The Shipping Forecast

Posted by: Bruce Woodhouse on 06 December 2010

A colleague has just told me that the final wicket at the Test match fell as he listened....to the Shipping Forecast...on Radio 4. Wonderful. Makes you proud to be British somehow.

Imagine' it is 2043, man is about to meet alien life on the surface of Neptune for the first time and....Cromarty, Forties, Fisher , German Bight, one thousand and four, rising slowly...

Made me wonder in this connected world if anyone still needs the Shipping Forceast, or, like the test card and the talking clock will it fade into history?

Bruce
Posted on: 07 December 2010 by JWM
It's one of my Desert Island Discs, especially when read by Charlotte Green.
Posted on: 07 December 2010 by BigH47
Still use the speaking clock.
Posted on: 07 December 2010 by full ahead
Those "at sea "need the shipping forecast,its broadcast for the Maratime and Coastguard agency via the BBC.Very inportant to small coastal shipping.Probaly why its called the Shipping Forecast Smile
Posted on: 07 December 2010 by Christopher_M
quote:
Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:

Made me wonder in this connected world if anyone still needs the Shipping Forceast.....?


I hope so. It punctuates our lives with its poetry. Well, mine anyway.

Chris
Posted on: 07 December 2010 by JamieL_v2
I like the lyric to 'In Limbo' by Radiohead which starts with a line from the shipping forecast.

"Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea
I got a message I can't read
Another message I can't read
......

I'm lost at sea
Don't bother me
I've lost my way
I've lost my way"

Not only is the shipping forecast useful but it also is such an engrained part of Radio4, even as a FM listener it is a welcome interlude in the morning if you have been driving through the night, or as a audio nightcap before bed.
Posted on: 08 December 2010 by Reginald Halliday
There is an amusing book by Charlie Connelly called 'Attention All Shipping' about the Shipping Forecast.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=...tention+all+shipping