Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

By Pushkin Industries

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Subscribers: 10834
Reviews: 58
Episodes: 135

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 Jun 13, 2024

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 Oct 15, 2023


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Description

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.


Episode Date
Get Happier, Help Others: Some Good Ideas About Giving
Dec 02, 2024
RoboPod and the Perpetual Money Machine - Cautionary Questions 2
Nov 22, 2024
Darwin's Grandpa and the Art of Sex Appeal
Nov 08, 2024
The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween
Oct 25, 2024
Cautionary Tales Presents: Death Fraud and Other Risky Business
Oct 14, 2024
The Poet Who Toppled The British Empire
Oct 11, 2024
Reason, Wrath and Rebellion on the High Seas
Sep 27, 2024
Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers
Sep 13, 2024
The Nice Guy, the Bully and the Kiss
Sep 13, 2024
Tim's Tolkien Obsession & Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power
Aug 30, 2024
The Human Guinea Pigs of Camp Lazear
Aug 16, 2024
Embracing the Escape Fire (with Adam Grant)
Aug 02, 2024
Cautionary Tales Presents Vultures from Lost Hills: Dark Canyon
Jul 25, 2024
Flying Too High: AI and Air France Flight 447
Jul 19, 2024
Run, Switzer, Run: The Women Who Broke the Marathon Taboo
Jul 05, 2024
Adidas v Puma: A Battle of Boots and Brothers
Jun 21, 2024
The Revenge of the Whales
Jun 07, 2024
When the Robots Take Over... - Cautionary Questions
May 24, 2024
WW2: How Britain Ignored the Mother of All Secrets
May 10, 2024
The Fraudster's Guide to Magic Money
Apr 26, 2024
Blood and Gold (with Dan Snow)
Apr 23, 2024
The Rise and Fall of a Megalomaniac
Apr 12, 2024
Inside the Bizarre World of Dictators
Mar 29, 2024
Pushkin Hosts Celebrate World Happiness Day
Mar 20, 2024
Do Nothing, Then Do Less
Mar 15, 2024
Buried Evil: V2 Rocket (Part 3)
Mar 01, 2024
Into the Black Lair: V2 Rocket (Part 2)
Feb 16, 2024
Supersonic Nazi Vengeance: V2 Rocket (Part 1)
Feb 02, 2024
Tenerife: The Most Deadly Air Disaster
Jan 30, 2024
Martin Luther King, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking (Classic)
Jan 19, 2024
DANGER: Rocks Ahead! (Classic)
Jan 05, 2024
When Stalin Killed the Weekend (with The Happiness Lab)
Dec 22, 2023
How the Radium Girls Fought Back
Dec 08, 2023
Glowing Peril: The Magical Glitter That Poisoned a City
Nov 24, 2023
George Washington's Beard of Beetles (with The Dollop)
Nov 17, 2023
Laser Versus Parchment: Doomsday for the Disc
Nov 10, 2023
Cautionary Tales Presents The Dream
Nov 06, 2023
Killers of the Flower Moon: Osage Chief Jim Gray In Conversation
Oct 27, 2023
Oil and Blood: The Osage Murders
Oct 20, 2023
DOUBLE BILL: A Monkey For Mayor / A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet
Oct 13, 2023
"7000 horses are being flown across space..." - Cautionary Questions #2
Sep 29, 2023
Cautionary Tales Presents: Getting out of Dodge from Revisionist History
Sep 19, 2023
A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House
Sep 15, 2023
The City That Sold Itself To Wall Street
Sep 01, 2023
General Ludd's Rage Against the Machines
Aug 18, 2023
Andy Warhol's Factory of Truth
Aug 11, 2023
Poles Apart: How A Journalist Divided A City
Aug 04, 2023
The Father of Space Travel
Jul 28, 2023
A Fascination with Failure: Death On The Dancefloor (Classic)
Jul 21, 2023
When Parakeets Plundered New York
Jul 14, 2023
The Coup, the Poet and the Secret to Winning Wimbledon
Jul 07, 2023
The Man Who Played With Hurricanes
Jun 23, 2023
Cautionary Tales Presents: Lost Hills - The Dark Prince
Jun 15, 2023
Sonic Poison? The Genesis of Havana Syndrome
Jun 09, 2023
Airships, AI and Alan Cumming: Tim Answers Your Questions
May 26, 2023
The Man Who Bet His House on a Pop Song - A Eurovision Tale
May 12, 2023
The Dark Money Behind Mother's Day
Apr 28, 2023
The True Scandal of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound
Apr 14, 2023
What if Terrorists Could Weaponize Covid?
Apr 07, 2023
The Vigilante and the Air Traffic Controller
