The Shocking Forecast

Well, the controversial new Radio 4 "start up" indeed started at 5.20 this morning, sans theme. Instead, a brief burst of continuity announcer and a trailer for a later programme, was followed by BBC weather presenter Jay Wynne reading the whole of the shipping report.
Whatever's wrong with continuity announcers doing the shipping forecast now, then? Sorry, Jay, it all ended up as very wishy-Washy for me, even with the extended sixteen inshore forecast areas.
Mr Wynne and his colleagues may be excellent meteorologists, and there's nothing wrong with the delivery of their 3 minute general forecasts in the usual slots just before the hour. But first and foremost these are Met Office forecasters, not radio presenters. A 10 minute forecast is simply not the right thing for the Met team to be reading, whereas the voices of the continuity announcers do it so well.
I hope someone sees the error of their ways pretty soon and gets the Radio 4 bods back where they belong. Goodness me, Jay Wynne couldn't even pronounce the names of the sea areas correctly: North Oot-seer indeed: it's Oot-seera, man!

Then came the much-trailed "pacier" News Briefing at 5.30. If the aim of this is to get people in the mood for news and the Today programme, well for me it had just the opposite effect. Once I'd had fifteen minutes of this up tempo agenda, I decided enough was enough and foresook most of Today altogether. It might be a politically correct idea to feature the regional press alongside the internationals in the press review, but I much prefer a more in-depth look at what the nationals are saying, as used to happen in this slot. And why bother with the business news at this early hour when 5-Live is already doing it with Wake up to Money?

Sorry, Mark Damazer, but you've got it seriously wrong for this listener. It just doesn't work. It's almost enough to drive me back to Shortwave, or at the very least the soothing tones of Classic FM.

Sailing, bye

So it's official. The BBC Radio 4 UK theme has not got an ethereal reprieve, and will be heard on the flagship network's frequencies for the last time on the weekend of HM Queen Elizabeth II's 80th birthday, somewhat ironically.
I wonder what her maj. thinks of all the furore over the demise of this 33-year old day-opener? Maybe as a responsible sovereign she'd rather have a ten minute fill of the shipping forecast for all her brave boys out on the briney than a burst of Rule Britannia at that hour of the morning. She certainly needs to keep in touch with what's happening in her realms and territories, so maybe the news briefing will fit the bill, though I suspect her courtiers will be the ones blearily rising rather than this stately lady. News Briefing once started Radio 4 all week anyway at 06.00 - rather than just on Saturday as at present- before the all-conquering Today programme gained an extra half hour.
Well, I suppose we will just have to accept the fate of the late Mr Spiegl's opus, but maybe with charter renewal and discontented licence payers in mind, Radio 4 controller has come up with some kind of typical British compromise. The Radio 4 UK theme will continue to be available as a stream on the station's website, though not to download.

Mind you, quite who is going to get out of their bed at 05.30 to play a 5-minute tune on their PC or laptop is anybody's guess. Perhaps in the tradition of great British eccentricity I ought to be one of them. But then that's hardly a necessary option, since the enterprising Light Music Society, with the assistance of the man behind an easy-listening cover of Oasis's Wonderwall a few years back, has released a CD single of the theme. It went into the charts at number 29 at the weekend; I bought a copy myself on Monday evening so maybe it will rise even higher next week. Now, will it ever get to number one? Unlikely, but wonders do happen...

At least the second track on the disc seems set to continue to rule the late-night waves. Sailing By, composed by light music maestro Ronald Binge, heralds the 00.43 shipping forecast before the national anthem- the only place in British broadcasting you'll now hear it on a daily basis- closes the evening shift and the old home service takes a half-night nap. Now if God Save the Queen were ever to vanish, maybe it really would be off with the controller's head.