Shipping Forecast largely autobiographical account of growing up in Liverpool during the 1940s and 1950s, opens with a shipping forecast from this period. In an episode of the BBC sitcom "Keeping Up Appearances", a soon-to-be-sailing Hyacinth Bucket calls over the telephone for an advance shipping forecast, even though the yacht she and her husband Richard are to visit is moored on the Thames near Oxford. Names mentioned (in scene sequence) are: Fisher, German Bight and Cromarty, Dogger and Heligoland (also known as German Bight). In an episode of the BBC sitcom "Ever Decreasing Circles", Howard and Hilda leave their neighbour Paul's house
British Isles the island called Great Britain. The earliest known use of the phrase "Brytish Iles" in the English language is dated 1577 in a work by John Dee. Today, this name is seen by some as carrying imperialist overtones although it is still commonly used. Other names used to describe the islands include the "Anglo-Celtic Isles", "Atlantic archipelago", "British-Irish Isles", "Britain and Ireland", "UK and Ireland", and "British Isles and Ireland". Owing to political and national associations with the word "British", the Government of Ireland does not use the term "British Isles" and in documents drawn up jointly between the British