… to Rattray Head including Orkney. It is poetry and repeated each day in the Shipping Forecast. It is a wonderful way to start one’s day at 05.20 each morning. And on it goes round the coast. Even if one has never stepped off-shore, it is evocative of places visited.

And are we to lose this daily recitation of the waters around the British Isles? There have been threats that the forecast is yesterday’s broadcasting. Even the smallest craft are now fitted with technology telling them where they are and what the weather holds in store. But that is not the same as the romance and poetry of the Shipping Forecast.

And now the BBC in its effort to outsource almost everything at the behest of the government has put all weather forecasting up for grabs. Maybe the Met Office was too greedy in its bid for the next contract. Now they find themselves off the preferred bidder list. It is time to bang heads together, two British institutions knocking each other down. They need each other and a third party should adjudicate a proper fee so that the relationship can continue.

Selsey Bill to Lyme Regis including the Scilly Isles… Ardnamurchan Point to Cape Wrath… pure poetry.