Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Pushkin Industries

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"And it went click" - Dawn of the Working Dead

3/13/2026 • 41 min

Robert Propst is more than an inventor: he is a visionary, an innovator dreaming up how to make the perfect office workstation. When he reveals his bold design for a creative, flexible 'cockpit of tomorrow', he comes into conflict with the unyielding push for workplace efficiency. This clash of ideals will go on to shape our working lives forever. For a full li… Play episode

Explosives or Sugar? The Deadly Art of Distraction in Putin’s Russia - wit…
Flight of the Fantasist: The Race Around the World - Part 2
The Philosopher and the Handyman: The Race Around the World - Part 1
Presenting... American Criminal: The Great McDonald's Monopoly Heist
Sphygmograph Be Damned: The Science of Love
The Angels, The Stones and The Dead
Powered by Orgasm: The Rise and Fall of a Sex Cult - with Ellen Huet
The WOW Machine Stops (Pt 2)
Shoes, Booze and the Pursuit of Happiness (Pt 1)
Liar, Bigamist, Brute: How Isaac Singer Liberated Women
Fritterin' Away Genius (Classic)
Photographing Fairies (Classic)
"They fall behind and are slowly crushed" - Board Games and Economics with…
Flixborough: The Factory that was Wiped off the Map
The Disappearance of Grace Oakeshott
Your Chance to Attend a Cautionary Tales Table Read
Homo deceptus: Science's Dirty Little Secret
Kyoto: The Battle that Defined Climate Politics - with Joe Robertson
Presenting: Twenty Thousand Hertz
The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 2)
The Treasure Hunt that Broke America (Part 1)
The Truth About Hansel and Gretel (Classic)
On Fire from the Inside - Lethal Injection Up Close with Malcolm Gladwell
Derek Bentley Must Hang
The Canal, the Crash and the Ketamine - Pushkin's Reign of Error
Schrödinger's Spy: Businessman, Fraud, or Russian Agent? - with Sam Jones
Missing Fish and Fatal Feasts: Ritual and Ruin at the Sun King’s Table
Don't Panic! Douglas Adams' Guide to Tomorrow - with Arvind Ethan David
A Deadly Day at the Races: What Radical Protest Can and Cannot Do
True Lies and Genuine Fakes
Stalling for Survival - A Lonely Fight Against a Deadly Medicine
Announcing: The Cautionary Club
Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point
Paradise Poisoned: How Utopias Fall Apart
"Genius Still Unrecognised" - The Worst Poet in the World
Office Hell: The Demise of the Playful Workspace (Classic)
Number Fever: How Pepsi Nearly Went Pop (Classic)
Fire at The Beverly Hills Supper Club (Update)
"Captain Kirk Forgot to put the Machine on Stun"
"I get in trouble when I say things like this" - Michael Lewis on Sam Bank…
Grand Theft Automated: How to Save a Trillion Lives
The Man who Solved Kindness
The Shark That Ate Hollywood: Jaws at 50
Le Mans 55: The Deadliest Race
The Nazis, the Bomb, and the Woman that Science Forgot
Give Politicians a Raise, Smuggle Smartphones into School, and go Full Don…
Roosevelt and the Renegade (Panama Disaster 2)
The Great Frenchman's Folly (Panama Disaster 1)
Lab Leak: Could Smallpox Come Back?

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