The bitingly-funny television and food critic AA Gill died a week ago from cancer leaving a gap for many Sunday newspaper readers for whom his eviscerations of actors, directors and restaurants were the week’s highlight. Those on the receiving end would laugh ruefully (mainly) since despite, his fierce sarcasm, he was much loved.
He had an ongoing feud with the Isle of Man after he wrote: “The weather’s foul, the food’s medieval, it’s covered in suicidal motorists and folk who believe in fairies.” Later despite complaints in the Isle of Man parliament he said the citizens fell into two types: “hopeless, inbred mouth-breathers known as Bennies” and “retired, small arms dealers and accountants who deal in rainforest futures.”
Born 26 June 1954 7.55pm, Edinburgh, Scotland (Astro com BC) to a TV director father and actress mother, he had a brother who was a Michelin-starred chef but mentally fragile who disappeared in 1998 and has not been seen since. Gill himself was severely dyslexic and had a major drug and alcohol problem which nearly killed him in his twenties. He cleaned up and despite his problems with reading and writing was amazingly erudite; and compassionate about wider world problems amongst refugees in the Congo, Jordan and Lampedusa.
He was a Sun Jupiter in Cancer in the 8th opposition Mars in Capricorn; with Mercury Uranus in Cancer in the 8th square his MC and 10th house Neptune. His indulgent Taurus Moon was in the entertaining 5th. Very intense with four planets in the 8th and influential. Plus a much-travelled Venus and opinionated Pluto in the 9th; a conscientious Saturn in Scorpio was trine his Sun and sextile his Mars.
He had multiple quintiles and septiles – 5th and 7th Harmonics – artistic, creative, could make his life work and the 7H can be prone to addiction.
Not an easy chart or easy life but he surmounted significant problems to shine.
He was quite contradictory – both sympathetic at a deep level and viscerally aggressive, mainly verbal, at others. He nearly died from his drug/drink problem when he was 30 which I can’t imagine did his system much good.
I’m sure he was compassionate about wider world problems but I still cannot get over that time when he hunted and killed a baboon just to “know what it feels like to kill”! I also cannot get over the fact that he absolutely detested Vegetarians. Ironically, so many new evidence now showing how eating meat links strongly to cancer – I wonder if that linked to him as well.