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.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

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

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

And he wrote a book about this competition. voice-verified

But there's one moment he describes where he went to visit the Royal Airship Works shortly before these things are due to take off. voice-verified

And some of the team on the R100 basically say, come here, we want to show you something. voice-verified

Don't tell anybody this. voice-verified

And they beckon him into an office and they pull out a desk drawer and they give him a piece of paper. voice-verified

It looks like a piece of paper. voice-verified

It's silvery. voice-verified

And he picks it up and it just crumbles in his hands. voice-verified

And he recognizes the silver. voice-verified

This is the color of the R101. voice-verified

And he says, where did this come from? voice-verified

They said, this is the R101. voice-verified

It's falling apart. voice-verified

It's falling apart because they tried to protect it with a lacquer and the lacquer had kind of destroyed. voice-verified

There was a glue and the glue and the lacquer had not interacted properly and the whole thing was falling apart. voice-verified

And it was all, they were trying to patch it up, but they wouldn't say anything to their superiors. voice-verified

And Neville Shute later asked himself, was that a cry for help? voice-verified

Were they asking me to say something? voice-verified

Do something. voice-verified

But he didn't do anything. voice-verified

Showing 261–280 of 476 · page 14 of 24