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BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

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Radio 4 (FM)

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Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics used in everyday life

Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life

BBC Radio 4 LW

More or Less: The high street, Home births, Harry Potter wizardry

Factual

The high street, Home births, Harry Potter wizardry

01/06/2018

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, The high street, Home births, Harry Potter wizardry

Is WH Smith really the worst on the high street? Plus how safe is giving birth at home?

Is WH Smith really the worst shop on the high street? How safe is giving birth at home? Plus we work out how many wizards there must be in the UK and Ireland.

How do we know how WH Smiths fares on the high street?

Over the Bank Holiday weekend a news story from the consumer advice website Which caught a lot of attention. It was claimed that WH Smiths is the least liked shop on the high street. But exactly how did researchers work that out? We take a look at the survey they conducted.

Counting the homeless

We often hear numbers in the news about how many people are sleeping rough on the streets of the UK
According to the latest official figures around 4700 people were sleeping in the streets in the autumn of 2017. 
And that got us thinking. These statistics aren't just downloaded from some big database in the sky. They need - like any statistic - to be collected and calculated. So we ask a simple question: how do you count the number of people sleeping rough?

How safe are home births?

Is giving birth at home as safe as giving birth in hospital? How many women have the choice to do so, and does it make a difference if you've already had a child? We try to cut through the noise and find out what the statistics say. 

Harry Potter: how many wizards?

Fans of Harry Potter have been asking - just how many wizards live among us? We follow a trail of clues in J K Rowling's best-selling books to provide the definitive estimate of the wizarding population.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Charlotte McDonald
Editor: Andy Smith.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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