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
Liar, Bigamist, Brute: How Isaac Singer Liberated Women (09.01.2026)
Previous Episodes
- Fritterin' Away Genius (Classic)
- Photographing Fairies (Classic)
- "They fall behind and are slowly crushed" - Board Games and Economics with Richard Garfield
- Flixborough: The Factory that was Wiped off the Map
- The Disappearance of Grace Oakeshott
- Your Chance to Attend a Cautionary Tales Table Read
- Homo deceptus: Science's Dirty Little Secret
- Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson
- Presenting: Twenty Thousand Hertz
- The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 2)
- The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 1)
- The Truth About Hansel and Gretel (Classic)
- On Fire from the Inside - Lethal Injection Up Close with Malcolm Gladwell
- Derek Bentley Must Hang
- The Canal, the Crash and the Ketamine - Pushkin's Reign of Error
- 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
Other podcasts
-
Redshirt Cinema Club
-
Art of the Score
-
MID
-
World & Pacific News
-
The Lab Detective | Tortoise Investigates
-
Real Survival Stories
-
Short History Of...
-
Bust or Trust: A Kids' Mystery Podcast
-
20 Minute Books
-
DeGrads
-
Ancient Civilisations
-
The Big Picture
-
Huberman Lab
-
Sex Ed for Tween Parents
-
Where There's A Will, There's A Wake
-
Alien: Earth – The Official Podcast
-
The Curve
-
The Deep by Zoe Marshall
