No Subject

[Neil Calton <nbc@vd.rl.ac.uk>]

>> Subject: secret message in "And Dream of Sheep"

>> What's the narration behind the first occurance of "Let me be weak,
>> let me sleep and dream of sheep" (~0:50) ?  I haven't been able to
>> piece it together... does anyone have it?

>> -- Paul Traina

> [Andrew Marvick:] Without his D-5 in the computer room to confirm,
> IED can only assume that you are referring to the "shipping report"
> in "And Dream of Sheep".  No-one has deciphered all of that message,
> but an Irish (or Scottish?)  fan suggested that part of it was a
> list of coastal areas and islands along the shipping lanes between
> Ireland and Scotland (see Break-Through issue 10 or 11, IED
> believes). The message may say something like: "Attention all ships,
> especially sea navigators (?)....Bell Rock...  Tyree..."

The message does appear to be some kind of shipping report. I can make out
the following:
  Attention shipping information in sea areas .... Bell Rock, Tiree,
  Cromaty, gale east .... .... , Malin, Sellafield .... ....

Now the thing is, they are not all sea areas. Cromaty and Malin are but
the rest are all coastal stations or light vessels. The BBC issues
weather reports for the sea areas and coastal stations but keeps them quite
separate. Also they are clearly referenced with the date and time of day.
In addition there is a forecast for the areas they mention. In the 'And Dream
of Sheep' piece the only meteorological term I can pick out is the word gale.
Now without any reference to the force or future direction this information is
useless. There may possibly be some meteorological term preceding 'Bell Rock'
but it is unclear to my ears.

Neither are all the mentioned names from the same area of the coast. Bell Rock
is on the east coast as is the Cromaty sea area. The others are on the west
coast of Scotland or (in the case of Sellafield) England. The Malin sea area
is between Scotland and Ireland. The lack of meteorological data in the
snippet makes me doubt that it was an actual broadcast - unless Kate edited
it to just leave the names.

Hope that helps - perhaps someone else is able to fill in some of the gaps.

  "It was twenty years ago today ..."