Newscast is the unscripted chat behind the headlines.

It's informed, but informal.

We pick the day's top stories and we find experts who can really dig into them.

We use our colleagues in the newsroom and

our contacts. Some people pick up the phone rather faster than others.

We sometimes literally run around the BBC building to grab the very best guests.

Join us for daily news chats to get you ready for today's conversations.

Newscast, listen on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds. B. C Sounds, music radio podcasts.

It's a sign of our strange times that a person whose whole study is founded in numbers and statistics has become a household

name and that I don't even need to explain why.

The statistician, Professor David Spekelhaltor, is chair of the Winton Center for Risk

and Evidence Communication at Cambridge University. He's also the author of Sex by Numbers and The Art of Statistics.

Professor Speakelhulter, what is it about German names that sound so so funny to the English? I mean, Spekelhulter sounds... that sounds like something you might find in a rather specialist

lagerie department of an adult shop. What is it? I do get teased about, you know, literally it means Mirror Holder.

So, you know, I always say I come from a long line of lavatory attendance.

But it's a funny name even in Germany because it's a real sort of black forest name from a small area.

And yeah, they all came over to Britain in the early 19th century as watch-repairers.

So I'm a descendant of economic migrants.

Now by the magic of radio we can join you on a pilgrimage to the Ascension Parish burial

ground.

Intured there is this week's great life, your choice, Frank Ramsey.

...