Jarvis Cocker has recorded a special Shipping Forecast to mark 100 years since it first aired on the BBC.
The forecast was recorded for Crossed Wires Podcast Festival in Sheffield, which is hosting a 100th anniversary programme featuring Radio 4 announcers Lisa Costello and Viji Alles, hosted by Chris Mason.
This session is part of BBC Sounds’ free Fringe festival, open to the public, with live podcast recordings and exclusive events.
Today, 4 July, marks exactly 100 years since the first Shipping Forecast broadcast in 1925.
Just two days before Pulp’s surprise performance at Glastonbury, Cocker recorded the reading at BBC Radio 4, reflecting on its importance in his life. He described it as something everyone in the UK absorbs unconsciously.
“The Shipping Forecast is technically a weather guide for sailors, but it helps people navigate in other ways,” he said. “For insomniacs, it’s a mantra to help drift off to sleep.”
Cocker said Sailing By, which precedes the forecast, was one of his Desert Island Discs choices in 2005. “It feels like life is drifting past you in an extremely pleasant way,” he added.
He also shared some favourite place names, including German Bight, which reminds him of cocktail sausages, and the Hebrides, which he has visited.
Imagining the forecast in another century, he suggested it could be read by robots but hoped it would remain a human voice. “It might be the number one programme because everybody will be in a boat… I hope it is. I wouldn’t be around to hear it anyway.”
Crossed Wires: The Podcast Festival takes place from today, 4 until 6 July in Sheffield.
