Specific Horoscopes

ARIES
Once a tricky financial situation is resolved, you can turn your attention to other matters, such as the lady with the big brown eyes and the spectacular hip-to-waist ratio who works in Waitrose who once smiled at you when you asked her where you could find rice noodles, and trying to work out if she's actually shacking up with that security guard who kissed her on the cheek that time as she was leaving, or if they're just mates in a flirty yet sibling-like way. You could always try to find out her name and Facebook stalk her (though maybe ask your pal Emma to go into Waitrose and check her name badge, so it doesn't look like you're staring at her boobs?). You'll also be surprised to find that decisions for which you internally castigate yourself turn out to have a surprisingly positive outcome: like when you go to get some new socks from Gap, see how much the prices have risen since the last time you were single and had to buy them yourself, stingily decide to put it off for a few weeks, but then find out that leaves you money to get to Nathan's party, which will actually be quite good, despite your somewhat theatrical public reservations, and finally strip you of your slightly juvenile indie kid prejudice against the music of ABBA.

TAURUS
It will be a big week for you, full of unexpected events, none more so than the moment when you're on a walk in remote countryside, take a sharp left after a thick copse, steaming in the sunny aftermath of rain, and happen across an old man in a cravat with a metal detector who says the word "Hmnarg" to you in baffling yet ostensibly friendly greeting.

GEMINI
You know that fancy new petrol strimmer your uncle sold your nan, which you're looking forward to using on her nettles this weekend? It was stolen. I'm sorry to have to break this to you in advance, but that's kind of what I'm here for.

CANCER
This week you will face a dilemma, after discovering a new bench not far from your customary daily clockwise walk around the Leicester ring road, which turns out to be a good place to drink for several hours in peace and has a clear view of the women's medical college, but which will mean you will be able to brush your hands across fewer lampposts than you do on your standard route, the upshot of which will be that your Dark Lord and Master who controls the light in your mind will be disappointed in your performance. You must take time to consider your options. But life is not all angst, and, though you often feel you are living in your own hazy solipsistic world, strangers will be watching you with admiration, such as that guy Nick who, though thirty years your junior and considerably more skilled in personal hygiene, feels an unexpected jealousy when he drives past you on his way to the surveyor's office and sees the skip in your step as you walk along, cackling, with your can of Kronenbourg, and, when he strolled past you outside Marks And Spencer two weekends ago, was surprised to see an unliberated, aching part of himself reflected back in your shifty, dilated eyes.

LEO
Nothing much happens this week. You should probably chill the fuck out and stop worrying about it. Maybe try living in the present for once in your life?

VIRGO
There are times in life when everyone needs to treat themselves, but this is not one for you. Look at yourself: you spend money like most people drink water. You're a disgrace. Would it kill you to get a kettle that cost £20 less, and which you hadn't seen in the background in a shoot for Elle Decoration? Also, one tiny problem with your washer-dryer does not mean you have to go straight out and buy a new one. Do you have any concept of the suffering and compromise of your ancestors? Get a grip. Why not try to enroll on an evening class in 19th Century Irish History, to get a sense of perspective. Maybe have a proper think about what it was like during the potato famine: a time when those posh ridge cut crisps with the poncey vinegar flavouring that you keep buying from the deli were notably thin on the ground. While you're at it, please stop using the words "pampering", "chillax" and "vino".

LIBRA
With the pace of the modern world, we all get caught up in the whirlwhind of our day occasionally, which means we need to take a step outside of the eye of the storm to see what we're really doing. In your case, you need to realise that while typing the names of three things that help you relax then "..." followed by the word "Bliss" into the status update on a social networking site is a good way to inform your friends that you are in a happy state of mind, people are starting to notice the repetition of it, and not in a good way: it has become a cliche for you, and, if you continue to do it more than three times a week, it will lose all meaning. But try not to be petulant and throw the baby out with the bath water. Make it work for you. Next time, instead of writing "Tea, doughnuts, cat.. Bliss" show people your self-deprecating side by writing "Coffee, ginger nuts, massive fuck-off warm purring dragon... Bliss". It might even get you a retweet on Twitter and up to four more followers, one of which will almost certainly not be a firm with the word "Dragon" in their name trying to spam you.

