Poppy Folly

This is the last of Cancer, and just as well; the sign is breaking up into incoherence. On the one hand is the ox-like loyalty (Ed Hillary), on the other the structural treachery (Quisling). Madwomen's breakfasts are not further-flung. We have the very powerful (JJ Astor, who owned two-thirds of Manhattan), the very humble (that peace pilgrim who walked 25,000 miles around the States carrying messages no one wanted), the very staid (Nick Faldo) and the very opposite (Hunter S Thompson).

Cancerians are complex creatures of course, and more potently so than Gemini. They either get trapped in their mannerisms, or embroiled in their molten interior. They either cling to their mates because they were bonding that way when the wind changed, or they segue from one relationship to the next in complex rhythms of betrayal, disloyalty and sexual treachery. Many do both and this makes for Siamese situations in bed sufficiently exotic to make the News of the World. Fortunately Cancerians are prone to habit, or none would stay married for long.

Cancerian men are particularly alarming and are capable, at their highest crisis, of turning themselves inside out. For the same reason epileptics don't kiss (in case they swallow each other's tongues), Cancerians are strongly advised not to get involved with each other: an astrological incest that will inspire astrological revenge.

In sum, if they weren't so attractive we'd throw rocks at them. But being the best sexualists in the zodiac, they are a treasure we can't do without. They may even be a driving force of cultural evolution. It is to pursue their inventive kisses that other signs write novel cycles, build nuclear power stations and itemise the gene code. Essentially, it's all their fault.