This was to avoid hijacking this thread further.
People who listen to BBC Radio 4 often find themselves falling asleep to the Shipping Forecast, which begins around 12.45pm. It’s a public service that tells sailors forthcoming weather conditions, barometric pressure, visibility and precipitation.
The forecast takes us on a clockwise journey around the British Isles, naming areas that cover thousands of square miles, their edges touching Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Iceland. Each area has a romantic, almost poetic name: Biscay, Lundy, Sole, Fastnet, Shannon, Rockall… The explanation to the “Fitzroy” comment is that the much-loved Finisterre area got renamed. Here’s the story.
Each area name is then followed by some incomprehensible information: “Three miles, good. One thousand and forty-seven, rising more slowly”.
And the forecast is always preceded by an evocative, lyrical piece of music called Sailing By, written by Ronald Binge (I kid you not).
There is a wonderful cosiness about being tucked up in a warm bed, imagining fishermen battling the high seas in the dead of night. There’s also a feeling of continuity: the archaic forecast has been around for decades, happens regular as clockwork, and is an indication that, no matter what ills abound in the world, the centre still holds.
Every night, as I hear Sailing By start up, I snuggle under the duvet and think of a five-masted schooner drifting silently by a dark Caribbean lagoon by starlight. Then a voice says “this is the Shipping Forecast issued by the Met office at twenty-three thirty hours GMT, on Thursday the thirteenth of March, two-thousand and three,” and my eyelids start to droop, “North Uitsera, South Uitsera. Five miles. One thousand and twenty, rising slowly…”
Aaaaah.
zzzzzzzzz
Thanks!