SCORPIO
It's not going to be a good week for you, and you need to realise that when life gives you lemons, you can't always make lemonade. Let's face it: you wouldn't even know how to start to make lemonade. Do you know what you put in it to make it fizz? Do you know how to mix it with the lemons? Of course you don't. You can barely pierce the film lid on one of Tesco's instant birianis. Sometimes you just have to let those lemons languish at the back of the bowl, behind more readily useable fruit, then buy something a bit less tart - maybe a honeydew melon. Okay, look, I'm totally skirting the issue here. Let's dispense with the metaphors and be straightforward: this will be the week when somebody steals your bike, and Sheila finds that thing you wrote in your diary about the fantasy about the sleepover and Jean mistaking your cock for a wallet.

SAGITTARIUS
BAD NEWS: On Tuesday, whilst driving through Dorset, distracted by your cousin Rachel's constant nervous babble, you will run out of petrol. GOOD NEWS: on your walk to find a petrol station, you will stumble across a village art trail, featuring many imaginatively and elaborately crafted ducks, which will enable you to see Rachel's previously suppressed jovial side.

CAPRICORN
Many a wise person has said that life is what happens when you're making other plans. Some massively tedious twats have said it as well, but, in this instance, for you, it is relevant. You should totally ditch those plans for the new conservatory-meets-living room. It's going to mean five months of upheaval as the project drags on, with the builders leaving copies of the Sun open at Page 3 in all four of your bathrooms. Also, you'll never properly get to enjoy the results because, three months after everything is finally finished, Phillip is going to get offered that job in Geneva. Of course, you'll "discuss" it, and the deeper implications for the kids, but, let's face it, the ultimate decision will be his, and you'll go along with it. You always do, don't you? In every relationship, there's one person kissing the cheek, and another person offering the cheek to be kissed, and you are in the former role 97% of the time. It has worked relatively successfully for the two of you, in the grand scheme of marriages, and is nothing to be ashamed of - it doesn't make you "weak" or "downtrodden" - but, looking back on it, maybe you shouldn't have come on quite so strong back when you first met, and established the goalposts by being so amenable to everything he suggested? I'm just saying: it's perhaps worth thinking about.

AQUARIUS
Today one door closes, and another opens. Unfortunately, the first door led to a nightclub dancefloor, where last night five strangers were standing in a circle clapping you as you did a moon walk to 'Thriller', and the second one leads to a TGI Friday's, just off a small retail park, where tomorrow you will be starting your first shift as a waiter-cum-cleaner. Fortunately, there's a third door, which also opens, and leads to a second floor fire escape, which you will descend after a couple of hours, ditching your shitty uniform in a nearby skip, and heading to a nearby park, where you will spend an ineffably pleasant, sun-kissed afternoon eating a tub of Ben And Jerry's and reading some early 1980s issues of Shoot! magazine you found in a junk shop.

PISCES
Let's face it: you've been needing to give yourself a break recently. You've been tired, and just recently started to feel not "with it" any more, alienated from a younger, hipster generation. For example, that time you had to Google the meaning of that emoticon, or when, in a moment of honesty, you realised you actually didn't really give a crud about what either of the principle characters in the film 500 Days Of Summer said or thought, and only really warmed to it because of that kick-ass Hall & Oates song on the soundtrack. But now you're refreshed. The bags under your eyes have temporarily vanished. Your hair looks so good that, were the option available to you, you'd probably take it off and put it in the fridge until something important was scheduled to happen. The future looks incredibly bright! But it's not, because any future is never just "bright": it's a mixture of good and bad that can, sometimes, both be of long-term benefit to your development as a person. As you realise this, walking through a backstreet in Chichester whilst eating some wasabi peas, you will be overwhelmed by bittersweet feelings in such a way that you realise you've never dwelled upon the true meaning of the word "bittersweet" before. And this in itself will not necessarily be a bad thing - though the "bitter" part of "bittersweet" may be a bit stronger if you happen to have a friend called Jean, and be in a relationship with a Scorpio, whose diary you have recently stumbed upon and accidentally-on-purpose read.

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