long as they realise in themselves that the lines on their hands (or whatever) do not determine the futures of individuals.   These fortune-tellers will see hundreds of people each year, and to do their job properly they will be very shrewd judges of character, and even more adept at getting infrmation out of people.  You would imagine, too, that many people will consult crystal-gazers at difficult times in their lives, so presumably sympathy and understanding are there too.   Did the woman who had lost her son feel better for a talk with Madame Rosina?  I suppose so, and I also suppose she was given sensible and sympathetic advice.  So it is not all damnable.

It is still fraudulent, though, and I do not think it is right to give comfort to people by telling lies.   Doris Stokes used to tell the audience at her shows, "I am getting a white-haired old gentleman called (e.g.) George" - in the full knowledge that someone in the hall would have had a grandfather called George.   Some people probably went away feeling the better for it.    As for me, I just don't like it.