I used the Shipping Forecast as a "self-assessment" when I move to London. When moved there, my English was not the best. I was staying up late at nights, listening BBC4 to improve my listening and I will listen to the shipping forecast every night and don't understand ANYTHING.
That was for the first year, life moves on, and there I was, listening to the Shipping Forecast 3-4 years later. "Ey, I can get now some words and the overall meaning!". I have to say it felt good.
A few more years later, and it was my last night living in the UK (Brexit means Brexit), and I went to listen to it again. Seven years later, since the first time I hear it, I was able to catch everything on the forecast.
For me, the Shipping Forecast will always be something special.
Even if he's not charging for the service, I am pretty sure he's getting more consultancy work from these "PR" (notice the quotes) posts. Even the timing on which he releases them makes sense in a way to prevent people from getting too tired of this service.
Not saying is a bad thing but don't assume something is for pure altruism because not many things are.
Not a code to deploy but on the address bar of an old kiosk browser. An ugly JavaScript script to escape the computer lockdown and access the filesystem. Always nice to debug a one huge line of JavaScript that outputs HTML/ActiveX.
That was for the first year, life moves on, and there I was, listening to the Shipping Forecast 3-4 years later. "Ey, I can get now some words and the overall meaning!". I have to say it felt good.
A few more years later, and it was my last night living in the UK (Brexit means Brexit), and I went to listen to it again. Seven years later, since the first time I hear it, I was able to catch everything on the forecast.
For me, the Shipping Forecast will always be something special.