Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

Hello and welcome to more or less finding the statistical biros lost down the back of the sofa of news.

This week, have some police officers really received a 32% pay rise,

as the Prime Minister has claimed.

We talk about the vague language of indefinite hyperbolic numbers.

Zillion, squillion, umpteen.

And did Dave take the advice of more or less listeners

when it came to buying a present for his statistically significant other.

Intelligent people listen to more or less. You should listen to intelligent people sometimes.

Quite so, very wise. But first we start... sometimes. My daughter tells me that global natural disasters have quadrupled from the

1980s to now. She cites this as an example of global warming. Is this

statistic as alarming as it sounds or due to selective use of data?

Well it does sound alarming and indeed this statistic is being used to raise an alarm.

Here's the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio

Guterres, speaking last week. I want to express my solidarity with all those

suffering the devastating impacts of the unprecedented events we have seen in recent

...