podcast

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Pushkin Industries

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”)…

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Evel Knievel Faces the Abyss 2026-09-04 · 40m
Dumm und Dümmer: Hitler Invades Florida 2026-08-28 · 39m
The DeLorean Saga: Fraud, Drugs and Marty McFly's Car - with Business History 2026-08-21 · 49m
Proceed with Caution - Pascal's Guide to Podcasts 2026-08-14 · 26m
The Weight of Fame: A Hollywood Tragedy 2026-08-07 · 42m
Arsenic and Lace: The Trial of the Yorkshire Witch - with Maddy Pelling 2026-07-31 · 44m
The Doors of Death: The Herald of Free Enterprise 2026-07-24 · 38m
"What a Bloody Mess we're in" - Britain's [REDACTED] Accident 2026-07-17 · 41m
Attack of the Night People 2026-07-10 · 41m
LIVE: We Are Not Machines - with Sarah O'Connor 2026-07-03 · 42m
Treacle Tears: The Boston Molasses Disaster 2026-06-26 · 41m
The Thief, the Jewels, and the Dublin Castle Conspiracy 2026-06-19 · 42m
The Dunning Canoe-ger Effect 2026-06-12 · 40m
Presenting...This is History: A Dynasty to Die For 2026-06-11 · 33m
How Civilizations Die - with Paul Cooper 2026-06-05 · 42m
Can You Make a Sherman Tank Float? 2026-05-29 · 40m
The Inventor who Almost Ended the World (Classic) 2026-05-22 · 37m
From Drilled: The Carbon Gold Rush 2026-05-19 · 28m
Angels, Gold and Lust: John Dee and the Philosopher's Stone (Part 2) 2026-05-15 · 47m
The Queen's Astrologer: The Price of Prophecy (Part 1) 2026-05-08 · 43m
Beware Tech Tycoons with Piranha Tanks - with Katie Prescott 2026-05-01 · 41m
Finding Grace in a Burger Bun: An Incrediburgible Quest 2026-04-24 · 41m
Run, Switzer, Run: The Women who Broke the Marathon Taboo (Classic) 2026-04-17 · 37m
The Lovestruck Explorer's Deadly Guessing Game 2026-04-10 · 39m
The Refugee Who Led a Software Revolution - with Ben Walter 2026-04-07 · 28m
The Mad Mystic and the Last Battle on English Soil - with Ian Breckon 2026-04-03 · 44m
The Sightseeing Flight and the Invisible Mountain 2026-03-27 · 40m
Presenting: Drug Story - On Xanax and Anxiety 2026-03-20 · 46m
"And it went click" - Dawn of the Working Dead 2026-03-13 · 41m
Explosives or Sugar? The Deadly Art of Distraction in Putin’s Russia - with Helena Merriman 2026-03-06 · 42m
Flight of the Fantasist: The Race Around the World - Part 2 2026-02-27 · 41m
The Philosopher and the Handyman: The Race Around the World - Part 1 2026-02-20 · 39m
Presenting... American Criminal: The Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist 2026-02-17 · 41m
Sphygmograph Be Damned: The Science of Love 2026-02-13 · 42m
The Angels, The Stones and The Dead 2026-02-06 · 39m
Powered by Orgasm: The Rise and Fall of a Sex Cult - with Ellen Huet 2026-01-30 · 41m
The WOW Machine Stops (Pt 2) 2026-01-23 · 40m
Shoes, Booze and the Pursuit of Happiness (Pt 1) 2026-01-16 · 39m
Liar, Bigamist, Brute: How Isaac Singer Liberated Women 2026-01-09 · 38m
Fritterin' Away Genius (Classic) 2026-01-02 · 37m
Photographing Fairies (Classic) 2025-12-26 · 38m
"They fall behind and are slowly crushed" - Board Games and Economics with Richard Garfield 2025-12-19 · 48m
