Cautionary Tales will be LIVE on stage in London 21 May 2024. Tickets are on sale now.  Sam Israel had a problem. The investors in his hedge fund, Bayou Capital, were expecting spectacular ...

Bonus: When Spanish conquistadors arrived in Peru in 1526, it was the beginning of the end for the Inca. Their bloody pursuit of gold, fame and fortune was rife with treachery and deceit. Within a ...

Earlier this year, two distinguished gentlemen, Judge Hyde and his adviser Julian Stafford, sampled a mineral-enriched flapjack — alas, a year past its sell-by date — and pondered its qualities.

US legislators are eager to ban TikTok. They are missing a bigger question: should they also ban Instagram, Facebook and the network formerly known as Twitter? The obvious answer is “no”, because ...

Why are so many autocrats germaphobes? Why was the truth so dangerous for Soviet engineers? And what can salami reveal to us about the mind of Vladimir Putin? Tim Harford, host of the Cautionary Tales ...

Nicolae Ceaușescu was not beloved. His regime was vicious and he treated Romania as his personal wallet: while Ceaușescu emptied the coffers to construct a vast, ornate palace, his people starved. He ...

Here’s a discovery to bring you up short: unemployment is good for you. Really? Well, no, not really. But a new research paper has found a correlation that points in that direction: more unemployment, ...

Back in October, the headteacher at my son’s school began each assembly by displaying the Premier League table, with Tottenham Hotspur at the top. (My son, a fan of Tottenham’s local rivals Arsenal, ...

The “Wendy’s Dave’s Triple” is a fast-food offering that stacks two possessives and three hamburgers. I am not sure how easy it is to swallow in either regard, but what has really been sticking in ...

US legislators are eager to ban TikTok. They are missing a bigger question: should they also ban Instagram, Facebook and the network formerly known as Twitter? The obvious answer is “no”, because ...