-
- PARIS (AFP) - The total eclipse
of the sun seen across Europe on Wednesday drew weird and wacky reactions
from humans, confused birds and animals and confounded designer Paco Rabanne's
prediction that it would coincide with the end of the world.
-
- A couple in the southern Austrian town of Feldbach became
parents at exactly the moment the total eclipse passed across the south
of the country.
-
- In France, some 200 people gathered near one of Rabanne's
swish boutiques in Paris to share a "survivor's aperitif" mocking
the haute couturier's doom-laden prediction that the Russian Mir space
station would plunge to earth and destroy the French capital as the eclipse
took place.
-
- A sign in the window of the closed boutique informed
customers that it would re-open on August 24, proving that not all Rabanne's
staff shared their boss's Nostradamus-influenced pessimism.
-
- "You see, they don't even believe it themselves,"
said Paul-Eric Blanrue, president of the Zetetic Circle, which seeks to
defy irrational theories.
-
- Residents of the southern French town of Condom went
further, staging a simulation of Mir plunging to earth by hoisting a septic
tank on to the roof of a bus and creating explosions with fireworks.
-
- "It might have been apocalyptic but the tourists
weren't scared," said organiser Guy Le Barre.
-
- In Russia, top-selling Moscow newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda
told readers the eclipse could help them to rid themselves of bad habits,
including a partiality to vodka.
-
- There were, not surprisingly, no details of how many
people followed the suggested ritual of taking alternate hot and cold showers,
drinking a glass of iced water and then lying on their stomachs.
-
- Some members of the animal kingdom struggled to cope
as day temporarily turned into night.
-
- In Germany, pink flamingoes at Berlin Zoo settled down
for the night as the skies darkened shortly after 1000 GMT, a spokesman
said.
-
- In Bulgaria, zookeepers at Sofia zoo planned to hose
down chickens in an effort to calm them down after they began crowing for
dusk and roosting half an hour before the eclipse.
-
- Back in the human world, the clifftops of the southern
English region of Cornwall were packed with new-age travellers, white-robed
druids and pagans who marked the event with ancient rituals.
-
- Meanwhile, telephones fell silent and dealing floors
emptied as bankers in Europe's largest financial centre abandoned their
work to rush outside and watch the eclipse sweep over London.
-
- The London Chamber of Commerce estimated that the phenomenon
may have cost the City of London 100 million pounds (154 million dollars,
154 million euros).
-
- One major overseas bank whisked its clients off to the
southern English region of Devon for a better view of the clipse, but not
before each person had signed a contract of personal liability for any
ocular damage.
-
- But at least those employees did not miss the last total
eclipse of the millennium, unlike the unfortunate Bulgarians who chose
to stay in and watch the event on television.
-
- As the full beauty of the eclipse was revealed at 1111
GMT, Bulgarian national television was blacked out by technical problems.
-
- Faced with a blank screen at the crucial moment, astronomical
experts were asked to describe what the event normally looks like, as producers
hurriedly brought out pictures of the last eclipse in Bulgaria in 1961.
|
