Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

By Pushkin Industries

Society & Culture History

What's Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford about?

We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown ups – and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “The Data Detective”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser. New episodes every other Friday.

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"7000 horses are being flow...

09.29.2023

Why are board games so popular in Germany? What’s Tim Harford’s top tip for productivity? And where do all those sound effects come from? Tim is joined by Cautionary Tales’ very own wizard of sound Pascal Wyse, to read your ...

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford episodes:

09.29.2023 "7000 horses are being flown across space..." - Cautionary Questions #2 Why are board games so popular in Germany? What’s Tim Harford’s top tip for productivity? And where do all those sound effects come from? Tim is joined by Cautionary Tales’ very own wizard of sound Pascal Wyse, to read your ...
09.19.2023 Cautionary Tales Presents: Getting out of Dodge from Revisionist History The longest running television series of the 20th century was Gunsmoke, a western set in the notorious Dodge City, Kansas. Malcolm sweeps away mountains of legal scholarship to make a bold claim: The simplest explanation for the Supreme’s Court’s puzzling ...
09.15.2023 A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House 1957. Jørn Utzon receives a phone call: he's just won an international competition to design a brand new opera house for the Australian city of Sydney. Utzon is unknown in the field, so this is a triumph. The young architect ...
09.01.2023 The City That Sold Itself To Wall Street Cautionary Book Club: When Morgan Stanley offered to lease Chicago's parking meters for the princely sum of $1 billion, the City Council were convinced that they had struck gold. They hastily signed the deal. But they soon learnt that they ...
08.18.2023 General Ludd's Rage Against the Machines 1812. A band of "Luddites" is laying siege to a textile mill in the North of England, under cover of night. They plan to destroy the machines that are replacing their jobs. But mill owner William Cartwright is prepared: he's ...
08.11.2023 Andy Warhol's Factory of Truth Cautionary Conversation: Andy Warhol’s assistant, Gerard Malanga, is facing a long prison sentence in Italy. He’s forged several Che Guevara portraits and tried to pass them off as genuine Warhols. What happens next is a landmark event in the history ...
08.04.2023 Poles Apart: How A Journalist Divided A City Heroic explorer Frederick Cook has just returned from the very roof of the world, the first man to reach the North Pole. Or so he says. Journalist Philip Gibbs has been watching him, and he’s convinced he’s lying. When Gibbs ...
07.28.2023 The Father of Space Travel Cautionary Conversation: Did a Nazi put America on the moon? To celebrate the launch of his mini-series on the V-2 rocket, Tim Harford sits down with Pushkin’s resident V-2 expert, Ryan Dilley. They discuss the so-called “Father of Space Travel”, ...
07.21.2023 A Fascination with Failure: Death On The Dancefloor (Classic) Henry Petroski is one of Tim Harford's favourite fellow nerds. His study of engineering failures has profoundly influenced Tim's own writing, including the classic Cautionary Tales episode Death on the Dance Floor. Petroski passed away in June 2023, at the ...
07.14.2023 When Parakeets Plundered New York Cautionary Conversation: An invasive parakeet species began spreading in New York City - and the government decided to kill every last bird. Tim Harford is joined by Ben Naddaff-Hafrey, host of The Last Archive, to talk about the great parakeet ...
07.07.2023 The Coup, the Poet and the Secret to Winning Wimbledon “If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss..." Those words - from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If" - were based on charismatic nineteenth century doctor, Leander Starr Jameson. In Britain, Jameson ...
06.23.2023 The Man Who Played With Hurricanes Today, the idea of controlling the weather is controversial. Scientists who research geoengineering have even received death threats. But once upon a time, people were optimistic about remaking the climate in entire regions of the world. They approached this science ...
06.15.2023 Cautionary Tales Presents: Lost Hills - The Dark Prince Today, we're sharing an episode of the gripping Pushkin series Lost Hills: The Dark Prince. The brand-new season takes a deep dive into the surf world to explore the legacy of Malibu's Dark Prince: Miki Dora. A surfer known for ...
06.09.2023 Sonic Poison? The Genesis of Havana Syndrome CIA agents in Havana complaining of mental fog, dizziness and ear pain in 2016. Children in Miami in 1974, hyperventilating and wracked with abdominal pain. A medieval outbreak of the “dancing plague”. A chorus of meowing nuns. These mysterious and ...
05.26.2023 Airships, AI and Alan Cumming: Tim Answers Your Questions Why does economics get a bad rap? How did a small Hungarian airline wreak havoc in the 2000s? What cautionary tales can we glean from Tim’s own life? And what’s his favourite role-playing game? You sent in your questions and ...
