Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Disaster Favours the Daring: Shipwreck at Honda Point

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

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 skill. But it ended in a maritime pile-up, with some destroyers stranded on rocks, others sinking fast, and deadly oil leaking into the Pacific Ocean. How?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me, I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No such thing. Have you ever found yourself talking to someone and the conversation has gone completely flat? Well, you never have to experience that horror again, but talk. Twix the Sheets is filled with fascinating historical nuggets that will make you the most interesting person at any party.

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One historian described his reputation as having the homing instinct of a riverbound salmon. He'd spent years at the Naval Academy teaching other U.S. Navy officers how to navigate. Friendly, easygoing, a little overweight. Captain Hunter was nevertheless a decisive, confident man. This particular mission certainly called for decisiveness. It was 1923. Budgets were tight after post-war demobilization,

and to save money on fuel, U.S. Navy vessels were understanding orders. to travel slowly. But not this time. 14 new warships from Destroyer Squadron 11 had permission to travel fast, from San Francisco to San Diego.

These manoeuvres were designed to test the turbines of the destroyers, checking that they could run at high speed. And they were designed to test the sailors too. Could Squadron 11 keep tight together in formation, following the lead of the flagship with a minimum of radio chat. That was the sort of swift, unfussy manoeuvring that would be called for in war.

The head of Destroyer Squadron 11, Commodore Watson, was on board the flagship, Captain Hunter's ship, USS Delphi. Together they would demonstrate just how skill the sailors of Squadron 11 could be. And so, on the 8th of September, The 14 destroyers left San Francisco, each with about a hundred men on board. They would sithe southeast, hugging the coast of California. They'd pass the prominent Point Arguello with its lighthouse and radio station,

and then turn sharply east into the Santa Barbara Channel between the beaches of Los Angeles and the Channel Islands offshore. You had to turn pretty soon after... passing point Aguello. Wait too long and you'd hit those islands, such as the vicious rocks of the island of San Miguel. They could, of course, swing wide around the outside of the islands, well clear of trouble, but that would take longer, and the whole point of the speed trial was to test Squadron 11 under pressure. Captain Hunter certainly didn't seem worried,

but his young assistant, Lieutenant Larry Blodgett, was. The sea was rough, with strong currents and strong winds. Visibility was poor, but at least there was the radio station at Point Arguello. Radio direction finding was a new technology, and as a young officer, Lieutenant Blodgett, had eagerly learned all about it. Neither fog nor darkness could interfere with those radio beams. It was amazing. Captain Hunter had been an expert navigator

long before radio direction finding had been introduced, and he was less impressed. Radio technology produced a fundamental ambiguity. The radio aerial would identify the shortest line between ship and radio station, but it wouldn't show which direction that line ran in. So if the line was running north-south, that was either a bearing of zero or a bearing of 180 degrees. The ship was either directly north of the station or directly south.

Often that was obvious, sometimes not. At 2.15pm, young Lieutenant Blodgett called for a bearing from Point Arguello station. Delphi, your bearing is 167 degrees. 167 degrees? That was literally impossible. That would mean they'd already passed south of Point Arguello, but in fact they were barely even halfway there. At the speed they were going, it was about 12 hours. from San Francisco to Point Arguello. They'd only been at sea for six.

Tell Point Arguello to give us the reciprocal bearing, said Captain Hunter. We're to their north. Of course, Captain Hunter could easily have calculated the reciprocal bearing himself, so this was a passive-aggressive request. He was making a point to blodge it. This newfangled radio technology

can't even tell north from south. No, forget the radio. Best to trust in traditional methods. And to the skill of perhaps the best navigator in the US Navy. That navigator, in the opinion of many sailors, including Captain Hunter, was Captain Hunter. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. Sailors would tell stories about Dolly Hunter's prowess as a navigator. Once he'd guided a huge battleship, the USS Idaho,

