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Friday 4 July marks 100 years since the first broadcast of the Shipping Forecast on BBC radio on 4 July 1925.

To mark the occasion, Jarvis Cocker has recorded a special shipping forecast to be broadcast for an audience at the Crossed Wires Podcast Festival in Sheffield. The festival will welcome ‘ships’ fans to a special 100th anniversary programme with Radio 4 announcers Lisa Costello and Viji Alles, hosted by Chris Mason. The session is part of BBC Sounds’ free Fringe festival with live podcast recordings and exclusive sessions, open to the public.

Just two days before Pulp, aka Patchwork, were wowing crowds with a surprise performance at Glastonbury, Cocker was quietly nestled in the BBC Radio 4 studio, reflecting on his love for the Shipping Forecast.

Cocker says: “The Shipping Forecast is something you absorb unconsciously if you live in the UK. It’s been on the airwaves for over 100 years… Now technically speaking, it’s a weather guide designed to help sailors on the high seas. But it helps people navigate in other ways than that. For instance, for insomniacs, it’s a mantra that hopefully helps them drift finally off to sleep.”

He says: “I think it’s known around the world as a go-to chill-out thing – before chill-out things were invented, probably.”

The Shipping Forecast is preceded by a piece of music called Sailing By. Cocker notably chose this track as one of the eight he would take to a desert island when he appeared on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2005.

Cocker says: “When you listen to Sailing By, it really does feel like life is drifting past you in an extremely pleasant way. A handy go-to sedative to have to hand if you ever happen to become a castaway – or get cut off from normal life for any other reason.”

Cocker used to listen whilst going to sleep, citing that “the repetitive nature” and “the soothing nature of the person who reads it” helped him to drop off.

“I think it’s because it’s a routine”, he adds, “it’s on every day, so it’s something that you can rely on. It’s on at a set time, so it gives a bit of stability. And if the rest of your life isn’t that stable, it can provide some kind of stability for it. Sailing By was a very relaxing piece of music… I know that a lot of people do use it for that kind of relaxing, almost ‘meditation-like’ thing.”

When asked why he felt the Shipping Forecast was still important, he said: “I think because even though sometimes it’s talking about bad weather conditions and storms and stuff, it’s actually an oasis of calm in the day. There’s no musical backing to it, it’s just a human voice talking to you. Some words, which you don’t really know what they mean at all, but the sound of it is comforting and will put you into a nice place.”

Cocker said some of his favourite place names include, German Bight – “for some reason I always think of a cocktail sausage there. I suppose it’s because a frankfurter cocktail sausage is a small frank.” – and Hebrides – “I’ve actually been to the Hebrides, so that conjures up some kind of real image.”

Imagining how the Shipping Forecast might sound in another 100 years, Cocker gave us his best robot impression, suggesting: “It may be a robot who is saying “north to northwesterly, occasionally poor.” I hope not. I think it would be better to keep it as a person. Who knows? We don’t know what the world’s going to look like in 100 years, or whether people will even be in it. If people are still in it, it might all be water. So everybody will be listening to it. It’d be like the number one programme, because everybody will be in a boat. Kevin Costner will be hailed as a seer who knew that we would all become a Water world one day. I don’t know. I hope it is. I wouldn’t be around to hear it anyway.”

The Shipping Forecast is produced by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) as part of the UK’s statutory obligations to provide Maritime Safety Information to seafarers via approved broadcasting methods. The Shipping Forecast is also shared with the BBC for its own broadcast.

An online journey through the one-hundred-year history of the Shipping Forecast can be found on the BBC History website.

Special anniversary programmes from BBC Radio 4 are available now on BBC Sounds, including The Shipping Forecast: A Beginners Guide with Paddy O’Connell, The Shipping Postcards from continuity announcers, Archive on 4 – The Shipping Forecast at 100: Shipshaped and Soul Music: Sailing By.

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SPOILER ALERT: This article contains major spoilers from the “Squid Game” series finale, now streaming on Netflix.

Lee Jung-jae‘s Seong Gi-hun has always been the beating heart of “Squid Game,” and his ultimate sacrifice allows the dour finale to have a flash of humanity shine through.

Lee spoke with Variety about the day he learned Player 456’s fate, his conversations with “Squid Game” creator Hwang Dong-hyuk about the series finale and his hopes for Gi-hun’s daughter.

What are your thoughts on the ending now that it’s out in the world?

Now that it’s all been released, I think the ending was definitely something that a lot of the audience didn’t expect to see. I know there are a lot of people with a wide variety of different opinions about the ending, and I’m following up on all of them. I know a lot of you like to express what you thought about the ending on social media, so I’m trying to check all of them.

What were your initial feelings when you first learned how the show was going to end?

I got the entire script for Seasons 2 and 3 at the same time, and I read everything the day that I got it. That’s when I learned about my character’s fate and the ending. I was very shocked too, because it was not something I had expected to see. I remember speaking a lot about this ending with Director Hwang, and I asked him, “Did you have different endings in mind? Were there different versions?” And he told me that he did think of other endings. However, he did share with me that he believed this was the right way to end the story of “Squid Game.” He also shared with me that I shouldn’t look at Gi-hun’s sacrifice as just simply a sacrifice itself, but what if we could look at it as something that shows or symbolizes hope for humanity?

Your last words are so powerful, and they’re also cut off, which is unique and leaves interpretation for the audience. What does it make you feel when you look back on those last words we hear from your character?

That was part of the many conversations between the director and me, and we thought a lot about how the audience was going to respond to Gi-hun making his choice before he finishes what he was saying. I remember, even on the day that we shot that sequence, I believe a lot was going through his mind. I think he was also considering a different version of Gi-hun finishing what he was saying. I was also thinking a lot about different versions of that, too. But I believe Director Hwang wanted the audience to finish the sentence in their own way and in their own interpretation. I believe he designed the scene and the sequence so that the end of the sentence belongs to all of the audience, and they are the ones who will finish it with their own emotions and their own journey.

What was the most challenging scene for you to film this season?

Of course, it was that very last scene, that last moment of Gi-hun. I had been on a very strict diet for about 14 months leading up to that point. Especially for the last two months, I was on an extremely harsh diet compared to before we shot the series. I had lost about 10 kilograms from my regular weight. I really wanted to make sure that not only did I express Gi-hun’s emotions, but I also wanted the audience to know just how completely dry and depleted he was just by looking at him. I also remember we had to shoot that last moment for a very long time. It took a lot longer than you might expect on that filming day. That was the only scene we were able to shoot, so it was extremely important and also very challenging.

What are your hopes for Gi-hun’s daughter? Do you think she discovers the truth about what happened? Do you think she makes it her mission to take down the L.A. games?

Thinking about the “Squid Game” storyline, I would like to see Gi-hun’s daughter dismantle the entire system. But on a personal note, I hope she doesn’t learn anything about the truth of it all. I hope she doesn’t know anything about her dad. I just wish she would live a very happy and stable life with her stepdad and mom.

This interview was conducted through an interpreter and has been edited and condensed for clarity.