UKH

..With Hannah Fry.

I just stumbled across this series of short radio programmes from Radio 4, and they're great.

  Hannah Fry talking about data, statistics and graphs and how "sometimes, if you know where to look, there is mystery and drama and intrigue to be found, all concealed in a few simple lines on a page."

It's much more interesting than I've made it sound, and Hannah Fry tells an excellent story - if Jackanory was still a thing, she should definitely be on it - fascinating, and occasionally horrifying, stuff.  (Some of it a hell of a lot more disturbing than you'll hear on the similarly titled woo-fest that is Uncanny.)

11 fifteen minute (ish) episodes on the BBC here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001qw8x

I don't suppose there is any way to read these is there? They sound fascinating so I tried the first two, but I just can't be doing with the podcast format. An episode about a very famous graph, without any visuals! 

Brilliant. Just blitzed the first three. #3 - yikes!!

In the remote case you haven't heard of it, the Freakonomics book series is very good, in a similar vein.

I read the original book not long after it first came out and don't remember it all that clearly - but yes, I see what you're getting at.  I just had a quick google to remind myself of who wrote it and I see there are a load more books, podcasts and all sorts, so I might have to check them out.

There have been some great series on R4 just recently (still available on BBC Sounds).

The cows are mad (about BSE). Some parallels with covid.

Behind these doors - experiences of a female prison officer

Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad - Danny Finkelstein’s family story. 
 

Sorry, don’t mean to hijack your thread.

I'm not aware of any transcripts or anything like that I'm afraid.  I see what you're getting at, but the lack of visuals didn't bother me at all.  I guess we're processing it in different ways - it works very well for me as a verbal story.  (It probably helps that I could listen to Hannah Fry all day long.)

On the offchance that you've somehow missed the Freakonomics books, dunno, worth a look maybe?

Too late to edit, but I just wanted to add - yes, yikes indeed!  Pretty alarming stuff for what just seems like a lighthearted mathsy thing.  I found #5 hit me pretty hard too.

No worries, I think everything I wanted to say about that has been said.  (Basically just that I think it's really interesting and worth a listen.)

I haven't listened to any of those, might check them out ta. 

With reference to your thread - I used to listen to Radio 4 all the time, usually starting with the Today programme in the morning.  But I fell out of the habit when that had to stop in the run-up to the 2010 general election because it was doing me no good at all to be so angry first thing in the morning every day.

Kind of at the intersection between these topics - maths/statistics and politicians talking utter shite - 'More or Less' is invariably excellent too.

I do like Hannah Fry. I read her book "Hello World" recently. I just don't seem to do listening very well. Read Freakonomics a long time ago, I seem to recall they went a bit downhill after the first one.