Mar 31, 2023
America's Mata Hari? The Double Life of Esther Reed
Mar 24, 2023
Office Hell: the Demise of the Playful Workspace
Mar 17, 2023
La La Land: Galileo’s Warning (Classic)
Mar 10, 2023
The Scientist and the Swindler
Mar 03, 2023
The Hero Who Rode His Segway Off a Cliff
Feb 17, 2023
The Mummy's Curse (Classic)
Feb 10, 2023
The Final Illusion of the Great Lafayette
Feb 03, 2023
LIVE: The Myth of the Million Dollar Tulip Bulb
Jan 20, 2023
DOUBLE BILL: When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft/Blood on the Tracks
Jan 06, 2023
"Snow Crashing Into The Metaverse" from Imaginary Worlds
Jan 03, 2023
The Company That Cancelled Christmas
Dec 09, 2022
The Wild Turkeys of Schleswig
Nov 25, 2022
Cautionary Conversation: The Blitz Spirit and the Blackout Ripper
Nov 18, 2022
The Inventor Who Almost Ended the World
Nov 11, 2022
The Halloween Poisoner
Oct 28, 2022
Cautionary Conversation: The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind
Oct 21, 2022
Cautionary Tales Presents: Warfare, The Life of Anne Frank
Oct 14, 2022
The Online Date That's Too Good to be True
Oct 07, 2022
A Leap of Faith From the Eiffel Tower
Sep 23, 2022
Cautionary Conversation: Flying on Empty
Sep 09, 2022
Tim Talks Bicycles with Patented
Sep 02, 2022
"You’re Not Howard Hughes!"
Aug 26, 2022
"Who would you dine with? Scott or Amundsen?" Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Harford in Discussion.
Aug 19, 2022
South Pole Race: When the Limeys Get Scurvy
Aug 12, 2022
The Bowery Boys and the Black Tom Explosion
Aug 05, 2022
South Pole Race: “Mummy, is Amundsen a good man?”
Jul 29, 2022
South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice
Jul 15, 2022
Chicago When It Sizzles
Jul 01, 2022
The French Knight’s Guide to Corporate Culture
Jun 17, 2022
Frankenstein Versus the Volcano
Jun 03, 2022
Bless the Coal-black Hearts of the Broadway Critics
May 20, 2022
Monkey for Mayor from This Day in Esoteric Political History
May 13, 2022
When the Autopilot Switched Off
May 06, 2022
Cautionary Tales Presents: World's Greatest Con
Apr 29, 2022
Photographing Fairies
Apr 22, 2022
Tim Joins ‘No Such Thing As A Fish'
Apr 15, 2022
The False Dawn of the Electric Car
Apr 08, 2022
The Balloons That Ate Cleveland (A Cautionary Tales Short)
Mar 25, 2022
Death on the Dance Floor
Mar 25, 2022
Cautionary Tales Returns Every Other Friday from March 25th
Mar 11, 2022
The Mummy’s Curse
Oct 29, 2021
The Truth About Hansel and Gretel
Oct 22, 2021
Do NOT Pass GO!
May 28, 2021
Wrong Tools Cost Lives
May 21, 2021
Fritterin’ Away Genius
May 14, 2021
The Fan Who Infected a Movie Star
May 07, 2021
Whistleblower on the 28th Floor
Apr 30, 2021
Masterly Inactivity Versus Micromanaging
Apr 23, 2021
Demonizing Dungeons & Dragons
Apr 16, 2021
Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop
Apr 09, 2021
The Curse of Knowledge Meets The Valley of Death
Apr 02, 2021
The Dunning Kruger Hijack (and Other Criminally Stupid Acts)
Mar 26, 2021
Catching a KiIler Doctor
Mar 19, 2021
The Art Forger, the Nazi, and "The Pope"
Mar 12, 2021
Florence Nightingale and Her Geeks Declare War on Death
Mar 05, 2021
Martin Luther King Jr, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking
Feb 26, 2021
Bonus: Why We Believe What Isn't True (with Axios Today)
Feb 12, 2021
The Data Detective
Feb 02, 2021
BONUS: Storks, Smoking and the Power of Doubt
Sep 16, 2020
How To End A Pandemic
Jul 17, 2020
That Turn To Pascagoula
Jul 10, 2020
The Village of Heroes
Jul 03, 2020
The Spreadsheet of Life and Death
Jun 26, 2020
A Tsunami of Misery
Jun 19, 2020
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club
Jun 12, 2020
Cautionary Tales Presents: TED Talk Daily
Jan 31, 2020
You Have Reached Your Destination
Dec 27, 2019
Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano
Dec 20, 2019
How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg
Dec 13, 2019
Buried by the Wall Street Crash
Dec 06, 2019
The Deadly Airship Race
Nov 29, 2019
La La Land: Galileo's Warning
Nov 22, 2019
The Rogue Dressed as a Captain
Nov 15, 2019
DANGER: Rocks Ahead!
Nov 15, 2019
Introducing: Cautionary Tales
Oct 22, 2019