Up, cook straight, and into anchorage, in the middle of a fog so thick you could have walked on it. He hadn't needed radio technology then, and he planned to do things the old-fashioned way now, steaming down the California coastline on the flagship USS Delphi with 13 other warships following his lead. But a lot of the old-fashioned options weren't available to California. Captain Hunter. The thickening haze made it impossible to take bearings from the sun. Nor could they mark the lighthouses as they passed them. Pigeon Point, Point Seur, Point Piedras Blancas, point Aguello. Anyone who frequented the seas off California would have those names

memorized as surely as the alphabet, but the lighthouses were little use. After Pigeon Point, they were swallowed up in a coastal fog. Another time-tested option was to take a sounding, dangling a knotted rope from a ship until it dragged on the bottom, telling them how deep the water was, and therefore how close they were to land. But that meant slowing down. And this was a speed trial.

They weren't about to slow down. Which left just one option. Figure out how fast you're going and for how long, and in what direction, making adjustments for wind and waves and currents, the technique of dead reckoning. Not easy. So, young Lieutenant Blodgett was worried. The sea was rough, with strong currents and strong winds.

That made it hard to be sure exactly how fast they were travelling. USS Delphi's gyro compass wasn't working, which meant that they were relying on the less accurate, magnetic compass. That made their direction finding less precise. The Santa Barbara Channel was just 23 miles wide, plenty in broad daylight, but a narrow target if you've been travelling on dead reckoning

at about 25 miles an hour from dawn until nightfall. Turn too early and you hit Point Arguello. Too late, you smash into San Miguel Island. But Captain Hunter wasn't worried. He was a master of dead reckoning. It had steered him into the fog-bound harbour at Anchorage. It would see him safely into the Santa Barbara Channel. As the fog thickened and the sun began to set,

some of the captains of the other destroyers started to wander if it might be wise to change plans. Me, I like to do things the easy way, mused one captain. I'd head out past San Miguel into the clear. The channel with all its traffic and fishing boats is sure no place for a speed run at night and in a fog. But it wasn't up to him. Commodore Watson's orders were that everyone should follow Captain Hunter

and the USS Delphi. Some fools might run aground on San Miguel Island, but Dolly Hunter wasn't one of them. A week earlier, Tokyo had been devastated by a catastrophic earthquake. It caused landslides, building collapse. widespread fires and the deaths of more than a hundred thousand people. And its effects rippled across the Pacific Ocean, setting up unusual currents. Hunter couldn't have known the exact effects of the earthquake

on the way the very ocean under his keel was moving, but he would have known that the sea was choppy, with huge swells from behind the boats, lifting their sterns so high The propellers raced as the screws broached the surface. The holes of the destroyers vibrating as they did. That might slow them down. In the churning seas, the ships were yawing left and right, left and right,

requiring constant corrections from the steersmen. That might slow them too. And again, the wind and the sea were behind them, pushing them forward faster. The squadron commander, Watson, was aboard the flagship USS Delphi with Captain Hunter. In the vessel's chart room, the two men pondered the matter, examining the charts carefully. I feel we have two factories in our favour, Watson announced. The wind and sea are pushing us along, and we have a slight assist from the Japanese current. Captain Hunter agreed.

Right, sir, that will take care of everything. any loss of speed due to bad steering or even some racing of the screws. So that was that then. Some of the conditions would slow them down. Others would speed them up. It would all come out the same in the end. Wouldn't it? Cautionary tales will be back after the break.

Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. listen to podcasts, then ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think IHart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Call 844-4-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane. Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane

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the history of sex scandal in society, wherever it is, you get your podcasts. A podcast by History Hit. As the warships of Destroyer Squadron 11 steamed southward towards Point Arguello, all closely following Captain Hunter, news came through on the radio. Another US Navy ship, not travelling with them,

had encountered lifeboats near the Santa Barbara Channel. They turned out to be from a single, civilian steamer, S.S. Cuba. It had run aground in the fog on San Miguel Island. The news of the wreck of SS Cuba provoked an argument over the radio amongst the leadership of Destroyer Squadron 11. Commander Walter Roper, in charge of one of the warships that was following in formation, requested permission to peel away from the others and join in with the rescue of SS Cuba's passengers and crew. Commodore Watson wouldn't have any of it.

