Toodle pip, my piscatorial poltroons! How are things in the land of dampness and unmitigated misery? For pity's sake, don't answer! The question was rhetorical. And besides, we don't have time for your bleating, blithering and inane blaming of the insane gods for your wretched condition. By my sainted aunt, we do not! That would take hours or even days, months or years! No! We must get on. There are prognostications to deliver! Of a vile and bitter nature (as usual) and pertaining to the month of nasty November.
Here they are! Last time we left, you were surrounded by water. I suppose, oceanographically, this makes you an island. Except that, from a philosophical standpoint, no fish is an island, entire of itself. It isn't the done thing! Great harrowing heliotropes! What is to be done? You'll have to contemplate your options. And so you do as a New Moon comes in ghastly Scorpio, groping marauding Mars and wrestling with miserable Saturn.
Remember! You're standing naked in rising floodwaters, holding a bull after passing out during a street brawl where everyone appeared to be Spanish. One of the options was trading the bull for a dinghy or perhaps a jolly boat and becoming the new Noah. Except then you'd have to fill the ship with animals and clean up all their poo. Ugh! I suppose that thing with the dove was all right. Quite lovely, in fact! Olive branches and cooing! But think of the excrement! No, it just won't do.
As mischievous Mercury clashes with Uranus, the idiot god, you recall that your second option was to become a devotee of Mithras and sacrifice the bull. But what about the blood and gore! Eek! How visceral and unsightly! And, as vamping Venus slithers into lugubrious Capricorn, you foresee the soldierly types (other devotees) who will be your boon companions were you to worship at the altar of Mithras. Egad! They will clap you on the back in manly fashion or make laconic remarks about the way of the world and being late for dinner.
How unspeakably dull! And besides, the gods are unreliable on the matter of rewarding virtuous devotion. But, after all, they are insane so what can one expect? Ghastly planets fart in nasty aspect, befouling the cosmic winds and you realize the only option you have left is to become Canute, the Saxon king, and order the tide to turn back. As the waters are lapping at your toes, this seems a fair strategy until you remember the unsettling fact that Canute failed in his aquatic endeavours! Eek! And then the Heavens erupt in all manner of naughtiness and nastiness, complicating matters even further. Mischievous Mercury moves into perverse reverse and you wonder if you are a Saxon king or if you're just imagining you are!
The Full Moon glowers in cloddish Taurus and you hear people shouting. They're saying things like 'come in out of the rain, stupid' and 'bring back that bull' but, as usual, you can't understand a word of it as you've descended to that indecisive and inept trance-like state that characterizes your behaviour in moments of stress.
But what's this! By my little brown bottle! It's Uranus, the idiot god, moving forward in your sign. Egad! You must be about to do something unpredictable! And so you do. As mischievous Mercury clashes with Uranus and the great Sol Invicti moves to addlepate Sagittarius, you decide you are a Saxon king but you're not a Canute. You have a blinding vision in which you see that you are Ethelred the Unready, king of all the Saxons and the isle of Britain! Great gods alive and dead, my tiny fish faces! You might be right! After all, he was the one who could never make up his mind and was never prepared for anything. That's you, isn't it! Great Caesar's ghost, it is!
Thus do you look around you as Ethelred and see that, yet again, you're not ready for any of this, either imminent death by water or any other thing that may occur. As mischievous Mercury then returns to gloomy Scorpio, you raise your voice to the Heavens, crying aloud in a magical manner and with decibels enough to shatter the windows of a nearby public convenience. 'Stop! I'm not ready for this' is your pain-filled utterance.
Gadzooks! That's short and to the point, unlike this drivel you're reading. And what do you think happens? A flight of passing geese falls unconscious at your feet. The distant shouting ceases. The tide stops rising and seems almost to turn back upon itself. Great galloping gargoyles, my nitwit nuisances! You've pulled off a stunning bit of old black magic. You've stopped the world! Is it time to get off? You'll just have to click here next month and see. Ave atque vale, piscine horrors!
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