How not to miss the forecast ever again

I dropped anchor one afternoon recently outside my friendly neighbourhood Dixons. Currys would have been equally useful. On going aboard, I found a tiny battery powered radio no larger than a palm top computer on sale at a few pence under £10 — made in China of course! It will wake me up with either a very loud buzzer or any radio station I’ve set it to before retiring, and at a volume I also preselect. Bingo!! I awake to the coastal forecast.

The only possible drawback is that it’s AM/FM and I understand that after April the full shipping forecasts will only be found on Long Wave. However on the east coast, we’re served by four BBC local radio stations — Essex, Kent, Norfolk and Suffolk — each of which gives a very good coastal forecast three or four times a day. I suspect that most areas will have theirs. If you haven’t come across them already you’ll find the details in Radio Times on the page dealing with local radio. It usually comes just before the week’s programs on Radio 1,2,3 and 4.

So unless you want to wake up at 0550, and turn on a long wave radio, buy a Matsui TCR1, find your local radio station, and wake up to that instead — and spare a thought for the poor guy in China who made them and who has possibly never even seen the sea, let alone sailed on it, in his own boat!