Wonderful stuff LB, humorous and fascinating.
I liked the point about the forecaster drawing the transept with Constable cumulus. In the days of BEA Tridents into Gibraltar in the early 1970s the three of us front end trooped up to the met office with the English newspapers and received in exchange an absolute work of art of what we should expect on the return flight. The skipper trousered it but I would like to have had one of those on my study wall in later life. Professionalism personified.