@
badminton That last, properly the
Shipping Forecast (not news of shipping, but forecasts of the weather at sea in the NE Atlantic, English Channel, Irish Sea and North Sea); has a remarkably large audience of people whose only maritime experience if any, is as occasional passengers on pleasure-cruises and ferries!
Its attractions are the accidental poetical nature of what is really a litany of technical data; and to we Britons, a romantic reminder that we live on an island and depend very heavily on shipping.