Flixborough: The Factory that was Wiped off the Map 2025-12-12 · 39m
The Disappearance of Grace Oakeshott 2025-12-05 · 38m
Your Chance to Attend a Cautionary Tales Table Read 2025-12-04 · 2m
How to Experience the Joy of Giving Right Now: A Giving Tuesday Special from The Happiness Lab 2025-12-02 · 48m
Homo deceptus: Science's Dirty Little Secret 2025-11-28 · 39m
Presenting Heavyweight: Etta 2025-11-25 · 38m
Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson 2025-11-21 · 39m
Presenting: Twenty Thousand Hertz 2025-11-18 · 29m
The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 2) 2025-11-14 · 41m
The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 1) 2025-11-07 · 38m
The Truth About Hansel and Gretel (Classic) 2025-10-31 · 37m
On Fire from the Inside - Lethal Injection Up Close with Malcolm Gladwell 2025-10-28 · 27m
Derek Bentley Must Hang 2025-10-24 · 39m
The Canal, the Crash and the Ketamine - Pushkin's Reign of Error 2025-10-17 · 44m
Schrödinger's Spy: Businessman, Fraud, or Russian Agent? - with Sam Jones 2025-10-10 · 62m
Missing Fish and Fatal Feasts: Ritual and Ruin at the Sun King’s Table 2025-10-03 · 43m
Don't Panic! Douglas Adams' Guide to Tomorrow - with Arvind Ethan David 2025-09-26 · 38m
A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do 2025-09-19 · 41m
True Lies and Genuine Fakes 2025-09-12 · 41m
Stalling for Survival - A Lonely Fight Against a Deadly Medicine 2025-09-05 · 39m
Announcing: The Cautionary Club 2025-09-02 · 2m
Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point 2025-08-29 · 40m
Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart 2025-08-22 · 41m
"Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World 2025-08-15 · 40m
Office Hell: The Demise of the Playful Workspace (Classic) 2025-08-08 · 39m
Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop (Classic) 2025-08-01 · 36m
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club (Update) 2025-07-25 · 32m
"Captain Kirk Forgot to put the Machine on Stun" 2025-07-18 · 40m
"I get in trouble when I say things like this" - Michael Lewis on Sam Bankman-Fried 2025-07-11 · 46m
Grand Theft Automated: How to Save a Trillion Lives 2025-07-04 · 39m
The Man who Solved Kindness 2025-06-27 · 38m
The Shark That Ate Hollywood: Jaws at 50 2025-06-20 · 39m
Le Mans 55: The Deadliest Race 2025-06-13 · 40m
The Nazis, the Bomb, and the Woman that Science Forgot 2025-06-06 · 41m
Give Politicians a Raise, Smuggle Smartphones into School, and go Full Donk! Cautionary Questions with Risky Business 2025-05-30 · 44m
Roosevelt and the Renegade (Panama Disaster 2) 2025-05-23 · 41m
The Great Frenchman's Folly (Panama Disaster 1) 2025-05-16 · 39m
Lab Leak: Could Smallpox Come Back? 2025-05-09 · 38m
"Dangerously Near to Absolute Perfection" 2025-05-02 · 39m
Buried by the Wall Street Crash (Classic) 2025-04-25 · 36m
Presenting: You Must Remember This - Alfred Hitchcock 2025-04-18 · 66m
“I love being the person who doesn’t know anything” - Why Steven Levitt has swapped academia for podcasting 2025-04-11 · 40m
The Old Man and the Wrecking Crew 2025-04-04 · 38m
