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/