mattypenny

Random thoughts on the eclipse

  • I very much like the phrase “zone of totality”

  • If the moon was a bit smaller, or a bit bigger, or further away, I’m guessing that eclipses wouldn’t be so good. It’s a Goldilocks moon

  • Celestial events always reminds me of the start of The Day of the Triffids. We have been warned

  • the last eclipse in the UK was AUGUST 11th, this one is August 12th. I’m too ignorant too know, or work out, whether this is a coincidence

  • my main memory of the last one, which was cloudy and partial, was being on the roof of our office block and looking around and seeing all of the other people on the rooftops of London

  • also it got a bit colder

  • if I had a Time Machine, I would first travel back to the 1970 FA Cup Final. After that I’d travel back to a time when eclipses were unexpected and not understood. That must have been an experience

Pic: J. Walker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

An old engraving depicts a detailed cityscape with a large cathedral in the background and three scientific diagrams illustrating the eclipse of the sun.