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 catastrophes, and hilarious fiascos. They'll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser. New episodes every Friday.
Latest Episode
The Canal, the Crash and the Ketamine - Pushkin's Reign of Error (17.10.2025)
Previous Episodes
- Schrödinger's Spy: Businessman, Fraud, or Russian Agent? - with Sam Jones
- Missing Fish and Fatal Feasts: Ritual and Ruin at the Sun King’s Table
- Don't Panic! Douglas Adams' Guide to Tomorrow - with Arvind Ethan David
- A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do
- True Lies and Genuine Fakes
- Stalling for Survival - A Lonely Fight Against a Deadly Medicine
- Announcing: The Cautionary Club
- Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point
- Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart
- "Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World
- Office Hell: The Demise of the Playful Workspace (Classic)
- Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop (Classic)
- Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club (Update)
- "Captain Kirk Forgot to put the Machine on Stun"
- "I get in trouble when I say things like this" - Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried
- Grand Theft Automated: How to Save a Trillion Lives
- The Man who Solved Kindness
- The Shark That Ate Hollywood: Jaws at 50
- Le Mans 55: The Deadliest Race
- The Nazis, the Bomb, and the Woman that Science Forgot
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