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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”) 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.

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

It's 1990. A new company called General Magic is going to build its vision of the future: the smart phone. They have talent, almost unlimited cash, and a 15 year head start on the iPhone. What could go wrong? 
 
This episode was based, with permission, on David Epstein's book Inside the Box: How Constraints Make us Better. For a list of sources, see the show notes.
 
Join our Cautionary Club to get episodes ad-free, hear bonus interviews and get an extra Cautionary Tale every month.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Talent, Time and Money: The Curse of General Magic

Evel Knievel, the world-famous daredevil, is planning his greatest ever stunt. In 1974, he wants to leap over Snake River Canyon in Idaho. The chasm is almost a third of a mile wide, much bigger than any jump he's done before. To make it work, he'll need a custom-made rocket-powered "Skycycle," TV camera crews and - most importantly - a very positive attitude. 
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.
 
Join our Cautionary Club to get episodes ad-free, hear bonus interviews and get an extra Cautionary Tale every month.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Evel Knievel Faces the Abyss

In 1942, eight men are sent from Nazi Germany to infiltrate America. Their mission: to sabotage critical infrastructure. Their problem: they're idiots. Operation Pastorius soon devolves into one of the most baffling failures of World War II.
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dumm und Dümmer: Hitler Invades Florida

This is a special crossover episode with Business History.
 
John DeLorean was a visionary who wanted to create a futuristic new sports car - a stainless steel marvel with distinctive gull-wing doors. The British Government agreed to finance the project, provided he built his factory in a troubled part of Northern Ireland. Production stumbled, sales fizzled and DeLorean liked to fiddle with the numbers. As the company approached ruin, a neighbour offered DeLorean a lifeline, if he'd only come in on a cocaine deal. 
 
See the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The DeLorean Saga: Fraud, Drugs and Marty McFly's Car - with Business History

How does a story on Cautionary Tales come to life? In this episode of our subscriber-exclusive series, Proceed with Caution, sound designer Pascal Wyse shows Tim how the audio magic happens. He explains how he picks the music in an episode, why it's best to avoid 'Mickey Mousing', and how to sound design some of the stranger moments of Cautionary Tales.
 
To subscribe to the Cautionary Club and hear more like this, go to patreon.com/cautionaryclub.
 
Dumm und Dümmer : Hitler Invades Florida is available now on Patreon, or will be released on this feed on August 28th. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Proceed with Caution - Pascal's Guide to Podcasts

Talented and beautiful, Molly O'Day is a rising star in 1920s Hollywood. But when Molly's teenage body starts to change and she can no longer fit into the dress she wore when she was 16, the studio wants nothing to do with her. As the scripts dry up and the money runs out, Molly faces a difficult but painfully familiar choice. 
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Weight of Fame: A Hollywood Tragedy

Mary Bateman lived in Yorkshire in the late 18th Century, an age that prized rational thought. Many people still longed to believe in the old ways and Bateman used this to her advantage, selling spells and enchantments to the desperate. Dr Maddy Pelling, co-host of the After Dark podcast and author of Hoax: Truth and Lies in the Age of Enlightenment, joins Tim to tell the tale of the villainous Yorkshire Witch, and just how far she was willing to go. 
 
For the sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Arsenic and Lace: The Trial of the Yorkshire Witch - with Maddy Pelling

The Herald of Free Enterprise is a new class of ferry that allows cars to drive directly into the ship. The doors must be closed before every departure, or the ship sails with a gaping hole at one end. One black night in 1987, on the freezing waters off Zebrugge, Belgium, a single crew member falls asleep at the worst possible time. 
 
For the sources, see the show notes at timharford.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Doors of Death: The Herald of Free Enterprise

Windscale is supposed to be Britain's big leap into the nuclear age, bringing science fiction to life in 1950s Northern England. But in the race to catch up with America's nuclear program, scientists are tinkering with forces they don't fully understand. When the reactor catches fire, no-one knows how bad it could be, or how to put it out. As the reactor workers scramble to save lives, other eyes on Windscale are much more concerned with containing the political fallout and burying the truth. 
 
See the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"What a Bloody Mess we're in" - Britain's [REDACTED] Accident

If you tuned in to late-night WOR radio in 1950s New York, you'd enter the secret world of Jean Shepherd. Shepherd's nonconformist style, off-beat humor and love of pranks gathered a small but loyal following. These "Night People" loved being in on the joke, while the oblivious "Day People" were often the butt of it. Shepherd's show is long gone, but his spirit lives on in corners of the internet. Today, though, Night People go by a different name.
 
For a list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Attack of the Night People

William McGonagall's poems are something else. The jarring meter, the banal imagery, the awkward rhymes: they made him a laughing stock in 19th Century Scotland and are still derided to this day. How does someone get that bad at poetry? Or have we been misunderstanding McGonagall all along?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World

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