This is the map of the Shipping Forecast. I don't even live in the UK but often I do listen to the Shipping Forecast because I will tune in to listen to them play "Sailing By" before they do the Shipping Forecast.
Why do I listen to BBC so much? Because Singapore radio is utter bullshit that's why. All of Singapore's radio is completely void of informative or educational programming and I despise it. I mean, look at BBC 4; where else can I tune in and accidentally discover a half-hour special analysing TS Eliot's The Wasteland for seemingly no reason at all. Granted, maybe not everyone wants to listen to that, but I myself enjoy the constant, passive absorption of information.
Somedays, I will even listen to Farming Today, although I haven't a single clue about farming. You name it, I've listened to it all. I'm Sorry I'll Read that Again, On The Hour, And Now In Colour, Navy Lark, Dad's Army, Men from the Ministry, Hancock's Half Hour, Old Harry's Game, Milton Jones, Forty Nights in the Wildebeest, All Gas and Gaiters, Flywheel, Just a Minute, Desert Island Discs, Big Fun Show, Adam and Joe, The Now Show, Hudson and Pepperdine, The Seventh Hour, The Museum of Everything, Woman's Hour, that thing with Laurie Anderson innit, Mistajam on 1XTRA, Documentaries about food in fukushima, farmers sanding the teeth of alpacas with anglegrinders, stories on internet accessibility for blind people, the formation of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, long debates about Ofsted or Ofcom, whatever happened to terry nutkins's missing fingers, etc. Anything: I will give it a listen. Yes I am now so full of English pub trivia now, just you wait and see.
But, after years of not understanding what the words meant on the shipping forecast (but becoming strangely familiar with the words "forth tyne dogger") - today I have finally looked at the Weather map issued by the Met Office, which is on the BBC website. Now I finally know what they mean by "squally showers over Viking North Utsire South Utsire Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger..."
UK shipping forecast zones (Another map from Wikimedia Commons)
List of zones:
| Viking North Utsire South Utsire Forties Cromarty Forth Tyne Dogger Fisher German Bight Humber | Thames Dover Wight Portland Plymouth Biscay Trafalgar FitzRoy Sole Lundy Fastnet | Irish Sea Shannon Rockall Malin Hebrides Bailey Fair Isle Faeroes Southeast Iceland |
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