Houdini: The Phone Call from the Coffin (Part 3) 2025-03-28 · 41m
Houdini's Detective and her 1500 Dead Husbands (Part 2) 2025-03-21 · 42m
Houdini: A Message from the Spirits (Part 1) 2025-03-14 · 43m
How Trump is Getting the Game Theory Wrong from Risky Business 2025-03-10 · 40m
Would You Trust a Gangster Nanny? - Cautionary Questions with Rachel Botsman 2025-03-07 · 41m
Lights, Camera, Tax Break 2025-02-28 · 39m
The Nursery Rhyme That Ruined a Rock Band 2025-02-21 · 38m
The Widow Who Disrupted Champagne (with Ben Walter) 2025-02-19 · 21m
The Thrill and the Drop: A First Date Rollercoaster 2025-02-14 · 39m
Dr. Brinkley's Miracle Cure For Impotence (with Betwixt The Sheets) 2025-02-07 · 38m
The Night of the Mugger 2025-01-31 · 42m
Missing on "Dead Mountain": A Cold War Cold Case 2025-01-24 · 46m
Frozen in a Burning 747 (Tenerife Air Disaster 2) 2025-01-17 · 37m
Cleared For Take-Off? (Tenerife Air Disaster 1) 2025-01-10 · 33m
Do NOT Pass GO! (Classic) 2025-01-03 · 36m
Demonizing Dungeons & Dragons (Classic) 2024-12-20 · 38m
Captain Coward and the Blame Game 2024-12-06 · 37m
Get Happier, Help Others: Some Good Ideas About Giving 2024-12-02 · 52m
RoboPod and the Perpetual Money Machine - Cautionary Questions 2 2024-11-22 · 43m
Darwin's Grandpa and the Art of Sex Appeal 2024-11-08 · 41m
The Edinburgh Body Snatchers: Murder at Halloween 2024-10-25 · 42m
Cautionary Tales Presents: Death Fraud and Other Risky Business 2024-10-14 · 48m
The Poet Who Toppled The British Empire 2024-10-11 · 44m
Reason, Wrath and Rebellion on the High Seas 2024-09-27 · 41m
Steel and Kindness: Clash of the Skyscrapers 2024-09-13 · 40m
The Nice Guy, the Bully and the Kiss 2024-09-13 · 39m
Tim's Tolkien Obsession & Amazon Prime's The Rings of Power 2024-08-30 · 45m
The Human Guinea Pigs of Camp Lazear 2024-08-16 · 40m
Embracing the Escape Fire (with Adam Grant) 2024-08-02 · 37m
Cautionary Tales Presents Vultures from Lost Hills: Dark Canyon 2024-07-25 · 37m
Flying Too High: AI and Air France Flight 447 2024-07-19 · 41m
Run, Switzer, Run: The Women Who Broke the Marathon Taboo 2024-07-05 · 36m
Adidas v Puma: A Battle of Boots and Brothers 2024-06-21 · 40m
The Revenge of the Whales 2024-06-07 · 38m
When the Robots Take Over... - Cautionary Questions 2024-05-24 · 40m
WW2: How Britain Ignored the Mother of All Secrets 2024-05-10 · 43m
The Fraudster's Guide to Magic Money 2024-04-26 · 60m
Blood and Gold (with Dan Snow) 2024-04-23 · 40m
The Rise and Fall of a Megalomaniac 2024-04-12 · 58m
Inside the Bizarre World of Dictators 2024-03-29 · 42m
Pushkin Hosts Celebrate World Happiness Day 2024-03-20 · 48m
Do Nothing, Then Do Less 2024-03-15 · 36m
Buried Evil: V2 Rocket (Part 3) 2024-03-01 · 39m
Into the Black Lair: V2 Rocket (Part 2) 2024-02-16 · 38m
Supersonic Nazi Vengeance: V2 Rocket (Part 1) 2024-02-02 · 36m
Tenerife: The Most Deadly Air Disaster 2024-01-30 · 4m
Martin Luther King, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking (Classic) 2024-01-19 · 37m
DANGER: Rocks Ahead! (Classic) 2024-01-05 · 34m
When Stalin Killed the Weekend (with The Happiness Lab) 2023-12-22 · 36m
