Biscai, Shannon, Fair Isle... It's 12:48 am on BBC Radio 4, and a velvet voice emerges from the night to intone a long, enigmatic litany. It's the cult Shipping Forecast, the British public broadcaster's marine weather forecast, broadcast twice a day for the past hundred years: at 5.20 am and 0.48 am UK time (with a third bulletin at 5.54 pm on weekends).

Packed with useful information for those at sea or about to set sail, it also lulls night owls and insomniacs to sleep. The speaker's clockwise review of the 31 maritime zones surrounding the British Isles, with their evocative names (Faeroes, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Fitzroy...) has the melodic power of a song.

The details, for each of them, of wind direction and strength, rain and visibility ("winter showers, rain to come, moderate to good visibility"), have the repetitive quality of a melody. The Shipping Forecast "has become our national lullaby," wrote the Guardian. "It kind of has a rhythm and a meditative quality to it, that arrests your attention and draws you in," noted actor Adrian Dunbar. The BBC iPlayer replay even features a podcast (the "Sleeping Forecast"), which accompanies weather forecasts with music.

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