This is the BBC.

Hello Tim Harford here.

Thank you for downloading the Longer Radio 4 edition of More or Less,

first broadcast on Friday the 16th of December.

Hello and welcome to more or less,

presenting an increasingly festive helping

of statistical smackdowns and numerical joy.

This week a regal edition we will be discussing the costs and

benefits of the Royal Yot Britannia and the vocabulary of Her Majesty the Queen. The Queen. And other people too.

And with one newspaper reporting that homophobic and transphobic hate crimes spiked after the Brexit

vote, we'll ask what's really going on.

But first, it is coming to the end of the year.

And we thought it was time to revisit a topic that had everyone talking this spring,

the rate at which the Grim Reaper was claiming the souls of notable people. Ronnie Corbett,

we can be heroes

just for one day.

Ronnie Corbett, Terry Wogan, Alan Rickman, and of course there were many others.

And many loyal more or less listeners emailed to ask whether this is unusual.

It certainly seems unusual to someone with particularly excellent judgment, my wife,

Fran.

Tim, I have been wondering, are more celebrities dying this year than normal?

To answer Fran's question back in April,

...