05.12.2023 The Man Who Bet His House on a Pop Song - A Eurovision Tale You can gamble on horses or on the turn of a card - but Daniel Gould made a living betting on the outcome of the annual Eurovision Song Contest. Daniel made a profit because he studied the voting history of ...
04.28.2023 The Dark Money Behind Mother's Day Anna Marie Jarvis wanted a national holiday to honor the dedication and sacrifice of America's mothers. She wasn't the first person to propose a Mother's Day - but her campaign caught the imagination of the people and the ears of ...
04.14.2023 The True Scandal of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound It could cure any 'female ailment' - even cancer - said the adverts. But Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound was, in fact, just a concoction of herbs and alcohol of no proven medicinal merit. That didn't stop desperate American women ...
04.07.2023 What if Terrorists Could Weaponize Covid? Cautionary Conversation: In 1990, a small extremist group launched a nerve gas attack on passengers riding the Tokyo subway. Thousands of people were hurt, more than a dozen died. At the time, such use of a chemical weapon seemed new ...
03.31.2023 The Vigilante and the Air Traffic Controller Air traffic controllers are meant to stop aircrafts from flying into one another... and if they fail, computer systems are installed to warn pilots of a coming collision. But sometimes these humans and computers give conflicting and confusing advice. Who ...
03.24.2023 America's Mata Hari? The Double Life of Esther Reed Cautionary Conversation: When a small-town detective gets a tip about a missing woman, he believes he's uncovered a highly-trained chameleon: a foreign spy. Soon, Esther Reed is on the Secret Service's Most Wanted list, and a nationwide manhunt has commenced. ...
03.17.2023 Office Hell: the Demise of the Playful Workspace In the early 90s, cutting-edge advertising agency Chiat/Day announced a radical plan, aimed at giving the company a jolt of creative renewal. They would sweep away corner offices and cubicles and replace them with zany open spaces, as well as ...
03.10.2023 La La Land: Galileo’s Warning (Classic) With the 95th Academy Awards just around the corner, Tim Harford looks back at a basic lesson. Galileo tried to teach us that adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the ...
03.03.2023 The Scientist and the Swindler Cautionary Conversation: Celebrated physicist Professor Paul Frampton was on his way to Brussels to meet the love of his life, swimwear model Denise Milani. Or so he thought. When he found himself in jail, he realized he’d fallen prey to ...
02.17.2023 The Hero Who Rode His Segway Off a Cliff Steve Jobs called It “the most amazing piece of technology since the PC.” According to Jeff Bezos It was not only “revolutionary,” but infinitely commercial. It was a fiendishly clever and massively hyped invention. But in the end It — ...
02.10.2023 The Mummy's Curse (Classic) A hundred years ago, the Tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun was officially opened - despite the widely held belief that disturbing the remains of the Egyptian pharaohs could incur a deadly curse. Why did a team of archeologists risk inciting ...
02.03.2023 The Final Illusion of the Great Lafayette Golden sparks are raining down on the Great Lafayette’s famous vaudeville show, “The Lion’s Bride”. They look like they’re part of the performance. They aren’t — and soon the theater is ablaze. The manager has to figure out how to ...
01.20.2023 LIVE: The Myth of the Million Dollar Tulip Bulb Recorded before an audience at the Bristol Festival of Economics (11/17/2022) The Dutch went so potty over tulip bulbs in the 1600s that many were ruined when the inflated prices they were paying for the plants collapsed - that's the ...
01.06.2023 DOUBLE BILL: When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft/Blood on the Tracks As a special New Year treat we're presenting two Cautionary Tales Shorts - which have previously only been available to paying Apple and Pushkin+ subscribers. When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft: The makers of WoW wanted to spice up ...
01.03.2023 "Snow Crashing Into The Metaverse" from Imaginary Worlds This week, we’re sharing an episode of Imaginary Worlds. For the last 30 years, the real world has been catching up to Neal Stephenson’s vision of the future in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, which influenced the creators of Google ...
12.09.2022 The Company That Cancelled Christmas More than 100,000 families - many of them amongst the poorest in Britain - put money aside for Christmas gifts and other seasonal treats in a savings club called Farepak. It wasn't a bank, and it wasn't great value for ...
11.25.2022 The Wild Turkeys of Schleswig There are eight American turkeys painted on the walls of Schleswig's Cathedral of St Peter - which is odd... since the frescoes were created two centuries before Columbus even crossed the Atlantic. How did the creatures come to be added ...
11.18.2022 Cautionary Conversation: The Blitz Spirit and the Blackout Ripper In a crisis most people respond with decency and solidarity. The bombing of British cities in the Second World War did not cause society to crumble as was expected, but proved instead human resilience. That defiant "Blitz Spirit" is still ...
