Friday's F*ck It - get booked for Aug 1st

One for Druids, Druids-at-heart if not in dress and with tambourine, sky-watchers and travellers who know a bona-fide F*ck It when they read it. On August 1st 2008 the lights go out; first in Canada, then Greenland, then central Russia, Mongolia and finally China. This total eclipse of the sun promises to surpass 1999's event. Then, I slept in a Cornish lay by, woke up to a sea view on a hillside near Mevagissy, bleating along with nearby sheep, in awe of the solar spectacle.

Cornwall felt primeval that day; nothing mattered but the cycle of celestial spheres and the rise and fall of the sun. But that eerie moment of pitch blackness experienced in Russia or among Arctic snow fields...that promises to be a tale to tell to the great-grandkids. You'll be celebrating your 156th birthday telling this travelling tale in a time when the sun has been replaced by nuclear reactors suspended on bubble clouds and tethered to Mercury, never again to be eclipsed.

I'm in.

August 1st 2008.

Best bets for clear skies and accessability are...
Siberia- Novosibirsk's at 10.45 UT; Barnaul 10.48
China - The city of Xi'an where totality lasts 1min 35s at sunset

NASA's Solar Eclipse page