Your Horoscopes for September 2013

On one September evening, you will be sitting at home minding your own business when you will hear a knock at the door. You will open it to see a policeman standing there. But he won't be a Dixon of Dock Green 'ello 'ello 'ello bobby on the beat type policeman. Oh no, not at all. Instead, he is there to arrest you for indecent exposure. Despite expressing shock and horror as you haven't knowlingly exposed yourself for quite a while now, the arresting policeman will read you your rights and take you down to the cop shop. When there, he will explain that Boots have made a complaint about you. They are having a crackdown on bad photography and have reported that a film that you left for them to develop had no less than 20 photos where you had got the exposure wrong. It was so bad that they sacked the person developing your pictures for shoddy workmanship and then ordered in a new dark room just in case the old one was faulty. Turns out it was you and your inability to get your aperture and shutter settings right. The penalty for such amateurish photography? A £300 fine, 200 hours of community service and six weeks of compulsory evening photography lessons at your expense.

It'll be one of those months when you just feel like burying your head in the sand. By what can only be described as pure coincidence, the chance to do so will arise when you find yourself standing on a beach during a visit to the seaside on one weekend in September. After checking that nobody's watching you, you will dig a hole in the sand, place your head into it, and then shovel sand back into the hole. About half a minute later, after discovering that you can't breathe, you will dig yourself out of the hole and come back up for air. You will decide that burying your head in the sand wasn't really one of your brightest ideas and cross it out on your list of "Things to do if I happen to be on a beach." Next on your list is skimming pebbles. And then collecting shells.

Somebody will knock on your door this month (seems to be a regular occurence in September) offering to give you a kitten. You will look at the kitten, its cute furry face tempting you to accept the offer. But you will recall what happened the last time you were offered a pet by somebody standing on your doorstep. It was a hamster. A hamster which you later believed to have evil powers. From the day it arrived, weird things began happening around your house. Your fridge door fell off. Your television PVR thingy kept series linking Homes under the Hammer and filling it up. The lightbulb in your microwave blew so you couldn't watch your tea cooking. The locking mechanism in your bathroom door broke leaving you trapped in there for six hours. It was only when you gave your hamster away to your neice that the strange goings-on stopped going on. So, you'll be well advised not to accept the offer of taking a kitten in just in case it happens to have evil powers too. Might be worth checking with your neice how the hamster's doing too.

This month, you will be a delegate at a group event. Perhaps a training session or a conference. Basically, something where you and a group of other people, possibly people you don't even know, are stuck together in a room for a day. You hate these types of things. The cringeworthy "ice breaker" at the beginning fills you with dread. What enforced fun is it this time? Two truths and one lie? Introducing yourself with some wacky name? Having to wander around the room with the name of a celebrity stuck on your head asking people to give you a clue who you're meant to be? Oh yes, you'd feel much more relaxed at a meeting without having to do such things. A coffee and a natter would do the trick. The words "Let's split in groups," or "Discuss in pairs," have a similar effect and make you want to throw one of the free corporate notepads at the group leader. Even worse is if the next group task you're about to do involves a marker pen and a flipchart. You always volunteer to do the writing so you don't have to do the presenting. And there's always the quirky upbeat group that draws diagrams and pictures and seems to love all of this stuff while you and your group just sit there scowling and waiting for the next toilet break. For you, it's your worst nightmare. But at the end of it all, you'll still give five out of five for each section in the feedback questionnaire. Maybe four out of five for the venue because you couldn't find it. The solution? Hope that the ice breaker is the one where you have to change something about yourself and see if your follow delegates notice what it is. Simply strip off, sit naked in your chair and cover your intimate bits with the free biscuits from the tea and coffee station. With any luck, you'll get sent home for the day. Or you'll get left alone for the rest of the event. Either way, it's win-win.

Quite recently, the digital switchover was completed. This was when the old analogue television signals were switched off as everyone migrated over to digital TV. The good thing about this? Everyone everywhere can now get Pick TV, truly the greatest use of technology since the invention of the electric bread slicer. Non-stop Airline and Nothing to Declare 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. However, it's not that great for you. The television in your bedroom can't pick up digital, and you can't be bothered to pop out to get yourself a box to plug into it to make it do so. Still, something else you learned about the digital switchover is that the old analogue signals are going to be used by the mobile networks. Armed with this information, you plan to listen in to peoples' phone calls through your old TV set, record them with your VCR and then get in touch with The Sun and attempt to sell the recordings to them to give them some exclusives to publish. Somehow, I don't think your plan will work, but you'll spend most of September trying it out.