Absolutely not. There was already one US Navy ship on the scene. That would be quite sufficient. Roper, a pugnacious character, robustly repeated his request. Watson robustly refused. With every other captain in the squadron listening in, the two men argued for a while

before Roper accepted his commanding officer's authority and went off to sulk. No such unpleasantness between Captain Hunter and Commodore Watson, the two men seemed to be in complete agreement, reassuring each other that there was nothing really to worry about. Some fools might run aground on San Miguel Island, like SS Cuba, but Dolly Hunter wasn't one of them. Then the most junior man in the room piped up. Lieutenant Blodgett reported that he'd requested another bearing from the radio station at Point Arguello. But the fog was so bad that lots of other ships were asking for bearings too. The radio station had a backlog, so they'd have to wait

their turn, and who knows how long that might be. uh sir perhaps we should stop and take a sounding we would then know with much greater certainty just how far we are from the coast hunter wasn't a fool he understood that perfectly well he also understood that it would mean stopping the speed trial i can't see that's necessary and we'd have to break radio silence with the other ships and stop this whole parade Hunter then turned to the squadron commander Commodore Watson Surely he asked the Commodore didn't want to stop No indeed Not all everything is going so well

Through the fog and the darkness Squadron 11 plunged on By half past eight that evening Captain Hunter reckoned they were passed Point Arguello, and steaming southeast towards the island of San Miguel. Before long, they should swing left to the east, into the Santa Barbara Channel. Best not to leave it too late. Then the bearing came through from the Point Arguello radio station. 330 degrees. Captain Hunter didn't bother to disguise his contempt. That That amateur radio man at Point Arguello had given them the opposite bearing again.

Tell the station that we are well south of Point Arguello. They are to give us the reciprocal bearing. God, I wish they would get these things straight. San Miguel Island must be looming ahead by now, and Hunter wasn't about to make the same mistake as the unfortunate captain of SS Cuba. It was time to make that sharp left turn before they smashed straight into it. USS Delphi sounded two blasts on her whistle to signal the turn, then gracefully arced left.

In unison, the rest of the squadron followed. They were travelling at 20 knots, nearly 25 miles an hour, or 11 yards a second, and in close formation. Each ship's prow was less than 150 yards. behind the stern of the ship in front of it, or at the pace they were travelling, 13 seconds. The lookout for Delphi, and therefore for the entire column of ships, was a young sailor named John Morrow. He was standing directly in front of the steering wheel,

gazing out of an open window, feet apart to keep his balance. he strained to see ahead of him, scanning the dark waters for signs of danger. The seconds ticked, past. With each one, USS Delphi bucked and sliced another 11 yards through the rough waves. In 15 minutes, there'd be in the calmer, more protected waters of the Santa Barbara Channel.

Captain Hunter, looking back, could see the lights of the other ships strung out behind him in a curve. Despite the haze, he reckoned he could still see a mile or so to the ships at the back. But then, suddenly, the lights behind Captain Hunter were gone.

The fog was so thick he could see nothing. Ensign Morrow peered out. He also could see nothing. This fog was as thick as that time, Captain Hunter had guided USS Idaho into Anchorage. Pea soup, he said, raising an eyebrow. He wasn't afraid. And then the whisper of a gentle rasp against the hull. The sound, perhaps, of Delphi brushing a sandbank. And then too quick for anyone to respond, a shuddering sequence of crunching

bumps, followed by the all-engulfing smash of the ship hitting solid rock at 20 knots, and stopping dead. Dolly Hunter, Larry Blodgett, and every other man on the bridge was hurled forward at more than 20 miles an hour, hitting the unforgiving bulkhead and slumping to the floor. Hunter regained command before he regained. gained his feet, barking out orders, stop the engines, switch on the breakdown lights, sound the danger signal, four blasts, get down below and forward and survey the damage. And then, something awful looming out of the mist and the darkness was a massive, jagged black rock towering over the stricken ship. Oh God, they must have hit San Miguel after all.

and USS S.P. Lee was 13 seconds behind them. Sailors on S.P. Lee had seen the lights on Delphi simply vanish. A few seconds later, S.P. Lee plunged into the fog bank. And a few seconds after that, what? Alfie's lights suddenly rushing towards them? The captain of S.P. Lee immediately ordered full speed astern and a sharp left turn. The ship wobbled, slipped sideways, propellers thrashing in full reverse, trying to slow the ship as the bow swung around from facing east to facing north.

