Your Horoscope with our resident Astrologer, Madame Teakay: Gemini (May 22 - June 21)

Gemini - May 22 - June 21

You're in two minds about a lot of things at the moment, but that's o.k because generally you've got two of everything (except those things that you've got four of). In certain respects it's been quite a while, but in others it was only yesterday evening at around six-fifteen, so don't let that dark nervousness of yours take hold or tensions will fray. Instead, take the opportunity of a musical venture on the 13th to show off your natural versatility and youthful liveliness.
You may be feeling a little disjointed of late, but don't worry: It's simply a matter of equinoxial precession and easily remedied by just not thinking about it.
As the Moon enters its first quarter towards the 19^th you'll have a strange yearning to cover your garden in crazy paving: don't. It's down to indigestion and you'll regret it in the morning.

Lucky body part: Boobs
Unlucky body part: Nasal hair
Look out for: Impossible things

Where am I?

In case you're interested, I'm here:

This map will be updated with my location whenever my phone is with me and functioning. You can see how recently it has been updated underneath the map. If I'm somewhere near you, why not get in touch and say hi?

Please note that this map will display my city-level location only. If you know me* (and I know you) and you're interested in sharing more specific location information (so that we'll know if we end up unexpectedly near each other and can go for an impromptu coffee, for example), then you'll need a phone that can run Google Maps with Latitude (you don't need GPS). Speak to me if you need help setting it up.

* Apologies, but I'm only going to share detailed location information with people I already know and like!

I Don't Like Mondays

Time for Monday's holiday track. O.k, O.k, it doesn't really fit with the holiday theme, but it's my favourite Monday song that I can think of right now.

Released in 1979, it stayed at the number 1 spot for four weeks during July and August, and was written by Bob Geldof after a shooting in the January of that year in which 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer shot and killed two adults and injured eight children and a police officer. When asked why she did it, she simply said "I don't like Mondays; this livens up the day."

For some reason I can't quite fathom this song reminds me of being at the Dry Dock in Leicester. Anyway...

The video below is from the live Secret Policeman's Other Ball in 1981 - I wasn't even born!

I sincerely apologise for including a song with such a morbid background on a bank holiday, but, y'know, it's the best Monday song there is, in my opinion!

Oooh, and as a special extra treat for anyone who's come this far, I've just found this version filmed in 1994 which involves not only Bob but also Bon*.

As a final thought, I'm amazed by the number of people who feel it necessary to put an apostrophe in 'Mondays'. Apostrophe abuse is an under-understood social disease and must be stopped. Who's with me?

* Jovi.

Pleasant Valley Sunday!

Carrying on from yesterday's In Only Seven Days post, it's Sunday on my week off, so here are the Monkees for your listening pleasure:

I'll be back tomorrow with a Monday song. Any suggestions?

In Only Seven Days

Hooray! I've managed to claw my way through to the end of another term. This one has been particularly tiring, probably due to impending exams.

But anyway, that's not the focus of this post, but it put me in mind of this song by Queen. It's called In Only Seven Days and comes from the Jazz album. It has (to my knowledge) no official video, but here's the song set to a montage of some random Queen pics posted on YouTube (not by me).

So for all you Queen fans:

A thought based on yesterday's election

I has done some little bit of maths.

I know that a lot of people consider the voting system used in this country for purposes of elections, known by many as the 'first past the post' system, to be unfair. Using data from the BBC's election website I compared the number of seats won by the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat parties in last night's election and the number of actual votes counted for each of these parties country-wide.

I even made a bar chart:

Now, I have to make it clear that this is a really, really basic analysis*, but it should hopefully provide food for thought.

What the charts show is this:

Around 36% of British voters put their cross next to the name of a Conservative candidate. Compare this with their 47% share of constituency seats.
A similar effect can be seen with the Labour party: 40% of the seats have been gained with only 19% of the votes.
The most striking difference is seen with the Liberal Democrats: Despite receiving 23% of the votes of British people, they end up with around 9% of the constituency seats.

This leaves me wondering whether the current system results in an adequate representation of what the electorate actually wants.

Just sayin', y'know. Feel free to comment.

* It barely deserves the label