How the Radium Girls Fought Back 2023-12-08 · 41m
Glowing Peril: The Magical Glitter That Poisoned a City 2023-11-24 · 36m
George Washington's Beard of Beetles (with The Dollop) 2023-11-17 · 28m
Laser Versus Parchment: Doomsday for the Disc 2023-11-10 · 39m
Cautionary Tales Presents The Dream 2023-11-06 · 46m
Killers of the Flower Moon: Osage Chief Jim Gray In Conversation 2023-10-27 · 39m
Oil and Blood: The Osage Murders 2023-10-20 · 41m
DOUBLE BILL: A Monkey For Mayor / A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet 2023-10-13 · 34m
"7000 horses are being flown across space..." - Cautionary Questions #2 2023-09-29 · 36m
Cautionary Tales Presents: Getting out of Dodge from Revisionist History 2023-09-19 · 45m
A Chorus of Contempt at The Sydney Opera House 2023-09-15 · 40m
The City That Sold Itself To Wall Street 2023-09-01 · 38m
General Ludd's Rage Against the Machines 2023-08-18 · 36m
Andy Warhol's Factory of Truth 2023-08-11 · 37m
Poles Apart: How A Journalist Divided A City 2023-08-04 · 37m
The Father of Space Travel 2023-07-28 · 27m
A Fascination with Failure: Death On The Dancefloor (Classic) 2023-07-21 · 42m
When Parakeets Plundered New York 2023-07-14 · 36m
The Coup, the Poet and the Secret to Winning Wimbledon 2023-07-07 · 36m
The Man Who Played With Hurricanes 2023-06-23 · 38m
Cautionary Tales Presents: Lost Hills - The Dark Prince 2023-06-15 · 43m
Sonic Poison? The Genesis of Havana Syndrome 2023-06-09 · 37m
Airships, AI and Alan Cumming: Tim Answers Your Questions 2023-05-26 · 37m
The Man Who Bet His House on a Pop Song - A Eurovision Tale 2023-05-12 · 32m
The Dark Money Behind Mother's Day 2023-04-28 · 39m
The True Scandal of Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound 2023-04-14 · 37m
What if Terrorists Could Weaponize Covid? 2023-04-07 · 39m
The Vigilante and the Air Traffic Controller 2023-03-31 · 35m
America's Mata Hari? The Double Life of Esther Reed 2023-03-24 · 37m
Office Hell: the Demise of the Playful Workspace 2023-03-17 · 39m
La La Land: Galileo’s Warning (Classic) 2023-03-10 · 31m
The Scientist and the Swindler 2023-03-03 · 37m
The Hero Who Rode His Segway Off a Cliff 2023-02-17 · 36m
The Mummy's Curse (Classic) 2023-02-10 · 37m
The Final Illusion of the Great Lafayette 2023-02-03 · 37m
LIVE: The Myth of the Million Dollar Tulip Bulb 2023-01-20 · 39m
DOUBLE BILL: When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft/Blood on the Tracks 2023-01-06 · 34m
"Snow Crashing Into The Metaverse" from Imaginary Worlds 2023-01-03 · 29m
The Company That Cancelled Christmas 2022-12-09 · 36m
The Wild Turkeys of Schleswig 2022-11-25 · 39m
Cautionary Conversation: The Blitz Spirit and the Blackout Ripper 2022-11-18 · 33m
The Inventor Who Almost Ended the World 2022-11-11 · 37m
The Halloween Poisoner 2022-10-28 · 35m
Cautionary Conversation: The Conspiracy Theorist Who Changed His Mind 2022-10-21 · 41m
Cautionary Tales Presents: Warfare, The Life of Anne Frank 2022-10-14 · 41m
The Online Date That's Too Good to be True 2022-10-07 · 37m
A Leap of Faith From the Eiffel Tower 2022-09-23 · 33m
Cautionary Conversation: Flying on Empty 2022-09-09 · 32m
