Eleven a.m. on Wednesday, 11th August 1999 saw the much-heralded total eclipse of the sun. Contrary to Nostradamus's woolly predictions, no king of terror descended from the skies and nor were we engulfed in a fireball. Everybody went and sat outside to watch the eclipse apart from Richard Russell who was engulfed in a Ford database.

It was a fun occasion with enough cloud-cover to allow some people to throw caution to the winds and watch the eclipse directly. In some cases they are probably now reviewing the highlights of the eclipse permanently seared in the back of their retinas.

All sorts of methods were used to view the sun. Andy Ratnett stuck his finger through a CD and used that as a screen so if you're wondering where our copy of VB5 Enterprise edition went... Lam brought a pair of stereo viewing glasses and lots of people used pinholes in card to project the sun. One of the best views of the eclipse was offered by the reflection in the windows of the office blocks all around.

It didn't get as dark as I expected but it was still quite a gloomy, spooky atmosphere.

Nigel gazes heavenwards in snappy dark glasses