S.P. Lee missed Delphi by a whisker, but was then carried by its own momentum sideways onto the rocks by the rocks, towering cliffs. Stranded, S.P. Lee's hull began to rock backwards and forwards on sharp blades of rock as the breakers toyed with a once proud destroyer. And 13 seconds behind USS S.P. Lee

was USS Young. The crew on USS Young had no warning of danger. Like a water skier mounting a ramp, the ship rose out of the water and plunged back again without even slowing down.

The hull had been pushed up by a submerged reef and sliced open. The ship listed to starboard and began to sink. Within seconds, the engine room was under 15 feet of water and every light on USS Young

went out. 13 seconds behind USS Young was USS Woodbury. Perhaps the seeds of the disaster had been sown years before in Alaska, when Dolly Hunter had guided the huge USS Idaho through a pea-soup fog, safely up the Cook Strait and into Anchorage. Perhaps it was at that point that it was, His reputation for brilliant navigation had been settled, both with his peers and in his own increasingly confident opinion.

And perhaps, as well as being skilled, Dolly Hunter had been lucky. The truth is that most people who achieve great success have done so through a mix of skill, boldness and good fortune. A less skillful navigator might. might have run USS Idaho a ground in the Cook Strait, and a more cautious one would never have attempted the risky feat in the first place. But it's most likely that Dolly Hunter was not only bold and skillful, but lucky. And the thing about luck is that it doesn't necessarily last.

Hunter was unlucky on the speed run from San Francisco to San Diego, unlucky with the strange currents, unlucky with the broken gyroscopic compass, and unlucky with the fog. But none of these pieces of bad luck should have surprised him. He knew the seas were unsettled. The compass was broken, and the fog was thick. And yet he pressed on with his plan.

Why? Part of the story is that the story is that, that Hunter's own reputation betrayed him. The squadron commander, Commodore Watson, was right there on his shoulder and could have ordered him to slow down and take soundings. He didn't. It seems that Hunter felt unable to abandon the plan for a speed run

while Watson was watching, and Watson was in awe of his own subordinate, since Hunter had such a brilliant reputation as a navigator. Perhaps without realizing it, the two men egged each other on. Hunter felt infallible because Watson believed in him, and Watson felt infallible because he had Hunter on his team. But shouldn't someone else have raised the alarm? Larry Blodgett did, but nobody paid attention to a junior navigator.

But there was another man, a senior officer who had his doubts. That was Commander Walter Roper, further back in the convoy. His navigators had overheard on the radio the last bearing given to Captain Hunter, 330 degrees. But unlike Captain Hunter, they hadn't contemptuously dismissed this bearing as obviously wrong. What if it was right? That would mean they hadn't yet passed Point Aguello. And if they turned left now, they were. wouldn't be heading safely into the Santa Barbara Channel,

they'd be heading straight towards the rocks just north of Point Aguello itself. The navigators raised their concerns with Commander Roper. He took that warning seriously enough to order his own ship to move to a slightly safer course, no longer directly behind the flagship. All right, if you're afraid, get over to the right. But that was all. Oprah didn't feel able to share his misgivings with the men on the flagship, Hunter and Watson.

Why not? We know exactly why not, because Watson had shouted him down earlier that day on an open radio band with every other ship listening. He wasn't going to stick his chin out a second time. Hunter's overconfidence, Watson and Hunter giving each other false reassurance. and Roper in a sulk all played their part but there was another reason Dolly Hunter lost his bearings we'll get to that

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IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart.

Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this. Attention passengers. The pilot is. is having an emergency, and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane.

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Do this, pull that, turn this. It's just, I can do my eyes close. I'm Manny. I'm Noah. This is Devon.

And on our new show, no such thing. We get to the bottom of questions like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence. Those who lack expertise lack the expertise they need to recognize that they lack expertise. And then, as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what?

