Product Description

This solemn, rhythmic intonation of the shipping forecast on BBC radio is as familiar as the sound of Big Ben chiming the hour. Since its first broadcast in the 1920s it has inspired poems, songs and novels in addition to its intended objective of warning generations of seafarers of impending storms and gales. Sitting at home listening to the shipping forecast can be a cosily reassuring experience. There's no danger of a westerly gale eight, veering southwesterly increasing nine later (visibility poor) gusting through your average suburban living room, blowing the Sunday papers all over the place and startling the cat. Yet familiar though the sea areas are by name, few people give much thought to where they are or what they contain. In ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING Charlie Connelly wittily explores the places behind the voice, those mysterious regions whose names seem often to bear no relation to conventional geography. Armchair travel will never be the same again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8979 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Review
'What a great idea for a book' - Scotland on Sunday 'If listening to 'Sailing By' to the bitter end every night is the surest sign of a Radio 4 addict, then buying Charlie Connelly's new travel book runs it close' Independent on Sunday 'His amiable style provides some good jokes in a book that's as gentle and pleasing as the shipping forecast itself' Daily Mail

About the Author
Freelance writer and Charlton FC supporter, Charlie Connelly has already proved his quirky credentials by writing a very funny book about Liechtenstein. ATTENTION ALL SHIPPING has cemented these credentials and delighted his rapidly growing readership.

Customer Reviews

A very funny trip around the British Isles
This is a great book! If you have ever wondered where North Utsire is or what it may be like to have a North Easterly Gale force 8 blowing across Lundy, then this is the book for you. Connelly reveals each of the sea areas of the shipping forecast in turn in a very easy to read format. He is quite ready to share with us his failings but he also tells the reader about life on the edge of the coast with a gentleness lost in some others writings. If you liked Bryson, Hawks etc then you will like this book, even if you don't know your Bailey from your Viking.

Notes From Many Small Islands
The idea behind "Attention All Shipping: A Journey Around the Shipping Forecast" is so ingenious you wonder why nobody has ever done it before. Whereas many globe-hopping travel writers struggle desperately to come up with increasingly outlandish odysseys, Charlie Connelly has accomplished a much more impressive feat: revealing the extraordinary diversity that exists right here in the British Isles and their near neighbours. In a book brimming with characters and anecdotes, my favourites are the Crown Prince of Sealand (a rusty World War Two military platform in the North Sea) and the Pythonesque women who cheerfully bully their customers into buying Belgian waffles in the Choxaway Café at Land's End Aerodrome.

Whether you view the shipping forecast as a dry, nautical roll call or get all misty at the mere mention of Dogger, Fisher and German Bight, you will find plenty to enjoy in "Attention All Shipping". From beginning to end, Connelly proves a funny and self-deprecating guide, the kind of guy you'd be happy to be stuck on a remote island with-provided he had recovered from his latest bout of seasickness. Five stars.

Force 12, clear, excellent.
Like many people I love the notion of the shipping forecast but have no idea what any of it means or even the areas it covers. (It stretches from Iceland to Spanish waters)
This book gives a fantastic lesson in all of this without lists of facts and boring essay type instruction.

The author gives a bit of background and history to the areas, a description of the actual forecast and how it's produced and a few personal seafaring stories then sets out to visit as many areas as physically possible.

Each area is written about in the style of modern travel writers such as Pete McCarthy, Bill Bryson, Tony Hawkwes etc and with the same type of humour. The author describes the people he meets and experiences he has rather than focusing on shipping stories.

The scene in Tingwall Airport had me in hysterics with everyone aghast that the author had turned up for 'check in'. The book is also very informative, (did you know there is no road tax on Fair Isle?) and so illuminating in its descriptions that I have booked a trip to Shetland next month to see it for myself.

After reading this I put on my deck shoes and nautical blazer and listened to the shipping forecast and guess what? I understood every word. Brilliant.