Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly

Four times daily, at 0048, 0535, 1201 and 1754, BBC Radio 4 airs the Shipping Forecast, a weather prognostication for each of thirty-one geographically well-defined but more or less arbitrarily designated and sited maritime areas surrounding the British Isles. What may be incomprehensible code to the uninitiated listener is actually a simple and frugaly worded forecasting statement divided into four parts: area name, wind direction and strength, weather conditions, and visibility. The forebears of English author Charlie Connelly, led lives touched by the sea. Yet, beyond a few ferry trips, Connelly, to his self-admitted embarrassment, was notably landlocked. Thus, to make up for his landlubberliness, he vowed to visit all thirty-one of the shipping forecast areas, or at least those that had peripheral or inclusive terra firma to stand upon, in a calendar year. The book is more about interesting and/or out of the way places than the Shipping Forecast itself.


I loved this book. It was laugh-out-loud funny in places and had me chuckling to myself a lot. There are a few more places I would like to visit added to my wishlist and a few that I don't want to go anywhere near.