ALL-WEATHER FRIEND

First broadcast a century ago after a devastating storm sank a steam clipper off the Welsh coast with 450 deaths, the Shipping Forecast remains a daily must-listen for millions of landlubbers. A new book examines why we get so misty-eyed over this cryptic bulletin

- Meg Clothier

VIKING, North Utsire, South Utsire... I know I'm far from alone in feeling a little thrill whenever those words come on the radio. To the uninitiated, the Shipping Forecast can seem a little bit eccentric. Most of us, after all, aren't the sort of salty seadogs who need to know that it's turning cyclonic in Malin soon. In fact, until you've cracked the code, the whole thing can sound like total gibberish.

But the loveliest thing I've learnt while writing a book celebrating the forecast's 100th birthday on the radio is that countless people get every bit as misty-eyed about it as I do. The forecast travels clockwise round Britain, starting off the coast of Norway, sneaking down the North Sea and through the Channel. It then takes a little jaunt south to warmer climes, before rounding the west coast of Ireland and setting sail for colder waters off South-East Iceland.

For every one of the 31 forecast areas, you learn everything you could possibly want to know about wind speed and direction, about weather and visibility.

I do love its geekiness. I love how clever it is at squishing so much information into just a few hundred words, using language that's incredibly rigid and yet strangely beautiful.

But its appeal is so much broader than that. The famous Romantic poet John Keats would have understood. He wished scientists (he called them philosophers) wouldn't "unweave a rainbow". Which was his way of saying that sometimes we want science to explain the whys and wherefores - but sometimes we want science to hush up and let us bask in awe and wonder.

And that's something the Shipping Forecast lets us all do.

First, there are the enchanting area names, which take us on an adventure, a sort of maritime magical mystery tour, without us having to leave the comforts of home. We can close our eyes and imagine the fog swirling around Faroes, the waves crashing on Rockall, the sunset glowing red on Sole.