Tim Talks Bicycles with Patented 2022-09-02 · 39m
"You’re Not Howard Hughes!" 2022-08-26 · 36m
"Who would you dine with? Scott or Amundsen?" Malcolm Gladwell and Tim Harford in Discussion. 2022-08-19 · 25m
South Pole Race: When the Limeys Get Scurvy 2022-08-12 · 34m
The Bowery Boys and the Black Tom Explosion 2022-08-05 · 45m
South Pole Race: “Mummy, is Amundsen a good man?” 2022-07-29 · 36m
South Pole Race: David and Goliath on Ice 2022-07-15 · 33m
Chicago When It Sizzles 2022-07-01 · 38m
The French Knight’s Guide to Corporate Culture 2022-06-17 · 36m
Frankenstein Versus the Volcano 2022-06-03 · 35m
Bless the Coal-black Hearts of the Broadway Critics 2022-05-20 · 34m
Monkey for Mayor from This Day in Esoteric Political History 2022-05-13 · 29m
When the Autopilot Switched Off 2022-05-06 · 33m
Cautionary Tales Presents: World's Greatest Con 2022-04-29 · 73m
Photographing Fairies 2022-04-22 · 37m
Tim Joins ‘No Such Thing As A Fish' 2022-04-15 · 57m
The False Dawn of the Electric Car 2022-04-08 · 37m
The Balloons That Ate Cleveland (A Cautionary Tales Short) 2022-03-25 · 19m
Death on the Dance Floor 2022-03-25 · 37m
Cautionary Tales Returns Every Other Friday from March 25th 2022-03-11 · 3m
The Mummy’s Curse 2021-10-29 · 37m
The Truth About Hansel and Gretel 2021-10-22 · 37m
Do NOT Pass GO! 2021-05-28 · 35m
Wrong Tools Cost Lives 2021-05-21 · 34m
Fritterin’ Away Genius 2021-05-14 · 37m
The Fan Who Infected a Movie Star 2021-05-07 · 32m
Whistleblower on the 28th Floor 2021-04-30 · 32m
Masterly Inactivity Versus Micromanaging 2021-04-23 · 32m
Demonizing Dungeons & Dragons 2021-04-16 · 37m
Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop 2021-04-09 · 35m
The Curse of Knowledge Meets The Valley of Death 2021-04-02 · 34m
The Dunning Kruger Hijack (and Other Criminally Stupid Acts) 2021-03-26 · 33m
Catching a KiIler Doctor 2021-03-19 · 34m
The Art Forger, the Nazi, and "The Pope" 2021-03-12 · 35m
Florence Nightingale and Her Geeks Declare War on Death 2021-03-05 · 36m
Martin Luther King Jr, the Jewelry Genius, and the Art of Public Speaking 2021-02-26 · 35m
Bonus: Why We Believe What Isn't True (with Axios Today) 2021-02-12 · 14m
The Data Detective 2021-02-02 · 34m
BONUS: Storks, Smoking and the Power of Doubt 2020-09-16 · 10m
How To End A Pandemic 2020-07-17 · 25m
That Turn To Pascagoula 2020-07-10 · 24m
The Village of Heroes 2020-07-03 · 22m
The Spreadsheet of Life and Death 2020-06-26 · 24m
A Tsunami of Misery 2020-06-19 · 21m
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club 2020-06-12 · 21m
Cautionary Tales Presents: TED Talk Daily 2020-01-31 · 18m
You Have Reached Your Destination 2019-12-27 · 33m
Bowie, Jazz and the Unplayable Piano 2019-12-20 · 31m
How Britain Invented, Then Ignored, Blitzkrieg 2019-12-13 · 36m
Buried by the Wall Street Crash 2019-12-06 · 36m
The Deadly Airship Race 2019-11-29 · 38m
La La Land: Galileo's Warning 2019-11-22 · 31m
The Rogue Dressed as a Captain 2019-11-15 · 33m
DANGER: Rocks Ahead! 2019-11-15 · 35m
Introducing: Cautionary Tales 2019-10-22 · 3m
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