A National Secret for Falling Asleep

Click the video above to fall asleep. WARNING : Do not watch while driving.

JUST AS tHERE ARE THOSE WHO LIKE WOOD AND THOSE WHO PREFER PLASTIC, HUMANS CAN ALSO BE DIVIDED INTO THOSE WHO ARE GOOD SLEEPERS AND THOSE WHO ARE NOT. THIS ARTICLE IS VERY MUCH FOR THE LATTER.

Some fall asleep listening to audio books. Others use meditation apps. Some swear by magnesium, others Temazepam. But did you know the late-night Shipping Forecast on the BBC is a maritime weather report, a British institution, a national treasure and an accidental natural sleep aid of rare potency. Yes, you read that correctly.

The prototype for the Shipping Forecast was established after a particularly nasty storm in 1859 killed hundreds of people and wrecked more than 100 ships in the Irish Sea. In its aftermath, Vice Adm. Robert FitzRoy, founder of the U.K.’s Meteorological Department and originator of the term “forecast,” set up a maritime storm-warning system in 1861. Predictions were first sent by telegraph; radio broadcasts followed much later, in 1911, but were interrupted soon thereafter by the onset of World War I. Seven years after the armistice, the BBC sent out its first long-wave transmission of Weather Shipping from the Air Ministry in London. At some point the name changed to the Shipping Forecast and the number of broadcasts per day increased from two to four. Read at 5:02 a.m., 12:01 p.m., 5:54 p.m. and 12:48 a.m. G.M.T., each briefing begins with the same words: “And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office.”

- Grace Linden, New York Times Magazine

First issued in 1861, as a forecast of maritime conditions for those at sea, it has been broadcast by the BBC since 1924. Down the years, it has seeped into Britain's national consciousness and become a symbol of the country and a treasured part of national life, while continuing to play a crucial role providing gale warnings and maritime forecasts. 

“And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency...” 

The announcer begins in Viking, a sea area near the Orkney archipelago, before directing the listener’s attention around the British Isles, intoning rhythmic phrases like “Wight, Portland, Biscay,” “good, occasionally poor, becoming very poor at times in Plymouth” or “low Southeast Iceland, 1,000, losing its identity by the same time.”

During her appearance on the BBC radio show “Desert Island Discs,” Dame Judi Dench, another national treasure, chose the forecast as one of eight recordings she would want to accompany her if she were a castaway, citing her love of Finisterre, Britain’s retired name for a sea area off the coast of Spain. “I love the whole idea of ‘land’s end,’” she said.

Me too, Dame Judi. Me too.

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