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The fact that you know nothing much about the sea, and cannot tell a freighter from a futtock (part of a wooden hull), is beside the point.

For you, listening to the BBC's Shipping Forecast every night is about something else entirely.

You're paying homage to an institution that is as much part of the jigsaw that makes up Britain's national culture as drizzle and warm beer.

Why does the Shipping Forecast mean so much to so many in the U.K.?

For one, the weather still actually matters for many coastal communities, such as the tiny island of Lundy off southwest England, home to 28 people. There's the Tyne in the northeast — one of the 31 sea areas that feature in the forecast — once a maritime hub for Britain's mighty coal and shipbuilding industries where the "Geordies" are now striving to find a new role for their community. And in the ancient southern seaside town of Hastings, the same families have been fishing for centuries.

But for many Britons, the Shipping Forecast is much more significant than a weather bulletin for the fishermen and sailors who make their living from the oceans.

A very large number of regular listeners are landlubbers. They are, however, fiercely loyal.

BBC Radio 4 broadcasts the Shipping Forecast four times a day, but the late-night bulletin — shortly before 1 a.m. — possesses a particular mystique. It's not uncommon for listeners to ask for the music that introduces it — "Sailing By" — to be played at their funerals.

A few years back, when someone suggested changing the bulletin's timing by just 12 minutes, there were angry speeches in Parliament and indignant newspaper editorials.

Listeners brandishing banners demonstrated outside the BBC's London headquarters. The idea was eventually abandoned.

A Mysterious, And Inspiring, Appeal

Exactly why the Shipping Forecast is held in such affectionate esteem by the British public is a topic of considerable discussion in the U.K.

Many people compare the forecast with listening to poetry. The BBC's Arlene Fleming is one of the presenters of the forecast: "It is poetry! ... There is a natural rhythm to it," she says, "just like the sea."

This may help explain why the Shipping Forecast has enthused so many artists over the years.

It has inspired poetry by neighboring Ireland's late, great Seamus Heaney and also Britain's Poet Laureate Carol Anne Duffy. It arises in art; it's mentioned in TV shows, movies and songs — such as Blur's "This is a Low" and Thomas Dolby's "Windpower."

A snippet from the bulletin cropped up in Danny Boyle's widely acclaimed opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. Comedians aplenty have tried their hands at parodies of the forecast.

Peter Jefferson presented the Shipping Forecast on the BBC's airwaves for 40 years.

In his book And Now The Shipping Forecast, Jefferson offers this explanation: "There is something in many of us that likes the certainties of life and is averse to change.

"The Shipping Forecast is a comfort, a given, a sign that maybe, just maybe, everything is alright with the world after all — until the next day dawns, anyway — but that's a few hours of delicious sleep away! Time for the febrile mind to repair itself, rest, chill out, relax and take gentle stock of things."

"It's very similar to the early days of needle exchange in the U.S., where there was a lot of opposition," explains Laura Thomas with the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance. "Pretty much all of that opposition has now faded away and a lot of people acknowledge they were wrong to oppose it: that it didn't increase drug use, that it didn't do a lot of things that people feared. But at the same time, there's a very human cost to a slow learning curve."

So far, Copenhagen's two DCRs (a second one opened in August) have hosted 1,800 unique users, including people who smoke and inject heroin and cocaine.

Rasmus Christansen, manager at one of the Copenhagen DCRs, explains how the process works. On their first visit, drug users register anonymously, using a nickname and the year of birth.

"But it's not like East German border control to get in," he says. "We want people to get [into the rooms] pretty fast ... so we can get drug consumption out of the streets."

Inside, to the left, behind a huge window, is cluster of smokers with improvised pipes, enveloped in haze. To the right is a long, stainless steel table where several people sit, injecting themselves with heroin, cocaine or both. Some finish and leave quietly. A few slump over the table, asleep. One man gets up and paces frantically back and forth, swearing and shouting. In the middle of it all, sits a nurse in street clothes, calmly taking in the scene.

Many economists and investors think there's a good chance that at the end of their two-day meeting that begins Tuesday, Fed policymakers will announce they'll begin reducing their $85 billion dollar monthly stimulus, their third round of quantitative easing or QE3.

The analysts think recent economic data, like a drop in the unemployment rate to 7 percent and a budget deal in Washington, have brightened the outlook for the economy enough that the Fed can pull back.

But there's another troubling number that could make Fed policymakers stand pat, says University of Chicago professor and former Fed governor Randy Kroszner. That number is the inflation rate.

"The inflation being far below where the Fed wants it to be is a major reason why they may hesitate," Kroszner says.

Princeton economist Alan Blinder points out that, strangely, during a period when the Fed has pumped trillions into the financial system, inflation has drifted lower.

"Inflation has in fact fallen on average over the last five years," Blinder says.

The most recent measurement shows that core inflation in a basket of consumer goods through the twelve months ending in October was running at just 1.7 percent. That's below the Fed's target of 2.0 percent, and it's been drifting downward this year.

Blinder, a former vice-chairman of the Fed, says this falling inflation is an extraordinary development given the trillions the Fed has pumped into the financial system. Economics textbooks say that's a recipe for inflation.

Show Me The Money

So what happened to that $85 billion a month — a trillion dollars total — that the Fed has pumped into the financial system over the past year?

"It all of it got bottled up in the banks and essentially none of it ... got lent out," Blinder says.

Blinder says that the banks are the key to making quantitative easing work. It would work by the Fed announcing it wants to buy $85 billion each month in government bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Blinder says banks would then line up to sell them, and the Fed pays the banks by putting money in their reserve accounts at the Federal Reserve.

"You can think of these as the deposits that banks hold at the Federal Reserve, which is a bank for them," he says.

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Retiring General Motors CEO Dan Akerson made a case Monday for how losing should feel like winning — at least for U.S. taxpayers who lost more than $10 billion in a GM bailout.

Akerson, who spoke at a National Press Club luncheon, said that if the federal government had allowed GM to collapse, taxpayers would have lost far more than $10 billion. For example, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the loss to federal coffers in 2009 and 2010 would have hit more than $37 billion, including the cost of lost tax revenues, unemployment insurance and other public assistance for the jobless.

And the Pension Benefits Guaranty Corp., a federal agency, would have gotten saddled with GM's $26 billion pension shortfall.

Moreover, there's the matter of fairness to private investors, he said. When GM filed for bankruptcy in 2009, it wiped out its old shareholders. After it reorganized, the company attracted new investors, who ponied up money based on the deal that was cut during the bailout process.

If the company were to now turn around and tell those shareholders that, since their bet paid off, they must give $10 billion to taxpayers, that would be unfair.

"I can tell you there would be shareholder suits that would be difficult to defend," said Akerson, 65, who is stepping down next month.

Akerson became CEO in 2010, not long after GM emerged from its 39 days in bankruptcy. He returned the company to the public stock market in November 2010. Since then, GM shares have nearly doubled. Earlier this month, the government sold the last of its GM stake, but never did get back about $10 billion of the bailout money.

So Akerson's argument boils down to this: new shareholders took a risk – and fair and square – they deserve the rewards.