...and here is the weather forecast...

I don't expect BBC news presenters to appear in immaculate evening dress any more, especially in the case of radio presenters - people don't even believe me any more when I tell them it was like that in the past. I do, however, expect a modicum of professionalism from those who are paid to do a job from my license fee.

I am getting really annoyed with sloppy and careless presenters who mis-read weather forecasts on Radio 4, particularly the ones who just have a line or two of summary (mostly NOT summery!) forecast to read at the end of the news.

I recently listened to one of them saying that 'rain was spreading FROM the east this afternoon' - complete reversal of fact!

What they should have said was either ' rain spreading east' or rain spreading from the WEST'. Don't they even bother to look at the actual forecast and use their common sense rather than simply reading a piece of paper or auto-cue?

I also get annoyed with the ones who refer to the shipping FORECAST as the shipping BULLETIN and tangle up the names of shipping areas or coastal reporting stations.

Please BBC give all your news presenters who don't have full meteorological qualifications at least a basic course in weather terminology, and get them to check the forecast website before their broadcast, so they can relate what they have to read to what is going on outside their cosy studio.

For the shipping forecast presenters, make them learn the shipping areas, coastal stations and inshore areas off by heart and be able to identify them on a map before they get anywhere near reading a forecast.

Or perhaps there is a joker in the pack who likes to trip up unwary new presenters by putting extra commas and spaces in the forecast so we get nonsense like "Dogger, German, Bight, Humber, Thames" or mis-type or mis-spell places leading to rubbish like 'San Deety' for 'Sandettie'.

For the information and interest of those outside of the UK who follow my blog, my local sea area is Wight and where I live is located between Selsey Bill and Lyme Regis, in fact very close to Selsey Bill and my local weather reporting stations Chimet and Cambermet are very useful as an add on to the Met.Office especially for small boat sailors like me.

I don't know if there is ANY kind of a dress code for radio presenters any more. Maybe imposing one would remind them that they have an important job to do and that all kinds of people around the country, on land as well as at sea still depend on the BBC to give them accurate weather forecasts, not all of them having easy access to websites at the exact place they work.