{"id":856,"date":"2011-01-14T15:31:37","date_gmt":"2011-01-14T15:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/?p=856"},"modified":"2011-01-14T15:31:58","modified_gmt":"2011-01-14T15:31:58","slug":"the-scope-of-horoscope-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/vwxynot\/2011\/01\/14\/the-scope-of-horoscope-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"The scope of horoscope horror"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friendly local morning news team<\/a> are discussing horoscopes today. This is, unfortunately, nothing new; I had to change the channel on New Year’s Day because their guest astrologer was doing my head in with her “Scorpios will come into some money in April” crap.<\/p>\n

Today’s angle was the “news<\/a>” that some astrologers want to change the birth dates that correspond to the different signs of the zodiac (H\/T Noah Gray<\/a>, on Facebook, for the link). Don’t worry, though – other astrologers don’t agree, so if your star sign is critical to your sense of identity (or if you have your star sign tattooed on your arse), you don’t have to change if you don’t want to.<\/p>\n

(Even if the dates change, my sign won’t – I’d still be an Aquarius, by the skin of my teeth, under the new rules. You can imagine how relieved I am to learn that this major schism doesn’t affect me at all).<\/p>\n

Now, I suppose I can understand so-called news programmes covering astrology. It’s still incredibly popular, after all, even if it has been pretty comprehensively debunked<\/a>. And it’s a light, fluffy item they can cover with zero research, opting instead to compare old and potential new star signs with the meteorologist and traffic reporter. Whatever – I have the choice to switch off the TV and write a blog post instead, with some nice sensible podcasts playing in the background.<\/p>\n

What bugs me is how ubiquitous astrology still is in daily life. People bring it up all the time, and I wish it was socially acceptable to mock them loudly. But unfortunately, the subject mostly arises in situations where I have to grit my teeth and nod politely, or – worse – join in. For example:<\/p>\n