Mark Templeton Surfs the Net

STAR gazers can have hours of fun on the net thanks to hundreds of astrology sites.

One of the best is a page called New Age Voices, which has a brilliant interactive section and will deal you a set of tarot cards on demand.

It's packed with superb graphics and has one of the widest variety of oracles and interpretive devices on the web, including the I-ching, a numerology calculator and even a goofy fortune cookie.

Novices can get basic lessons in the planets and signs and the more advanced can go to the on-line astrology lessons.

One of the best sections is where you input your birth details and it provides your horoscope for the previous day, current day and the weeks ahead.

Even though I'm a bit of a cynic with this sort of thing, I did find a couple of things surprisingly accurate.

So much better than Mystic Meg, but don't expect it to come up with the Lottery numbers for you.

Web site: http://thenewage.com/

Puppet love

MUPPET fans and movie addicts should flock here for a great site loaded with pictures and how-tos for all sorts of puppet antics that we have come to take for granted in the cinema. Jim Henson's creations cannot really come to life on the Web, but at least you can listen to that brilliant Muppet theme tune.

Web site: http://www.henson.com

History at a glance

ARTICLES on all aspects of European history, especially various royal families.

Each is presented as a simple text file with minimal graphics, making the downloads helpfully quick.

Past articles are not archived, but can be requested with a simple e-mail message. An excellent bookmark for historians and school teachers.

Web site: http://www.eurohistory.com

Star Wars nostalgia

THE Smithsonian Institute in America will host an exhibition about the Star Wars trilogy and its links to traditional mythical storytelling next year.

Here you can go through the whole exhibition, step by step, reading panels and viewing exhibits and artefacts, which include costumes and props from the movies. Wonderful, nostalgic stuff, with plenty of educational value too. Web site: http://www.nasm.si.edu/StarWars/

Grief INXS

FANS of rock singer Michael Hutchence poured out their grief over his death on the Internet this week.

Several unofficial sites set up tribute pages to the INXS singer after news of his death was revealed.

Fans were invited to e-mail their messages of sympathy and sites were updated with news items as stories broke.

But, remarkably, two so-called official pages, one at Mercury Records and the other called Elegantly Wasted, didn't carry a sentence on the tragedy. I'm sure fans will have been disappointed at the decision.

Web site: http://www.clo.com/paradigm/fanzine.htm

Sick of the pigs

ANYONE hooked on those annoying Tamagotchi toys should take a look at the Swine On-Line web page. Here you are invited to spend a week nurturing a pig using hog-raising knowledge, financial expertise and luck.

Since I have none of those qualities, I lost interest after about 20 seconds and decided to leave the slopping out to someone else. I'm sure someone out there will appreciate this though.

Web site: http://www.swineonline.com/index.html

DON'T forget to e-mail all your Internet news and views to mtempleton@lancashire.newsquest.co.uk

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