Much Ado About Nothing Much.

At 7 o'clock this evening I noticed that the light level in my house seemed a little on the low side. I looked through the window and saw that the sun was still shining, and then realised that I was experiencing the much-vaunted solar eclipse.  BBC News has been going on about it for days. One piece this morning said that the world would be 'plunged into darkness.' 

I ignored it, of course, because I remember the last solar total eclipse in 1999. I was sitting on a bench in a town centre and noticed that the light level had dropped slightly so that it resembled an early twilight. The BBC used the phrase 'plunged into darkness' on that occasion, too.

So what's wrong with journalists? Are they really so ignorant of the subject about which they're writing, or has it become permissible in this post-truth age to write total nonsense just to sound dramatic? And are people really taken in by it all? Do they not realise that while a certain amount of direct sunshine will be lacking during an eclipse, the sun will still be illuminating the atmosphere so the sky will still be bright enough to read a book quite easily. Solar eclipses are interesting, but there's nothing extravagantly exciting about them.

 

For my part I occupied myself washing the dishes and then wrote this. Now I will go out and water the parched garden (or at least parts of it) while there's still plenty of bright daylight.