Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
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Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
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...
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193 ຕອນ
Flixborough: The Factory that was Wiped off the Map
A megaplant near the small village of Flixborough, England, is busy churning out a key ingredient of nylon 6, a material used in everything from stock...
The Disappearance of Grace Oakeshott
At the start of the 20th century, Britain was slowly becoming a freer place for women. Young Grace Oakeshott seized every opportunity to learn and imp...
Your Chance to Attend a Cautionary Tales Table Read
Ever wished you could be a fly on the wall while Cautionary Tales is being made? Now you can.
We just launched the Cautionary Club - our new Pat...
How to Experience the Joy of Giving Right Now: A Giving Tuesday Special from The Happiness Lab
According to the science, it really is better to give than receive. Donating a dollar; sharing a kind word or lending someone a hand changes lives, bu...
Homo deceptus: Science's Dirty Little Secret
In 1912, a fossil discovery shakes the scientific world. Piltdown Man is the elusive missing link between humans and their ape-like ancestors. Forty y...
Presenting Heavyweight: Etta
I'm excited to share an episode from another podcast, Heavyweight, a new addition to the Pushkin slate of shows. Heavyweight, hosted by Jonathan Golds...
Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson
Misinformation, double-dealing, character assassination - lobbyist Don Pearlman will stop at nothing to prevent the world from agreeing to cut carbon...
Presenting: Twenty Thousand Hertz
When Satanic Panic ripped through America, rock music was in the crosshairs. Could songs contain secret backwards messages urging children to take dru...
The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 2)
Forrest Fenn’s legendary treasure hunt ignites a nationwide obsession. The thrill of adventure, the promise of gold, and the call of the wild entice m...
The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 1)
Forrest Fenn never does things the regular way. Despite no formal training and little knowledge of art, he becomes a millionaire gallery owner. An out...
The Truth About Hansel and Gretel (Classic)
Was the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel - the story of a woodcutter’s children abandoned in the woods and left at the mercy of a witch - in fact, earl...
On Fire from the Inside - Lethal Injection Up Close with Malcolm Gladwell
Last week, Cautionary Tales told the tragic story of Derek Bentley, exploring Britain's troubled relationship with capital punishment. Across the Atla...
Derek Bentley Must Hang
An amateurish burglary in 1950s London ends in murder. One of the men involved is a 19-year-old named Derek Bentley. Bentley has the understanding of...
The Canal, the Crash and the Ketamine - Pushkin's Reign of Error
In 1983, a plane takes off from Ottawa with less than half the required fuel on board. As the engines cut out one by one, the pilot is left with a tic...
Schrödinger's Spy: Businessman, Fraud, or Russian Agent? - with Sam Jones
When the Financial Times uncovered the billion-dollar Wirecard fraud, it seemed like the story was over. But then the company’s Chief Operating Office...
Missing Fish and Fatal Feasts: Ritual and Ruin at the Sun King’s Table
In the gilded court of Louis XIV, 17th Century France, manners are everything. Where to sit, how to eat, what to wear - any misstep is costly. No one...
Don't Panic! Douglas Adams' Guide to Tomorrow - with Arvind Ethan David
Writer Douglas Adams, best known for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, used science fiction and satire to warn us about potential dangers in our f...
A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do
After years of campaigning for votes for women, the Suffragettes emerge at the turn of the 20th Century. Their motto, 'Deeds Not Words', heralds the s...
True Lies and Genuine Fakes
In 1998, an art gallery gets a mysterious phone call. The caller claims they have been fooled by a master forger and that many of their prized paintin...
Stalling for Survival - A Lonely Fight Against a Deadly Medicine
In 1960, FDA scientist Frances Oldham Kelsey is tasked with approving an application for a mild sedative to be sold in America. The drug is popular ac...
Announcing: The Cautionary Club
Do you want more Cautionary Tales episodes in your life? Do you want access to behind the scenes stories and bonus conversations with Tim? Do you want...
Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point
In 1923, legendary navigator Captain Dolly Hunter led a squadron of warships into America’s worst peacetime naval catastrophe. The mission was suppose...
Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart
Dore Strauch and Friedrich Ritter make an unconventional couple, united by their contempt for shoes, root vegetables and, above all, society. In 1929...
"Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World
William McGonagall's poems are something else. The jarring meter, the banal imagery, the awkward rhymes: they made him a laughing stock in 19th Centur...
Office Hell: The Demise of the Playful Workspace (Classic)
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 wou...
Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop (Classic)
Pepsi twice ended up in court after promotions went disastrously wrong. Other big companies have fallen into the same trap - promising customers rewar...
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club (Update)
It's been five years since Cautionary Tales ran a mini-series about the Covid-19 pandemic, exploring the lessons we were learning in real time as the...
"Captain Kirk Forgot to put the Machine on Stun"
Lying on the cold metal table, Voyne Ray Cox knew the drill. This was his ninth round of cancer treatment - which is why he was certain that what happ...
"I get in trouble when I say things like this" - Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried
Acclaimed author Michael Lewis discusses his time with Sam Bankman-Fried and why he thinks both high finance and Effective Altruism shaped the 'Crypto...
Grand Theft Automated: How to Save a Trillion Lives
A radical thought experiment transforms the lives of a new breed of philanthropists, as they follow the logic of altruism to extraordinary lengths. Th...
The Man who Solved Kindness
George Price is on a mission to prove that human kindness is real. He's seen the latest research suggesting any altruism is ultimately selfish and fin...
The Shark That Ate Hollywood: Jaws at 50
Steven Spielberg thought his career was finished. He was behind schedule, his actors were fighting, the crew were mutinous and worst of all, his shark...
Le Mans 55: The Deadliest Race
The annual Le Mans 24 Hour race brings in hundreds of thousands of spectators to watch the giants of motor racing put their endurance to the ultimate...
The Nazis, the Bomb, and the Woman that Science Forgot
Lise Meitner has fought for her entire life to be seen as a scientist, slowly building a career as a nuclear physicist in Berlin. When Adolf Hitler ri...
Give Politicians a Raise, Smuggle Smartphones into School, and go Full Donk! Cautionary Questions with Risky Business
Can game theory be used to win a world cup? Can you pay the way out of political corruption? And are there winning strategies in life we don't use bec...
Roosevelt and the Renegade (Panama Disaster 2)
Sixteen years have passed since Ferdinand De Lesseps' catastrophic failure in Panama and the dramatic collapse of the French Panama Canal company. Now...
The Great Frenchman's Folly (Panama Disaster 1)
Ferdinand De Lesseps, "the Great Frenchman", is convinced that he is the man to build the Panama Canal. No, he isn't an engineer and, no, he's never a...
Lab Leak: Could Smallpox Come Back?
In 1978 the world is on the brink of declaring victory over smallpox. No cases have been seen for months, and it looks like the end for a deadly, pain...
"Dangerously Near to Absolute Perfection"
In 1900, two friends in the flourishing Arts and Crafts Movement in London share a vision: to print the ultimate edition of the Bible. Together they c...
Buried by the Wall Street Crash (Classic)
Cautionary Tales returns with a new episode on May 2nd.
Both of the world’s greatest economists, Irving Fisher and John Maynard Keynes,...