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: #4101 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.

An enjoyable journey around our shores
Ever since I was a lad, I've wanted to read the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4. Which is why I'm now an engineer. But there remains a great charm and poetry to the forecast which, since its first broadcast in 1911, has become a fixture of British radio. For me, there's the comfort of shutting up the shop, drawing in the curtains, as the announcer makes his (or her) way around this island and its territorial waters, starting in the north-east and working clockwise to Iceland. At twelve minutes to one in the morning, it's comforting; a precise definition of all of the land, and sea, that Britain encompasses. As I've grown older, the coastal reports mean more to me, as I recognise places I've been, headlands I've stood upon. As sleep rushes over me, I try to picture the island and tick the places off - Channel Light Vessel Automatic; Aberporth; Sangette Automatic; and so on.

Charlie Connelly's book is like a manifesto for Shipping Forecast Aholics Anonymous. He starts with the same love of the thing and attempts to visit all of the areas, to better make the mental pictures in later life. It's a fantastic piece of scheduling to have this as the Late Book on Radio 4 - how post-modern! A book reading about the very next programme!

Connelly's book has kinsmen in the Tony Hawks triology, Pete McCarthy's books, and others like 'Tilting at Windmills' but, for me, it is so much better than those. He explores the areas wittily, and there's a fair amount of personal experience built into his tales, but there's also a real care and passion in the histories he tells of each area. In short, it's great fun but really interesting too - highly recommended.

Two very minor quibbles. First, why no photographs? In the chapter about the Isle of Man, Connelly talks about having a photographer with him - a few plates would be excellent. Second, twice, when quoting the forecast in reported speech, Connelly writes '...And now the shipping forecast as issued by the Met Office at 0048...'. But, as all afficianados know, 0048 is when the forecast starts; never when it's been prepared - that's usually around midnight. Gr.

But overall, a really good book - it rattles along, it's good fun, and it's about something that matters. What more could you want?