11.11.2022 The Inventor Who Almost Ended the World Thomas Midgley's inventions caused his own death, hastened the deaths of millions of people around the world, and very nearly extinguished all life on land. Midgley and his employers didn't set out to poison the air with leaded gasoline or ...
10.28.2022 The Halloween Poisoner Candy laced with cyanide and needles in marshmallows, we've long been warned to be suspicious of the sweet treats handed out by strangers at Halloween. But it seems that most stories of "Halloween sadism" are just that, stories. No child ...
10.21.2022 Cautionary Conversation: The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind Charlie Veitch was certain that 9/11 was an inside job. The attack on the World Trade Center wasn't the work of Al-Qaeda, but an elaborate conspiracy. He became a darling of so-called "9/11 truthers" - until he actually visited Ground ...
10.14.2022 Cautionary Tales Presents: Warfare, The Life of Anne Frank This week, it's an episode from Warfare, a podcast from our friends at History Hit. It's 1942. The year Anne Frank and her family went into hiding during the Second World War. It was there that Anne began keeping a ...
10.07.2022 The Online Date That's Too Good to be True Single and looking for love, Dr Robert Epstein found himself chatting with a slim, attractive brunette online. She seemed perfect... perhaps even too good to be true. Dr Epstein is an expert on artificial conversation - so surely he'd be ...
09.23.2022 A Leap of Faith From the Eiffel Tower Inventor Franz Reichelt wants to test his novel "parachute suit" from as tall a structure as possible - and the Eiffel Tower seems ideal. Previous trial runs used a mannequin strapped to the chute and have not ended well. Despite ...
09.09.2022 Cautionary Conversation: Flying on Empty A meter is longer than a yard. An ounce is heavier than a gram. We harmlessly mix them up sometimes, but a "unit conversion error" when you're filling up the fuel tanks of an airliner can be fatal. Which is ...
09.02.2022 Tim Talks Bicycles with Patented Invented in the mid-1800s, bicycles have had enduring popularity. Across cultures, they have been embraced, promising freedom and mobility at a lower price point. Tim joins Dallas Campbell on Patented: History of Inventions, to discuss the history of the bicycle, ...
08.26.2022 "You’re Not Howard Hughes!" By the 1970s Howard Hughes was the "invisible billionaire”. A business tycoon, a daring aviator and Hollywood Lothario, Hughes had an amazing life story... but hiding away in luxury hotels he wasn't sharing his memories with anyone. Then the recluse ...
08.19.2022 "Who would you dine with? Scott or Amundsen?" Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Harford in Discussion. Malcolm Gladwell joins Tim Harford to discuss our recent three-part tale about the race to reach the South Pole. There's talk of imperial decline; the power of the underdog; why getting everything you want is actually a handicap; and limes... ...
08.12.2022 South Pole Race: When the Limeys Get Scurvy Polar exploration is dangerous... but trudging hundreds of miles in subzero temperatures isn't made any easier if you're suffering from scurvy. The deadly vitamin deficiency destroys the body and will of even the strongest and most determined adventurer - and ...
08.05.2022 The Bowery Boys and the Black Tom Explosion Cautionary Tales returns next week, but in the meantime enjoy a story of disaster from The Bowery Boys Podcast. It's July 30th 1916, just after 2am, and a massive explosion rips apart the munitions depot on Black Tom, an island ...
07.29.2022 South Pole Race: “Mummy, is Amundsen a good man?” Roald Amundsen beat Captain Scott to the South Pole. The Norwegian - using dog sleds and skis - made it look easy... fun, even. He was heading home to safety, while the British party - hauling sleds by hand - ...
07.15.2022 South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice 1910: Two men are racing to be the first to reach the South Pole. Captain Robert Falcon Scott heads a well-financed, technologically-advanced expedition - aiming to reach the pole in the "proper" and heroic way... on foot. Roald Amundsen's effort ...
07.08.2022 Gladwell on Doctors' Prescriptions, Carbon Copies and the Opioid Crisis. What if a little bit of extra paperwork could saves lives and perhaps end an epidemic? Enjoy a cautionary tale from our friend and fellow Pushkin host, Malcolm Gladwell. The new season of Revisionist History begins with a half-baked idea ...
07.01.2022 Chicago When It Sizzles July 1995: A deadly heatwave gripped Chicago - bridges buckled; the power grids failed; and the morgue ran out of space - but some neighbourhoods saw more deaths than others. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg wanted to know why. So he headed ...
06.24.2022 Cautionary Tales Presents: Hot Money This week, we're sharing an episode from a new podcast brought to you by Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times. The series is hosted by Tim’s colleagues, reporter Patricia Nilsson and editor Alex Barker. In this episode, Patricia and Alex ...

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