LOW FINISTERRE 1007 LOSING ITS IDENTITY BY THE SAME TIME
It’s BBC Radio 4
but the familiar
litany of
THE SHIPPING FORECAST
is alas...maimed
not the same.
They changed
a national institution
of the mind
redeveloped the mental landscape.
They have even dare to have it
moved
by 15 minutes
and renamed
FINISTERRE
...FITZROY.
Like
...why?
It isn’t cricket
...is it?
This the beloved
Lord’s Prayer of places.
Not even a great British
outrage could save it
change
the changes.
For years
its well worn sounds
embedded in
our head
the national psyche
as we drifted off
to sleep
perchance to dream
with SAILING BY.
But secretly we recite
night by night
re-instating
FINISTERRE
letting FITZROY
sink to the bottom of our minds
drown
as we cuddle up
to the long loved
old familiar
sounds.
*******
Consternation was caused when a name change was brought about in Feb.2002 and the well known and well worn sound of FINISTERRE was transformed into FITZROY. It was as if one had attacked a living person...a great British institution and there was uproar and pandemonium.
But FITZROY won the day and the man who carried Darwin on the BEAGLE and invented the weather forecast was the new sound in town. He was a Christian creationist and never forgave himself for evolving Darwin and indeed committed suicide later on in life over the grief of this.)
I prefer the world’s end feeling and sound of FINISTERRE but...there ya are!
Dónall Dempsey
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/low-finisterre-1007-losing-its-identity-by-the-same-time/
