“Showers, good”
May 22, 2020 10:44 PM Subscribe
Five hours of the shipping forecast on BBC Radio 4. Sleep well!
winterhill, I'd find that very strange, as Sailing By is my Pavlovian cue to turn the radio off and go to sleep...
posted by altolinguistic at 2:24 AM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by altolinguistic at 2:24 AM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
For those who want to know what kind of information is given: Shipping Forecast.
posted by Pendragon at 3:26 AM on May 23, 2020
posted by Pendragon at 3:26 AM on May 23, 2020
I miss the shipping forecast. I mainly used to hear it when listening to cricket, because that was on R4 longwave, but since we switched to digital/internet radio I don’t get it any more.
I also miss listening to cricket. Sitting out in the garden in a reclining chair and hawkwatching is a pretty good way of passing time in lockdown, but podcasts are no real substitute for Test Match Special.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 5:10 AM on May 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
I also miss listening to cricket. Sitting out in the garden in a reclining chair and hawkwatching is a pretty good way of passing time in lockdown, but podcasts are no real substitute for Test Match Special.
posted by Bloxworth Snout at 5:10 AM on May 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
This sort of thing makes me happy, for some reason.
Maybe it brings up memories of hearing the farm report - weather, markets - through a tabletop radio on frigid Iowa fall mornings. That calm cadence, the minimal dynamic range, the sense of great meaning hidden behind a kind of code, to me inscrutable, but understood by large-knuckled men with names like Gene, men who are already up and finishing a second cup of coffee, no matter how early you wake. Here are their gloves. They'd lend you a pair, those mornings, when you stopped by with your Grandpa to help split wood and stack it. Their wives would give you a second oatmeal cookie before you followed then outside, then a plate of them in a baggie to take home. The farm report had given way to the Hawkeye game, the code was now speaking of third-and-short with the handoff going to Owen Gill out of the I-back formation, the marching band distant, just behind the crowd noise, and Gill finds a little daylight behind the guard and now they'll have to bring out the chains, stopping the clock. You left the gloves on the dash of the truck.
Anyway...Thank you for sharing this.
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:24 AM on May 23, 2020 [21 favorites]
Maybe it brings up memories of hearing the farm report - weather, markets - through a tabletop radio on frigid Iowa fall mornings. That calm cadence, the minimal dynamic range, the sense of great meaning hidden behind a kind of code, to me inscrutable, but understood by large-knuckled men with names like Gene, men who are already up and finishing a second cup of coffee, no matter how early you wake. Here are their gloves. They'd lend you a pair, those mornings, when you stopped by with your Grandpa to help split wood and stack it. Their wives would give you a second oatmeal cookie before you followed then outside, then a plate of them in a baggie to take home. The farm report had given way to the Hawkeye game, the code was now speaking of third-and-short with the handoff going to Owen Gill out of the I-back formation, the marching band distant, just behind the crowd noise, and Gill finds a little daylight behind the guard and now they'll have to bring out the chains, stopping the clock. You left the gloves on the dash of the truck.
Anyway...Thank you for sharing this.
posted by Caxton1476 at 6:24 AM on May 23, 2020 [21 favorites]
Dang it, I was really hoping for "In the next few months look for a surge in Green Lantern/Wonder Woman fic. It is unclear yet whether the moniker Green-Wonder or Wonder-Lantern will prevail."
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:23 AM on May 23, 2020 [7 favorites]
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 7:23 AM on May 23, 2020 [7 favorites]
I’ve linked it here before (because the shipping forecast has come quite a few times before), but I’ve always had a soft spot for Braces Tower‘s - The General Synopsis
posted by inflatablekiwi at 7:49 AM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by inflatablekiwi at 7:49 AM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
This makes me so happy, and reminded me to check BBC R4's schedule; being on the West Coast might let me actually listen to this...ah yes. The 5:33 AM broadcast is perfect for going to bed!
