Sod the Foodies, we know what we likes.
Marmalade sarnis, along with our famous chip butties, are truly English, and Marmite may be good for you, but us Brits stand paw to paw, with our famous bear (see the previous blog for enlightenment on that one)
Some things always take us home, wherever we may be
Before the era of day-long television, we only had the radio, so I can understand why the exiles amongst us, still tune in for Classic FM or the BBC’s World Service.
Part of that life was the Shipping Forecast that was first broadcast on the British Home Service, now on Radio 4 (1967) As a child I used to listen to the modulated tones of the broadcaster, as he went through the areas around our coasts.
‘Dogger, Fisher….’ wondering if those sailors tossing around in the sea were all right, and would they get home?
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‘Cromarty and Forth…Winds veering to moderate’
That was good, the winds would veer, and the rain would come along later.
The names have a poetry all their own ‘Viking’ ‘Rockall’ ‘Shannon’. We used to have ‘Finisterre’ but we lost that in 2002.
To the Spanish, would you believe?
‘A name known to millions of radio listeners after appearing in broadcasts every day for 53 years has passed into history. Finisterre ranks alongside Dogger, Fisher and German Bight as one of the most distinctive areas of sea included in the BBC's shipping forecast, but from Sunday at noon it will be heard no longer. Feb 2002’ (BBC News)
Just because of the bloody Spanish – they wanted the name, so now that area is named ‘FitzRoy’, and if you think I begrudge the Spanish their ‘Finnisterre’ damn right, I do.
Captain FitzRoy became a governor of New Zealand, so they should have named somewhere in New Zealand after him, if you think about it. Or maybe the whole country.
Only fair isn’t it?
And left ‘Finnisterre’ where it should be.
Yep
Notes and Bibliography
1) The first weather forecast broadcast on radio was a script prepared by the Met Office and read by an announcer on November 14, 1922, from Marconi House, London. From March 26, 1923, this became a daily service.
2) Captain Robert FitzRoy
Robert FitzRoy is best known as the captain of 'HMS Beagle' After a brief interlude as Governor of New Zealand, FitzRoy went on to develop an interest in meteorology becoming the founder of the UK Meteorological Office and inventor of the weather forecast.
He invented the earliest form of the Mercury Barometer. In parallel with the issuing of forecasts and the gathering of meteorological data, FitzRoy also distributed free barometers to poor fishing communities
I recommend this book by Charllie Connelly, available from Amazon
Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast (Radio 4 Book of the Week) by Charlie Connelly. May 2005.
A List of Shipping Areas
Pub Quiz
Charts and Maps, very informative
Marine weather
Met Office
BBC Weather
The lowdown on just how the Shipping Forecast is produced
Media UK
11 comments:
If we played quietly we could do pretty much what ever we liked but not when the news was on the radio.
We all had to be dead quiet
What I never understood was why me old dad had to listen to the shipping forecast.
Perhaps he was hoping for news of the kracken
As I child *and later when I took up sailing* I was always beguiled by the relaxed and reassuring tones of the Weather Forecast, anong with its distinctive musical precursor *latterly, Sailing Home*
Me dad, however, *an inveterate and unsuccessful gambler* woz far more interested in the football results. These were listened to in a reverent silence, under threat of a clip round the ear.
Despite the lilting rise and fall of the football results, there was never the warmth and feeling that someone cared about you received from the weather forecast - *weather* you understood it or knot!
Ah, happy daze...
One of the few things I miss about the UK is the shipping forecast. I always set the radio to wake me on as it was playing. Somehow it was very comforting to hear the all those sea areas being recited. Fitzroy is not the same as Finnisterre. But then we got used to North and South Utsire (added 1984) and in anycase it's a worthy name. I'll definitely buy that book.
And what about sea area Trafalgar?
Ain't it typical of us sensitive Brits that We only menshun that place in the middle of the night forecast, rather than in every one?
It's because we don't wish to offend our Spanish euro-friends by reminding them that they're living somewhere to where our military and naval influence once extended.
It might also be seen as a threat to our more criminal ex-pats who think they escape our swingeing taxes.
So we keep quiet - like the cat burglar who's been checking out me bookshelves, apparently... *sniff*
Of course, this could all change if a Kra(c)ken woz spotted in sea area Trafalgar - or spotted cat burglars, for that matter...
It is not believed that the much vaunted German Railway sphere of influence extends that far...
Haw, haw, and heave away, me hearties.
Finisterre idn't really Spanish, it's more Frenchey like ... you shouldn't have let 'em have it, you really shouldn't... da Kraken gets anyone who shows the least weakness...and if the Kraken doesn't get ya then the bears will, or German railways, an then you'll wish it was bears!
I can see *withering gaze* that my strictures regarding the mythical Kraken are being ignored.
This will not do – why the Kraut, or BlarneyRack, indulge in visions of frolicsome Krakens bouncing around in the North Sea (or any other sea) baffles any persons of sense and logic
That’s me and Mad Dog – Zap is nuts like the rest of you.
Pedantic Note: Finisterre is a geographical region pertaining to Spain – the word, itself comes from the Latin
Finis = end
Terra= earth/world
I will not have bears rolling around either. Or burglers of any species.
Nope.
That's wot i said, Latin stem, the e-ending of terre makin it more Frenchey like in character (tierra bein Spanisch) which gives ya two letters difference already, and the Romans tried hard and wivout success to forget the roots of that perticler line of emperors, so don't yer trade linguistic pedantics wiv me.
As for geographic pedantics, your stout colonial forebears didnt care a hoot which area pertained to anybody originally, which is why we needn't count the differing letters between landsend and finisterre at all, and they's niver thought of bein considerate to some Dagoes feelin either ... *runnin out of air* wot i'm sayin is you shouldn't have let it pass! Makes me furious, even though i never heard BBC shipping forecast, but i now wish i had, have the feelin i missed somethin there!
Afterthought: Ise surprised though BBC shipping forecast niver mentioned the Kraken, not the ones lairin under Paddington and the Natural History museum, that was hardly within their skope, but the one lurkin a the mouth of the Thames fishin fer canoes... goin by wot yer sayin here they don't strike me as people likely to overlook a thing like that ... mebbe they mentioned it only after midnight, like Trafalgar...
I dunno what ze fuss is all about.
Zis kraken - is just a beeg calamari, yes?
In Spain we eat such creatures *zey are good with onions - and potatoes - especially
kraut-nurtured potatoes*
We say Pah! to your leetle North Sea kraken - zere is not enough depth of water for zis kraken to grow big like our atlantic calamari...
Zo zere!
I think Delicia is mistaken about the Kraken, after all if the BBC don't mention it, ipso facto, it don't exist
Anf if there is a Kraken, I hope it bites Pedro, real hard, in the nuts.
Or do I mean the calimaries?
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