Shipping Forecast The Controller of BBC Radio 4, Mark Damazer, attempted to explain its popularity: Zeb Soanes, a regular Shipping Forecast reader, described it thus: Another regular reader of the Forecast, Kathy Clugston, described it as "Like a lullaby, almost". The Shipping Forecast has inspired a number of songs and poems. Frank Muir and Denis Norden parodied the Shipping Forecast in a song written for an episode of "Take It From Here": "Dead Ringers" parodied the Shipping Forecast using Brian Perkins rapping the forecast ("Dogger, Fisher, German Bight – becoming quite cyclonic. Occasional showers making you feel cat-atatatatatata-tonic..."). Many other versions have
The Wind Off the Small Isles The Wind Off the Small Isles The Wind Off the Small Isles is a novella by Mary Stewart, first published in 1968. Unlike her other works, it is brief, at only 96 pages in hardcover. It was never published in the United States. Stewart's British publisher, Hodder & Stoughton, reissued it in 2016, for the first time in 40 years. Perdita works for children's writer Cora Gresham as secretary and personal assistant. Cora is writing about pirates on the Barbary Coast and wants to visit the Canary Islands. After hearing Perdita's description of the various islands, Cora decides on Lanzarote.