Afraid of the dark?

A solar eclipse in March could plunge the country into darkness as the sky is covered and energy supplies are put at risk.

The eclipse will block out nearly 90 per cent of the sunlight in parts of Europe – with some of Scotland seeing 94 per cent coverage. And the electricity supplies might not be able to take up the strain, since so much of Europe’s power supply now relies on solar energy.

Screams the Independent. Because Northern Europe has always enjoyed a plentiful supply of reliable, uninterrupted sunshine, so its power networks will obviously collapse on March the 20th due to the unprecedented challenge of a couple of hours of slightly-lower-than-average sunlight and a terrifying two minutes or so of near-twilight (it's not even a total eclipse over most of Europe - you'd have to be in the Faroes or Svalbard to experience a total eclipse, weather permitting).

Spend the time you have left stocking up on candles, canned goods and firearms, or prepare to die.

Amid the general apocalyptic panic and tinfoil hattery, I must admit to being a bit disappointed with the headline contributed by the Daily Mail:

Solar eclipse could see 84% of sunlight blocked out over London. 

Really, people, is that the best you can do? Sunlight, as any fule kno, stimulates the production of vitamin D, which can help protect against cancer, so I was hoping for something more creative, like this:

Solar eclipse could trigger cancer epidemic

as part of the Mail's ongoing project to divide everything in the universe into things that cause cancer and things that prevent it. Have they stopped trying, or what?

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Update - since I took that screenshot. I see that those lovely people at the Telegraph have used some of the space saved by not reporting wrongdoing at HSBC to add to the nonsensical scare headlines:

Solar eclipse to disrupt power supplies 

Bless.