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

So it's still a thing, but maybe not the thing that people imagined in the 1920s. voice-verified

Yes, my grandma told me once, after I'd come back from some spectacular trip somewhere, and she said, well, that's all very impressive, Tim, but I've seen something you've never seen. voice-verified

And I said, well, what's that, grandma? voice-verified

And she said, the Zeppelin coming up the Thames. voice-verified

And she must have been three or four. voice-verified

She was a very young girl. voice-verified

You'd remember. voice-verified

And it wasn't clear, actually, whether it was during the First World War or somewhat after the First World War. voice-verified

But the Zeppelins were weapons of war, not very effective weapons of war, but terrifying. voice-verified

I think they would have the same kind of impact as Sputnik. voice-verified

You remember Sputnik coming over America and it's been programmed to beep, beep, beep. voice-verified

The beep does nothing. voice-verified

It's just really scary. voice-verified

The sense that it's up there and there's nothing you can do about it. voice-verified

It has absolutely no military significance whatsoever. voice-verified

But it had a big psychological impact. voice-verified

And the Zeppelins, I mean, yeah, sure, you could drop a few hand grenades out of them, but they were not terribly effective military weapons. voice-verified

But they're useful for spotting. voice-verified

And yes, you see them in operation just as people saw these biplanes in operation. voice-verified

And then they were thinking, okay, where does this go next? voice-verified

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