Shipping Forecast

The Shipping Forecast is a regular feature of BBC Radio 4 and is provided by the UK Meteorological Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Because of its unique and distinctive sound, it has an appeal much wider than to those solely interested in nautical weather, and is regarded with affection by many listeners. It is broadcast four times a day and consists of reports and forecasts of weather for the seas around the British coast.

Influences on Popular Culture

Due to its set rhythm, calm enunciation, and list of characteristic names from around Britain, the Shipping Forecast can sound quite poetic when broadcast. It is perhaps not surprising that it has featured in songs and poetry as a result.

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"This Is a Low" on Blur's album Parklife includes the lyrics:

Related Topics:
Blur - Parklife

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:On the Tyne, Forth and Cromarty

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:There's a low in the high Forties

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The song also contains references to Biscay, Dogger, Thames ("Hit traffic on the Dogger bank / Up the Thames to find a taxi rank") and Malin.

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Radiohead uses lyrics relating to the Shipping Forecast in its song "In Limbo" to represent a theme of being lost:

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:Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea

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:I've got a message I can't read

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Frank Muir and Denis Norden parodied the Shipping Forecast in a song written for an episode of Take It From Here:

Related Topics:
Frank Muir - Denis Norden - Take It From Here

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:In Ross and Finisterre

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:The outlook is sinisterre

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:Rockall and Lundy

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:Will clear up by Monday

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Other popular artists who have used samples of the Shipping Forecast include Andy White who added the forecast to the track "The Whole Love Story" to create a very nostalgic, cosy and soporific sound, highly evocative of the British Isles; Tears for Fears, whose track "Pharaohs" (a play on the name of the sea area "Faeroes") is a setting of the forecast to a mixture of mellow music and sound effects; and Thomas Dolby, who included a shipping forecast read by BBC's John Marsh on the track "Windpower."

Related Topics:
Andy White - Tears for Fears - Thomas Dolby

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Seamus Heaney wrote a sonnet "The Shipping Forecast", which opens:

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:Dogger, Rockall, Malin, Irish Sea:

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:Green, swift upsurges, North Atlantic flux

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:Conjured by that strong gale-warming voice,

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:Collapse into a sibilant penumbra.

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The Carol Ann Duffy poem "Prayer" finishes with the lines:

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:Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -

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:Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

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A recitation of the Shipping Forecast by actor Peter Serafinowicz features prominently in the Black Books episode "The Big Lock-Out".

Related Topics:
Peter Serafinowicz - Black Books

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The Shipping Forecast has also inspired writing, painting and photographic collections, notably Charlie Connelly's Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round The Shipping Forecast, Mark Power and David Chandler's The Shipping Forecast, and Peter Collyer's Rain Later, Good. Their critical and commercial success is a tribute both to the time and energy people are willing to invest in artistic projects inspired by the shipping forecast, and the warmth with which the public regard this regular radio announcement.

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