Tim Harford

speaker

476 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 20 Jul

Tim Harford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal · Britain's Worst Airship Disaster · 20 Jul 2026 podcast

I first came across the story of this amazing airship, the R101, in a book called The World's Greatest Mistakes. voice-verified

I was given this book as a little boy for Christmas and I voice-verified

Absolutely devoured it. voice-verified

And it's full of stories of classic tragedies, the great fire of London, the fall of Singapore, the charge of the light brigade, the sinking of the Titanic, and also some more obscure stories of things going wrong. voice-verified

And lots of little funny episodes such as the time that the bride was accidentally married to the best man and how they undid it. voice-verified

And I love this book. voice-verified

And I think I mentally filed it away for about three and a half decades. voice-verified

And then when the idea came that maybe I should do a podcast, what would I like to do a podcast about? voice-verified

And I said, I would like to do a podcast about... voice-verified

things going wrong, epic and comic and tragic mistakes in history. voice-verified

And also not just the story of the mistakes, but what we can learn from them. voice-verified

And that is what Cautionary Tales is all about. voice-verified

And this one is the very first one that I ever wrote. voice-verified

It is not the first to be broadcast. voice-verified

It's the first one I wrote. voice-verified

It just felt so iconic for me. voice-verified

It's like the Titanic, except you've never heard of it. voice-verified

And in a way, it's even weirder. voice-verified

So between the wars, the 1920s. voice-verified

So people have worked out you can fly. voice-verified

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