www.hermit.orgEclipse1999

This summer, a total solar eclipse will be visible from parts of mainland Britain for the first time in more than 70 years, providing a rare opportunity to experience one of the most awe-inspiring of celestial phenomena.

As the eclipse happens at the height of the holiday season - August 11 - and you have to go to Cornwall (or, more sensibly, leave the country) to see it, early planning is advised.

This site is a good starting point for anyone hoping to follow the eclipse. It’s packed with information, and provides enough background material to fuel any number of eclipse-related lessons.

It includes a calendar of eclipses up to 2151, but points out that if you miss this one, the next total eclipse on this part of the planet will be in 2090.

Voycabulary

www.voycabulary.com

The Internet is awash with dictionaries, thesauruses and translating tools. If you can get past its ghastly name, Voycabulary offers an interesting and - in some cases - very effective way of harnes-sing the power of all this online lexicography.

First you need text - preferably on a web page full of difficult, archaic or unfamiliar words. When you enter the address, the page appears, every word hyperlinked to the dictionary or translator of your choice.

A little gimmicky, maybe, and rather slow if you need to jump from page to page. But it’s easy to imagine circumstances - a Japanese student having a first go at one of Hamlet’s soliloquies, say - when the site would seem a godsend.