Having heard the 5.57 pm forecast and (just now) the 0030 "Weather
report and forecast" (sic) on Radio 4 I am now convinced more than
ever that Radio 4 should give up on the idea of using weather
forecasters (presenters?) and get someone in Exeter to tap it out on a
keyboard, send it up the wires and have it read out by an announcer.
Or just give up on weather forecasts altogether as being far too
serious and grown-up for the media airheads and stick to what they're
good at, which, paradoxically, is quite a lot, at least on Radio 4.
At 5.57 pm, after the usual time-filling frivolities at the end
of the PM programme, Eddie Mair indulged in some extensive banter with
Laura Tobyn, eating into the precious seconds, with the result that
the actual forecast lasted less than a minute. Tobyn gabbled away at
high speed in her usual detached robotic way and few could have learnt
anything from what she said.
At 0030 it was Helen Willetts, who not for the first time had
difficulty in supressing giggles. You're doing a weather forecast for
Radio 4, Helen, not for ShaggitFM, for goodness' sake. The day's
extremes were mechanically delivered and not put into any context, as
usual these days. There cannot be any pressure of scheduling at this
time of the night and there is time for a rather more discursive
approach, as there once was. (Come in, Bob Prichard).
New depths of dumbing down at the BBC have been reached, aided
by the apparent indifference of the Met Office. An article in the
latest edition of "Weather" shows how much both accumulated and
instantaneous expertise now goes into a forecast yet the Met Office
allows it to be delivered by a troupe of grinning chimpanzees. Don't
they care? No, they get the money. Would any other media outlet be
better? No, worse.

Tudor Hughes, Warlingham, Surrey.