h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Astrology was criticized two thousand years ago for being unable to account for people born at the same instant and close to each other not having identical fortunes. Still applies.

On the other hand, being born in say February or June will give you distinctive experiences in your formative months which could plausibly affect your attitude throughout life.

I used to love "She". Miss it even now

I think I've mentioned before that I used to love She then it got all prescriptive about how women should want/have EVERYTHING and I just went off it.

It reminds me a lot of Brigitte over here (or more specifically, now, Brigitte Woman which is for oldies. Well, younger than us, but older than the usual Brigitte audience)

Actually my theory about people of the same star sign having similar traits is rather tenuous. In many families, most birthdays fall in the same month. So characteristics attributed by astrologists to the zodiac sign are simply inherited from someone else born in the same month.

Having said that, I have so often noticed that it is my fellow Scorpions who will organise, say, an Excel spreadsheet the same way I do, and get very frustrated with others' haphazard, disorganised, versions.

A colleague of mine (summer birthday) was very puzzled that her little 3 year old son always drew a frame around his pictures. I recognised this immediately as a Scorpion trait (the kid was born in November) - very similar to my own insistence on boxing everything in.

Aries characters are similarly notable, and don't get me started on Capricorns.

I'm prepared to be open-minded about this... but then I am Aquarius

I'm on the cusp between Sagittarius and Capricorn, and when I first became aware of newspaper horoscopes I was fascinated to see that different newspapers published different dates. I even found one in which Sagittarius ended on the day before my birthday and Capricorn began the day after (I wish I'd kept it).

My dad was on a cusp too, and he liked to say he was born where Virgo yielded to Libra.

I'm a typical Capricorn myself, so I quite like reading horoscopes as some comments are really interesting although a lot is not relevant to me - gives me a bit of a boost when it says something like "be bold on Thursday" and I know I have a meeting on that day, so it is an incentive to be assertive

On the other hand, I think Capricorn isn't supposed to get on well with Gemini, but my partner and I did so I don't think it's generalisable about who gets on with whom.

I enjoy your summaries - I used to read a magazine with competitions in it and a few quite good articles and short stories, so it is fun to look back. (That magazine is still going but they seem to be much more shock articles these days than light reading on the loo so I gave up many years ago).

I have quite good relationships with my parents, but it is a case of "they pass on all the faults they have and add some extra just for you" so life isn't easy, but I know at least one person who struggles the same as me, so I'm not alone