Apparently, I need to issue a disclaimer here as Caverswall Palace's lawyers believe that the prediction above could imply that The Sun is a grubby paper that will resort to underhanded methods to obtain news. So, to create some balance, you will also plan to sell your recorded phone calls to The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Daily Star and The Daily Express, other grubby papers. There. Sorted.

Some people think that us psychics are con artists, profiting by preying on the vulnerable and ignorant by pretending that we can see into the future. Well, I'll tell you this for nothing, I, Psychic Jim, do not profit at all by pretending that I can see into the future. Caverswall Palace, the company I write these horoscopes for, don't even pay me. I have to pay them, just so that I can get my name on the internet and hopefully get noticed by some company that will pay me. Now then. So, now that I've straghtened that record, here's your prediction. A spaceship will land in your back garden this month. The doors will open and a being from another world will greet you and invite you onto its craft. Should you accept the invitation? Phone Psychic Jim's hotline to find out.

Note to self: set up a Psychic Jim hotline before sending these horoscopes to Caverswall Palace for publication.
 

Being creative, as many Librans apparently are, this month you will decide that you want to start a flash mob. You've always wanted to get your face on the internet, and one way that appears to work is by bursting into spontaneous dance in a shopping centre or train station. Usually, people in the vicinity seem to join in with the dance. And it just so happens that somebody always seems to have a camera waiting to record such a thing to put it online. So, you'll spend most of the month rehearsing the steps to Moves Like Jagger from some Just Dance game you have for your Wii and when you feel ready, you'll venture to your local shopping mall, walk into a large spacious area where people just seem to be milling about, and then suddenly freeze. As the music beings to play from the mobile in your pocket, you will begin to dance to the tune, waiting for other people to join in. But, nobody will join you. Some people may stare at you and wonder what you're doing, others will quickly make an escape in fear that this is the real deal and a flash mob is about to commence. After prancing about for a minute on your own, you will come to the conclusion that you've failed. It just isn't that easy to instigate a flash mob. Maybe you'll try again next month but let a few people know what you're up to. Perhaps if more people are in on it, it may just work. Who knows?

Money is tight, what with rising energy prices and record fuel costs, and you will decide to take a second job in order to keep your car on the road and the lights on in your house. You will consider becoming a window cleaner but your fear of heights will put paid to that idea, whatever that means. An opening for a nut taster will be advertised in your local paper, but you don't think the job and your nut allergy would be a good fit. Or you could be the person who texts people telling them that they're entitled to a payout of a random 4-figure sum for an accident that they don't remember having. Maybe you could be an online astrologer. After all, you are quite good at making stuff up, and that's one of the main requirements of the role. Um, no, sorry, I meant online astronomer. I really don't do myself any favours sometimes. Maybe you could be an usher. They're handy at cinemas. You get to show people to their seats, and you even get a little torch. And you can give out order of services too at weddings. And even escort people into courtrooms, although I don't think you get to use your little torch for that. Oh yes, being an usher is a multi-purpose role. Cinemas, weddings and courts, three of your favourite things. And while people continue to turn up to cinemas late, get married or commit crimes, you'll always be needed somewhere. An usher it is then. Hoorah!

Money is tight, what with rising energy prices and record fuel costs. So much so that you will decide to have a car boot sale to raise some funds to keep your car lights on and your house on the road. You will have a nosey through your partner's drawers and cupboards to find things that you've decided they don't need. Amongst the usual stuff - a Sega Master System, tickets for Steps' 2001 Greatest Hits tour before Claire and H went rogue and Bad Girls series one to five box sets on video - you will find some things that might cause you to view your other half in a whole new light. An usher's cinema torch for example, although the light it gives off isn't that whole or new. A town crier's handbell will also be there, and an unopened bottle of limited edition Fairy washing liquid from when they went back to its old design to commemorate something or other. Then there's also a poster of the Top Gear presenters circa 2003, a bag of decorative pebbles from Ikea, handcuffs, a truncheon and a rainmac, a bag containing a large number of the Scrabble letters Q, X and J and an unread copy of your self-penned Larry Jotter book that you gave as a gift. Finally, you will find a Morrisons bag full of Tina Turner and Cher style wigs and constumes. The truth will dawn on you that the person you choose to share your bed with is an impersonator of aging female rockers. Either that or they like dressing up in their granny's going-out clothes. There's a lesson to be learned here. Don't go snooping because you don't know what opinion-changing things you may find lurking in other people's cupboards.

