A funny thing happened to me this week. After trusting a dating app to arrange dinner with a suitably vivacious and intelligent lady, I arrived at the restaurant at the appointed time to find that ...

On 26 April 2026, I plan to be on the start line of the London Marathon. I’m in my fifties, I’ve only been running for a few ...

Dick and Mac are content with their lives: they enjoy making burgers by day and stargazing by night. Ray Kroc is a workaholic chasing success at any cost. When the brothers’ folksy ...

Erika McEntarfer can console herself that things could be worse. When the agency she ran, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), produced disappointing employment numbers, Donald Trump gave ...

https://omny.fm/shows/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/playlists/podcast/ https://omny.fm/shows/cautionary-tales-with-tim-harford/true-lies-and-genuine-fakes In 1998 ...

In 1960, FDA scientist Frances Oldham Kelsey is tasked with approving an application for a mild sedative to be sold in America. The drug is popular across Europe and is touted to be free of side ...

In 1923, legendary navigator Captain Dolly Hunter led a squadron of warships into America’s worst peacetime naval catastrophe. The mission was supposed to be a speed trial, a display of the squadron’s ...

Dore and Friedrich make an unconventional couple, united by their contempt for shoes, root vegetables and, above all, society. In 1929 they leave Germany and begin anew on the deserted Galapagos ...

Do you want more Cautionary Tales episodes in your life? Do you want behind the scenes stories and bonus conversations with me? Or do you want to support us in making the show? On behalf of the whole ...

Can a kind word change your life? I know from experience that it can. More than three decades ago, during the summer vacation at the end of my first year at university, I received a handwritten letter ...