Some people believe everything they read, the naïve fools.  In my experience the only things you can trust are credit card bills and the Daily Mail horoscope.  I live by mine.  

I am a typical Sagittarian: idealistic and adventurous but fickle and unreliable - a bit like Robin Hood, but without the green tights.  Famous Sagittarians include the song-and-dance double-act Friedrick Engels and Catherine of Aragon, Nostradamus (inventor of the nasal decongestant), and the former American President Sammy Davis Junior. 

Today’s Daily Mail prediction is a mixed bag.  It starts off well: I will win fifty pounds on the Premium Bonds and flirt with a 22 year old Latvian beauty in Starbucks.  But things take a turn for the worse later; at approximately five pm I will fall off a corrugated tin roof and break my arm whilst trying to retrieve a tennis ball.  I don’t know if it will be the left or the right arm – horoscopes tend to not be that specific.

I have already phoned the hospital to notify them of my impending need for surgical intervention.  With one twelfth of the world’s population breaking their arms at exactly the same time there is likely to be a queue.

For a truly long lasting youth forget essential oils, workouts at the gym and cutting out fatty foods.  Embrace your inner child, dress like an idiot and live off Haribo and gin.  You will not live long, but what a life it will be.

The subtext is (as if it isn’t obvious): I don’t want to get old.  I don’t want to admit I look out of place in trendy bars (even though the music is terrible and they are full of wankers).  If I ever reach the stage where someone looks at me sympathetically and offers their seat I shall leap through the train window onto the tracks in a final glorious gesture of defiance.

In truth, mine is not a totally hedonistic lifestyle.  I do like to look after myself.  For a start, I only eat foods with lots of preservatives in them.  If they can keep spam fresh in the tin, imagine what they will do for your insides.

Secondly I have been injecting myself with tortoise blood daily for three months.  Tortoises live almost for ever.  If I am part-tortoise surely I will live longer too.  There are risks - I could grow a shell.  But I think the potential benefits are worth it and Harry (the tortoise) seems not to mind too much.  If it works I’ll tell your grandchildren in a trendy bar.  If not, I’ll meet you on a railway track. 

Hold on to your hats.  Tomorrow is going to be the windiest day ever recorded.  This not because of freak global weather events, but because I will be attempting to break the world record for the biggest desk fan ever made.

Fanny (the fan) is a masterpiece of shed-based engineering.  500 feet tall, her legs are made of bamboo and her four propellers are old garage doors.  The whole thing is held together with bandages bought from an A&E closing down sale.  Fingers crossed it isn’t too windy tomorrow and that Fanny doesn’t topple over onto the school. 

Environmentalists will be reassured to learn that Fanny is gluten free, hypoallergenic and carbon neutral (apart from the thirty thousand AA batteries required to power the propellers). 

The blow-a-thon starts at eleven and I’m expecting a big crowd.  Representatives of Desk Fan Clubs from all over the world are attending.  Many will be demonstrating their own Desk Fan creations.  Expect the weird and the wonderful!   Mother will be providing refreshments from her Traditional Pork Pie van. 

In a spectacular Mass Blow-Off Finale five hundred fans will attempt to blow a dozen pensioners off a railway bridge.  

Our village cricket pitch shares a field with an ancient stone circle.  When the team fielding is down a player or two we allow them to recruit the mysterious stones to assist.  If the ball strikes the stone without bouncing the batsman is out.  I think the cavemen would be delighted to know their sacred construction still has use.  The stones are not allowed to bowl. 

Legend has it that on stormy autumnal nights during a full moon the stones do nothing; they just stand there like they have done for thousands of years.  This is superstitious nonsense.  I’ve seen them practising in the nets.   

The stones attract many Druids who are drawn to their supposed mystical power.  But the power doesn’t seem to protect them from being struck by cricket balls.  Last Sunday four dented Druids were stretchered off the pitch.  Animosities boiled over and the High Priest had a fist fight with the Captain of the Second Eleven.  I wonder whose side the cavemen would have been on.

Is rampant consumerism undermining the fragile fabric of society?  Is the desire for Toshiba TVs ruining family cohesion and destroying our sense of community?  I don’t know, my family don’t speak to me anymore and I don’t have any friends.  Good job I’ve got this Toshiba to keep me company.

I use it mainly to watch EastEnders.  I revel in its misery.  It makes me feel superior.  It’s difficult to get that sense of power over real people, especially if they have bigger Toshibas than you.  Hopefully in future they will make eight 24 hour episodes of EastEnders every week and repeat them on a new channel that only people with Toshibas can receive.  That would be worth living for.

There’s no stopping progress.  It’s like a train except that it goes a lot faster, isn’t full of tired commuters and doesn’t stop at Sittingbourne.  Actually now that I think about it, progress isn’t like a train at all.  It’s more like a fairground rollercoaster that’s come away from its tracks and is about to plunge everyone to their deaths because the guard was too busy watching his Toshiba to notice the track had disintegrated.

Examiner’s note
A reasonable attempt at tackling a complex social issue in a pithy sketch format.  The use of a rollercoaster disaster as a metaphor for the disintegration of society is clichéd but nicely framed.  The milk has gone off and my cat has an eye missing but I’m still going dancing tonight.  68%

Business has been booming for our local curry house since they employed a hypnotist to do the deliveries.

Customers now all agree that it’s the tastiest curry they’ve ever eaten, and much cheaper than they expected.  Many are so impressed they order seconds, and all are baffled at how it can turn up two minutes before they actually order it.  Of course they retain no memory of being put into a trance on their doorstep. 
 
The ingenious plan was finally rumbled last week when he attempted to work his magic on my Auntie Michelle.  Not realising she’s been in a trance since 1987, his charms had the opposite effect on her and she woke up.  Now Uncle Andy is threatening to sue, claiming she is no longer tasty and cheap.

If you’re an emotional wreck (most people are) you need my new self-help book.  Pull Yourself Together is based on a 1947 National Service Drill Sergeants’ Manual, which I have adapted into a tough love guide to coping with emotional trauma.

It has chapters on all common causes of emotional distress including divorce, debt, and catching a social disease from a friend or animal.  Here are some examples:

Girlfriend left you?  You must be inadequate, do fifty press ups and pull yourself together!
House being repossessed?  Get yourself over to Palestine, accommodation and meals free (just keep your head down).  
Got yourself an STD?  You dirty animal!  Five hours of pointless square bashing and then get yourself off to see the quack. 

Priced at just £253.47, the first fifty copies come with a free Battle Of The Somme DVD.  If that doesn’t give you perspective nothing will.