Name In Lights

Pieced together in the laboratory, the headlamp-pattern of seemingly unconnected - damaged, fragmentary - lives can be pieced together.

The Hand of Sir Jimmy Savile: Unpopular fixer.

Here we find that the long palm, marked with numerous lines of an energetic type, and the short fingers, place Jimmy Savile in the Fire category. The essential characteristic of the fire type is unpredictability, represented both by the form of the hand and the many lines, which give many directions, not all of them productive. So quickly will Jimmy’s emotional faculties work that he himself will often be astonished by what he says and does; sometimes Sir Jimmy sounds like a demented fantasist.  Once, whilst taking a Guardian journalist on a tour of a building site – the site of a new conference venue in Leeds city centre which was to be named Sir Jimmy Savile Hall and house a museum dedicated to his life – Sir Jimmy is approached by a total stranger – a middle-aged businessman – clutching a mobile phone. The businessman asks Jim if he’ll speak to his wife. “No problem” says Jim, taking the mobile handset. “I don’t know who you think this is but I’m the manager of the Golden Hands massage parlour in Manchester. Your husband is a regular face down here and is well behind with his credit”. He hands the phone back to the scarlet-faced fan, pats him on the back and climbs into his taxi, another great Fix It under his belt. Fire type often secretly thinks of himself as a confidence trickster.

The Hand of Marthe Fleurant: Popular singer.

The long narrow palm and long fingers of Marthe Fleurant’s hand indicate that she is essentially a Water type. Although the palm of this type in its pure form is covered with a mesh of lines, the lively quality of Marthe’s lines indicates that she has strong Fire tendencies. In short this means that Marthe is caught between two strong forces: on the one hand, a watery force that requires stability and security, and on the other, a fire force that ‘boils’ the water and creates strong inner tensions. Like Jimmy Savile, Marthe Fleurant has a marked Girdle of Venus, which in part explains he restlessness of her personality and her love of travel.

Both Savile and Fleurant relish the limelight - like to see their name in lights. Marthe has a long line of intuition which is so necessary to one in her profession, but the fact that it is so broken indicates a feeling of insecurity, proper to her type, which her sense of practical requirements and her ambition are constantly fighting. Marthe’s hand is remarkable for its strong contradictory, fragmentary forces – in outward life there is a positive direction, but inwardly this is paralleled with a lack of direction and uncertainty. This lack of direction is no more evident than in the position of Marthe's head in relation to the headlights. Whilst Sir Jim confronts the camera - returns, indeed, radiates 'the gaze' from a central position of confidence, Marthe avoids eye-contact and in doing so comes over as, less a highlight than more of a third headlight.

Glossary

Marthe Fleurant: a popular singer

Sir Jimmy Savile: an unpopular fixer.

Fluorescence: light emitted during absorption of radiation of some other (invisible) wavelength.

Radiator: any object that radiates energy.

Headlights: a light head, usually attached to the front of a vehicle such as a car, with the purpose of illuminating the way ahead.

Blond: a person with fair skin and hair.

Head lice (pediculosis capitis): infestation of the scalp with lice.  

Forensic science. Forensic means ‘belonging to the courts’ and comes from the Latin forum, which is where the Romans used to hold their law courts.

Palmistry: In palmistry many subjects meet – Blonds, headlights, fluorescence, forensic science, radiators, Fleuant, Savile, crossed-legs, Roles Royces.