'You don't know your wife's star sign?' the woman says. 'Well,' I say, 'I know some of the ones it isn't' I am at a party, standing in someone's back garden on a chilly spring afternoon, talking to a woman I've just met. She is explaining something to do with her past relationships and astrology. She's on the verge of telling me her star sign, but then decides for some reason that I should be able to guess it. "It's a fire sign," she says.