Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

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Latest Episodes:

Shoes, Booze and the Pursuit of Happiness (Pt 1) Jan 16, 2026

Show notes

They say the company Zappos is harder to get into than Harvard. Zappos may sell shoes, but its mission is to deliver WOW through a fun-focused company culture, making it one of the most coveted places to work in America. At the centre is CEO Tony Hsieh, obsessed with the hunt for happiness and driven by increasingly bold - and strange - ideas about how to find it.

See the show notes at timharford.com

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Liar, Bigamist, Brute: How Isaac Singer Liberated Women Jan 09, 2026

Show notes

The sewing machine was once thought to be an impossible invention. It was such a complicated contraption that it would take more than one inventor, with more than one good idea, to make it work. Each of these inventors, including the notorious Isaac Singer, wanted the credit (and the fortune that came with it) for themselves. And so began the sewing machine war: a mire of backstabbing, stealing and misogyny.

See the show notes at timharford.com

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Fritterin' Away Genius (Classic) Jan 02, 2026

Show notes

Claude Shannon was brilliant. He was the Einstein of computer science... only he loved "fritterin' away" his time building machines to play chess, solve Rubik's cubes and beat the house at roulette.
If Shannon had worked more diligently - instead of juggling, riding a unicycle and abandoning project after project - would he have made an even greater contribution to human knowledge? Maybe... and maybe not. Are restlessness and "fritterin'" important parts of a rich and creative life?
Read more about Tim's work at http://timharford.com/

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Photographing Fairies (Classic) Dec 26, 2025

Show notes

Sherlock Holmes is known for approaching all mysteries with cool logic - and yet when his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle saw photographs taken by two young girls purporting to show real life fairies at play... he unwisely declared them genuine.
How did Elsie and Frances fool so many people with their photography... and why did they keep the hoax going for decades?
For a full list of sources go to timharford.com

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"They fall behind and are slowly crushed" - Board Games and Economics with Richard Garfield Dec 19, 2025

Show notes

Playing board games and spending too much money are time-honored Christmas traditions, so to mark the festive season, Tim is joined by the creator of Magic: The Gathering - Richard Garfield - for a special Q&A about economics and game design.
How should you go about building the perfect game? Why did the Magic trading card market crash? Why do so many people hate Monopoly? Plus, Richard has a bone to pick with Tim about a previous episode of Cautionary Questions.

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Flixborough: The Factory that was Wiped off the Map Dec 12, 2025

Show notes

A megaplant near the small village of Flixborough, England, is busy churning out a key ingredient of nylon 6, a material used in everything from stockings to toothbrushes to electronics. When a reactor vessel fails, the engineers improvise a quick-fix workaround, so the plant can keep up with demand. Before long, the temporary patch - a small, bent pipe - becomes a permanent part of the factory, and the people of Flixborough unknowingly drift towards disaster.
For a full list of sources, see www.timharford.com

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The Disappearance of Grace Oakeshott Dec 05, 2025

Show notes

At the start of the 20th century, Britain was slowly becoming a freer place for women. Young Grace Oakeshott seized every opportunity to learn and improve the world around her - though she found those opportunities frustratingly narrow. One day, she vanished suddenly, leaving behind only a pile of clothes on a beach. A hundred years later, the truth about Grace’s disappearance has finally come to light.

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Your Chance to Attend a Cautionary Tales Table Read Dec 04, 2025

Show notes

Ever wished you could be a fly on the wall while Cautionary Tales is being made? Now you can.

We just launched the Cautionary Club - our new Patreon community for Cautionary Tales fans who want to go deeper. If you sign up before the end of the year, you’ll be a Cautionary Club Founding Member, and you'll be invited to join Tim and the producers in a live table read of an unreleased episode.

This will be a rare chance for you to see how the stories we tell are developed in real time, hear the editorial suggestions, and ask your burning questions about Cautionary Tales. Founding Members will receive an invitation to the table read, which will be held early 2026.

But that’s just the beginning. You’ll also receive:
- two monthly bonus episodes
- a members-only newsletter with sneak peeks of what’s coming up
- behind-the-scenes chats and videos with Tim
- the chance to vote on future episodes
- early information on books and live events
- ad-free listening to the entire archive
and the opportunity to support the creation of the stories we tell on Cautionary Tales.
Join by December 31, 2025 to lock in exclusive perks and be recognised as one of the original members of the Cautionary Club. Sign up at patreon.com/cautionaryclub.

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Homo deceptus: Science's Dirty Little Secret Nov 28, 2025

Show notes

In 1912, a fossil discovery shakes the scientific world. Piltdown Man is the elusive missing link between humans and their ape-like ancestors. Forty years later, a researcher at the Natural History Museum gets a chance to see the relic for himself and notices something isn't quite right.
For a full list of sources see timharford.com

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Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson Nov 21, 2025

Show notes

Misinformation, double-dealing, character assassination - lobbyist Don Pearlman will stop at nothing to prevent the world from agreeing to cut carbon emissions. This arch disrupter, who works for fossil fuel companies and oil-producing nations, is determined that the climate talks in Kyoto, COP3, will fail. Will Don's tactics succeed, and what will it mean for the future of the planet?
Tim is joined by playwright Joe Robertson to discuss Kyoto, the political thriller he and co-writer Joe Murphy based on 1997's international climate negotiations.
Kyoto is currently on stage at the Lincoln Center in New York https://www.lct.org/shows/kyoto/

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