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Tally ho and yoicks! It is I, Asperitus, prognosticating prophet of dire and dastardly doom, speaking to you, the brainless twerps of the centaur persuasion! And how are you this month? No, don't bother to answer! I don't wish to be interrupted by your puerile drivel. I may be prognosticating. And if I'm not prognosticating already then I may be just about to. Or I may have recently done so! Sometimes I do it in my sleep without even realizing. Whatever the case, I don't wish to be interrupted.
Now, kindly pay attention while I relate the dark and drear events that will trouble the path of naughty November. Be prepared for vileness, my idiot creatures! Be prepared for bitterness, my loonies! For you shall have surfeit of both.
Last time, we left you moaning and groaning in the bedchamber with a foul hangover and yet there was also a sense of joy. The pairing of these two is a common experience for you, given your lifestyle. Indulgence and its price is always there due to the rulership of jolly Jupiter, lord of excess. And yet, joy is always there, due to the mindless optimism of that same nitwit deity as he swaggers and cavorts through the days of our lives in a benighted universe ruled by himself and the rest of his insane pantheon.
And, in the immediate sense, the joy comes from your role as leader of the newly formed Corinthian Popular Army. Thus do you arise from your bed of woe as jolly Jupiter conjoins in unseemly fashion with vamping Venus. You don your new uniform, bedecked as it is with bright brass buttons (essential in the military uniform), a plastic sword that will strike fear into the heart of any enemy with a double digit IQ and the telltale rat insignia that bespeaks the son or daughter of Corinth. Mischievous Mercury enters your idiot sign and you stroll about the place making speeches to impress upon your loyal followers whatever it is they need to believe in order to indulge in the generally ludicrous behaviour to which such groups as yours always fall victim.
However, there's trouble afoot, little addlepates! The great Sol Invicti clashes with nasty Neptune and hidden forces muster against you. Are you not a foreigner? Are you not an interloper who has bought a place in Corinth with money where others, native sons and daughters have done so with their blood and the blood of their families and children! Not to mention the blood of aunties and uncles and cousins and a multitude other more distant relatives whose lineage cannot be discussed in polite society but who are, nonetheless, blood relatives in a real and present manner!
Thus, the secretly aggrieved mutter darkly of secret grievances as marauding Mars grinds inexorably into an ill-tempered struggle with miserable Saturn and mischievous Mercury clashes with idiot Uranus. Then does the lugubrious one (Saturn) move to reverse motion, bringing a blanket of grey depression to cover the world and elevating to a position of secret power a dark opponent of your cause.
Egad! Marauding Mars moves into morbid Scorpio and this fierce proponent of the old blood begins to secretly act against you. Come a New Moon in the sign of the ghastly ruler of the anus, plots are hatched to bring you down. Aargh! Eek! And so on! Meanwhile, you remain blissfully unaware of this as you tend to with anything that takes place at less than a hundred decibels and without the full complement of primary colours. Instead, you indulge in an endless round of parties, dinners and meetings whose apparent agenda of military discussions on the subject of an Athenian campaign is no more than a thinly veiled attempt to use campaign funds for the twin practices of drunkenness and gluttony. As this is a tried and true tactic in the amateur military endeavour, you feel gratified that you are following in the footsteps of a venerable tradition.
But, by all the gods alive and dead, things start moving anyway, bragging nitwits! Mischievous Mercury conjoins in an unseemly manner with underworld Pluto and, deep in your cups, you conceive a plan. A mighty, master plan it is too, or so you think! The great Sol Invicti charges into your idiot sign but vamping Venus infiltrates the gloomy sign of the scorpion. Thus will you, in disguise of course, infiltrate the very heart of Athens, limp from its recent exertions with the Olympic Games, and steal a precious artifact from the temple of Artemis and return it to Corinth. When your Corinthian comrades inform you that the temple of Artemis was actually in Ephesus which is now in modern Turkey and was twice burned to the ground before the coming of the White Christ, you bluster (as you always do when caught out). You rise to you feet and cry that this was a test they have successfully passed and your mission in Athens is so secret it may not be revealed until its successful completion.
Sadly, this is close as you may ever come to a master plan. Nonetheless and not to be deterred, you cry you will choose a comrade this very evening and set off to work mischief among the Athenians. There is much cheering and waving of rats' tails, but dark forces are at work in your life! As the Full Moon comes in nitwit Gemini, the comrade you choose to accompany you is none other than the dark enemy set to bring you down. Quelle horreur, tiny persons! What will you do? Marching off to danger in a state of utter ignorance! Still, this is a fair description of how you approach everything in life so we will not concern ourselves with trivial matters such as the predictable tragic failure of your enterprise and, of course, your impending death.
These must be seen for what they are, merely pleasant side effects of life's disturbingly predictable momentum towards inevitable doom. For, yea, atrocious types, disgruntled forces muster against you! Marauding Mars seethes! Eek! Vamping Venus slithers! Aargh! And together, from the twelfth house of sorrow and pain, they press upon the unwilling thighs of nasty Neptune. Will you be the unfortunate Leda to the swan of mighty Zeus? As I'm feeling unwell and must rest, you'll have to wait until next month for the answer. Farewell, tiny persons!
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