Tuesday 7th October - The Shipping Forecast - Supermoons etc

 This morning I read an article in 'The Conversation', an online magazine I follow, on The Shipping Forecast. BBCRadio4 listeners, especially the dawn larks and late night owls among us will be familiar with the theme music by Ronald Binge, and the steady litany of places and meteorological information every morning and night.

Sailing by, performed live by the BBC Concert Orchestra;

I was very pleased to find a map showing where all the shipping areas are as I've always been a bit hazy whereabouts they all were;

When I was about 17 years old I went on a sailing adventure around the west coast of Scotland with various friends and family members. I remember that catching the shipping forecast and writing down the figures for wind speed, direction, barometric pressure and visibility  - is that everything?  - needed intense concentration. Each full broadcast lasts nine minutes, and uses 380 words...

This map is out of date! Finisterre has been renamed Fitzroy to honour Admiral Robert Fitzroy, founder of the Met Office. The renamingwas to avoid confusion with a different sea area referred to as Finisterre by the Spanish Met Office.

The Shipping Forecast has inspired many poems. There's a reference in this beautiful poem by Carol Ann Duffy.

“Prayer”

Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer

utters itself. So, a woman will lift

her head from the sieve of her hands and stare

at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth

enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;

then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth

in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales

console the lodger looking out across

a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls

a child's name as though they named their loss.

Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer —

Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.

+ Carol Ann Duffy

Yesterday, according to several sources was the night of the Supermoon, the Harvest Moon.

Tonight, according to others sources, is also the night of the Supermoon;

From the Guardian, a few days ago;

Star-gazing is sensational. The upside of the long, dark nights are all the celestial events. The Orionid meteor shower lights up the sky from now until 7 November, peaking on 22 October; the constellation of Orion is fully visible in November; Jupiter and Saturn are easier to spot; and supermoons will appear on 7 October, 5 November and 4 December. There are lots of star-gazing nights at observatories such as Jodrell Bank in Cheshire, and several dark skies festivals across England and Wales and in Scotland.

Well. There you go. I'm off to see if I can see it again!