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.

Thank you for downloading more or less. A weekly excursion into the world of numbers.

The program is presented by Tim Harford, the Financial Times Undercover Economist, and as a BBC

Radio 4 and the Open University co-production. production. Merry Christmas. What right have you to be merry? You poor enough.

Ah, humbug.

Ebene's a Scrooge threw a rod of bank notes on the fire.

Quantitative easing is one small mercy.

And sat down before it to take his gruel. His glance happened upon a disused servant's bell and it was with a

strange inexplicable dread that as he looked the aged chairman of British Bank PLC saw it begin to swing.

Scrooge.

Scrooge.

How now? Jacob O'Malley's ghost! You are fettered! Tell me why. I wear the chain I forged in life. Is its patent strange to you Ebenezer? I fuelled a great boom in property. But when my debtor sunk and I could borrow no more, oh, woe is me, I became

the living dead, withering slowly, dragging my fellow Irishman into the deaders prison.

A zombie bank? I have heard of such a thing, but what do you want with me? Upon my soul my bank is sound.

The chains which bind me now threaten you Ebenezer. Heed my warning and the three spirits who will tonight visit you.

Scrooge examined the door by which O'Malley had departed. It was locked, as he had locked it by his own hands.

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