This ties so many parts of my life together, and I love it, and how it makes me feel quiet and safe and soft, and connected to the world and to a place I still love. It links up the ships I used to work on (even if mostly dockside), and living in Cardiff, listening in the dark and safe and quiet. The rhythm of it, and the importance and the kindness, the rhythm of the words that talk of ports and seas and places to go to someday. I haven't had quite enough coffee yet, so I don't know how legible this will be, but this makes me so happy.
posted by kalimac at 8:20 AM on May 23, 2020 [11 favorites]
This ties so many parts of my life together, and I love it, and how it makes me feel quiet and safe and soft, and connected to the world and to a place I still love. It links up the ships I used to work on (even if mostly dockside), and living in Cardiff, listening in the dark and safe and quiet. The rhythm of it, and the importance and the kindness, the rhythm of the words that talk of ports and seas and places to go to someday. I haven't had quite enough coffee yet, so I don't know how legible this will be, but this makes me so happy.
posted by kalimac at 8:20 AM on May 23, 2020 [11 favorites]
The report is good because it sounds like a mug of hot chocolate in a cozy nook.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:48 AM on May 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:48 AM on May 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
I'm always struck by the contrast between the comfort people derive from the Shipping Forecast and the fact that what it is is the Met Office saying as clearly as possible the chances of people in tiny boats dotted around the country dying tonight.
Not judging. I find it comforting, too, but then I'm not in a trawler a hundred miles off Skye.
posted by Grangousier at 11:04 AM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
Not judging. I find it comforting, too, but then I'm not in a trawler a hundred miles off Skye.
posted by Grangousier at 11:04 AM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
5 Live Sports Extra is playing out old Test Match Specials, but it's not the same when you know those matches ended years ago.
I’m astonished any particular cricket match has ever concluded.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:37 PM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
I’m astonished any particular cricket match has ever concluded.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 1:37 PM on May 23, 2020 [1 favorite]
In related, according to an anecdote, Gavin Bryars' hypnotic card-cheat audio piece 'A Man in a Room, Gambling' was designed to fit into the gentle mood of the Shipping Forecast, and I think originally broadcast right before 'Sailing By'.
posted by ovvl at 2:41 PM on May 23, 2020
posted by ovvl at 2:41 PM on May 23, 2020
" I returned to a long strand,
the hammered curve of a bay,
and found only the secular
powers of the Atlantic thundering.
I faced the unmagical
invitations of Iceland,
the pathetic colonies
of Greenland, and suddenly
those fabulous raiders,
those lying in Orkney and Dublin
measured against
their long swords rusting,
those in the solid
belly of stone ships,
those hacked and glinting
in the gravel of thawed streams
were ocean-deafened voices..."
-Seamus Heaney, North
and up next Christopher Morely with the AG report, this is on BBC/ASMR.
posted by clavdivs at 2:42 PM on May 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
the hammered curve of a bay,
and found only the secular
powers of the Atlantic thundering.
I faced the unmagical
invitations of Iceland,
the pathetic colonies
of Greenland, and suddenly
those fabulous raiders,
those lying in Orkney and Dublin
measured against
their long swords rusting,
those in the solid
belly of stone ships,
those hacked and glinting
in the gravel of thawed streams
were ocean-deafened voices..."
-Seamus Heaney, North
and up next Christopher Morely with the AG report, this is on BBC/ASMR.
posted by clavdivs at 2:42 PM on May 23, 2020 [3 favorites]
Some relevant scenes from Black Books (NSFW audio). Radio 4 announcer Howell (Serafinowicz) apparently has a voice like this ... thing.
posted by zaixfeep at 6:44 PM on May 23, 2020
posted by zaixfeep at 6:44 PM on May 23, 2020
Good.
posted by Omnomnom at 12:25 PM on May 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Omnomnom at 12:25 PM on May 24, 2020 [2 favorites]
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