Earler this year, o 90,000 square mile area of the Atlantic Ocean was phased out of a list of sea areas that surround the British Isles. As a BBC news report told us at the time : “ The name Finisterre — deriving from the Spanish ‘ finis terre, I meaning the end of the earth — is also used by Spain for a different area of the sea and they asked Britain to come up with a new one. ” They did, and Fitz Roy was introduced on 4 January 2002. These “ sea areas ” — named for the shallow banks, traditionally used as fishing grounds — are covered by the Met Office Shipping Forecast, a weather report prepared by the UK Meteorological Office and broadcast four times a day by BBC radio.
– “ A Late Evening in the Future ( part one ), ” Paul Elliman, Dot Dot Dot #5, 2002
Paul Elliman, Faxed drawing of UK shipping forecast regions, 2002, 31.8 x 23.5 cm