One of your so-called friends will attempt to set you up on a blind date with somebody that they believe will be perfect for you. "Oh, you'll be soooo cute together," they will proclaim as they try to convince you to go for it. Realising that you have nothing to lose, plenty to gain, and so on and so forth, you will finally agree to go on the date. Hoping that the person you meet on this date will be "the one", you'll have a shave, put on your lucky pants and your best outfit, splash some of your favourite toilet water over yourself and tidy up your hair. You'll even pluck the hairs from your nostrils and your ears. But you'll turn up at the restaurant that your friend booked for you to discover that your date hasn't gone to the same effort. In fact, they will seem to have an odour of stale fish about them. It looks like some breakfast is still wedged in between a couple of stained teeth, and on their chin will be a couple of ready-to-burst spots with green slime about to ooze out of them. And your date's first words to you will be, "Hiya love. Are you wearing any underwear tonight because I'm not?" and they'll then do one of those raspy smoker's laughs, and you will be hit with a waft of their breath which smells a bit like cat food. You'll notice what looks like yellowing tip-ex on your would-be suitor's forehead and ask what it is. "Oh, some pigeon crapped on me last week," will be the response. Not really feeling that this is going to work, you will decide that the only way you're going to be able to get through the date is by drinking your way through the evening. And then you'll be having stern words with your friend the next time you meet. However, getting drunk on a date is never a good idea. You'll wake the next day in your bed, believing that you somehow had a lucky escape and the whole ordeal came to a happy end. That's until you get a whiff of trout and cat food, wipe away the pus from spots that have burst against your lips, and turn over to find your lucky pants on your date's head. "Looks like you're not wearing underwear either now!" they will cackle and wheeze. Yes, this may rank as one of your worst ever dates.

When visiting your local Bargain Booze to get your supply of Carling and Malboro Lights to get you through the evening, you will be given a free copy of The Guardian newspaper. It's for some promotion they're doing or something. Usually you get your news from the Sky News app on your phone. Seeing as Sky News appears to be written for people still learning to read, you will find reading The Guardian something of a revelation. Articles will be full of big words and long sentences. Although you won't necessarily understand much of it, you will decide that you need to expand your vocabulary. It'll make you sound clever even if you aren't and seem pretentious - just like a typical Guardian reader. But although you'll learn some new words, you won't learn their meanings or use them in the correct context. When asked what you think of The X Factor this year, your response will be, "Oh, it's completely embroidered." The weather will be "cold and unequivocally." You'll cook up a pasta bolagnese in your new "juxtapose", speak of your love for "ersatz" wine and how you're going to get yourself a new pet "paradigm." And you'll start putting the words "per se" at the end of things. "What's on telly tonight, per se?" or "I wouldn't go in their for an hour or two per se. Phew, it reeks!" Yes, the English language is an amazing thing. It's even better when it's used correct. Or should that be correctly? Maybe I should just say right... Oh, who gives a flying fulcrum?!

There are a few things you need to get off your chest this month. A wasp, quite possibly, to prevent it from stinging you - they go crazy in September, you know, and then vanish all of a sudden. Or perhaps some yoghurt from when you accidentally missed your mouth and dribbled it down you. Maybe even some biscuits if you've decided to join your Cancerian chum in some meeting room ice breaker mischief. You may also need to publicly express something that you have on your mind and to do so, you will turn to the medium of Facebook. Depending on what you want to say and what kind of person you are, you may concoct your update in several ways. If you're a bit of a depressive attention seeker, your update will probably say something along the lines of "Fed up" or "annoyed.com" or have a sad face in it, and you'll respond to people asking you "What's up, hun?" "U ok?" with vague things like "It's nothing" or a promise that you will inbox them. Grrr!!! Or you might think you're a bit of a hardnut and say semi-literate things like, "Carnt stand two-faced tramps. U no who u r. ull b sorry if i bump into u," or "h8 ppl who say stuff behind ur bak but carnt say it to ur face," without seeing the irony of such a statement. Or you just won't be able to think of your own words and use somebody else's inspirational pre-written quote from a sharable image. Usually something along the lines of "True friends will love you because of your faults. Fake friends will use your faults to bring you down." In fact, my messages of the month are like those quotes. Maybe I should stick them on top of an image in Photoshop and chuck them on Facebook. And have half of it written in one font and half in another. And not align the text so that none of it's level. Now, there's an idea...