Oh, that's the run right. I'm looking at this thing. See? Listen to no such thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever found yourself talking to someone and the conversation has gone completely flat? Well, you never have to experience.

that horror again. But Twix the Sheets is filled with fascinating historical nuggets that will make you the most interesting person at any party. You'll learn about medieval chastity belts, how people smell in the past, and whether or not famous Lotharios deserve their reputations. It's a podcast with all the best bits from history, which will make you understand the present day in a whole new way. Listen to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex scandal and society, wherever it is you get your Podcasts, a podcast by History Hit. On the bridge of USS Woodbury, the mood was uneasy. They were closely following Delphi, S.P. Lee and Young.

But visibility was terrible, and the lookout was worried that he hadn't seen the lighthouse on Point Arguello. Then the lookout had a more urgent problem to report. Sir, I've lost sight of Delphi. S.P. Lee has sheared out to port, and Young has stopped. As they looked, USS Young's lights blinked out. The ship was 150 yards ahead, and Woodbury was closing at 11 yards a second. Woodbury sheared right to avoid it, and instead hit that submerged rock.

Behind Woodbury, a hidden rock took out the propeller on USS Nicholas. It wallowed, turned helplessly and wedged tight on yet more of those unforgiving rocks. Behind Nicholas, USS Farragut just managed to slow to a halt in time. My God, they're all the ground. All back emergency. But as Farragut changed. Churned backwards, the sudden reversal of the engines temporarily robbed the ship's generator of power. Every light on Farragut blinked out, which meant the onrushing USS Fuller couldn't see it. Fuller charged out of the fog and side-swiped Farragut.

Still, the destroyers kept steaming in, USS Summers smashed a propeller on a hidden reef. USS Chauncey plowed right into the upturned propeller blades of the sinking USS Young. The blades ripped through Chauncey's hull as though it were made of tinfoil, slicing open the wall of the engine room and promptly cutting all power. Chauncey gently drifted onto the rocks and came to rest on a ledge close to the cliffs. Then there was USS Kennedy under the command of Walter Roper who, remember, had suspected that Captain Hunter might be lost

and decided to move his ship to the right and not to chase the convoy too closely. USS Kennedy and all the ships behind steered clear of the rocks without any problem. Two ships were badly damaged but mobile, and seven were completely stranded. Some of them, like Woodbury, were stuck firmly on the rocks, in no immediate danger of sinking. Others, like USS Young, were sinking fast. Young had had its belly sliced open by a reef.

Within half a minute it was at a 45-degree angle, the starboard side of the side of the ship was underwater. Make for the port side. The orders were passed around. Stick with the ship. Do not jump. One by one, the sailors crawled up onto the upturned side of the doomed ship, a treacherous, slippery refuge from the waves, well on its way to becoming horizontal.

They huddled together in the cold and the darkness. Then came a light. Shining from Woodbury, the men looked around. They were only now a foot or so above the churning water. Breakers were surging over the slippery side of the ship, and it was just a matter of time before they were swept into the phone. The psychologist, Gary Klein, tells a story about a time. time his wife complained that her front door key was sticking. My key works fine, Gary said.

Your key must be bad. So Gary Klein went to the hardware store to cut a copy of his key. Hmm. The copy got stuck too. The key cutting machine must be faulty. Klein went to a different store and cut a second copy. Hmm. That got stuck too. Finally, he tried his own key and actually paid attention. Funny thing, it was pretty sticky too. It failed to notice how the lock had slowly become more fussy and that he'd adapted to that fussiness over time, shrugging it off. Now they had four keys and all of them tended to stick.

Gary Klein got some lubricant, oiled the lock, and found that all four keys now worked fine. It's a trivial little illustration of an idea Klein calls garden path thinking. In the old idiom, when you fool somebody, you lead them down the garden path. But Gary Klein, it led himself down the garden path.

He began by overlooking something, the fact that his own key was also sticky. Then from a faulty premise, he went further and further along the wrong course of action. Captain Donald Dolly Hunter, one of the finest navigators in the US Navy, led himself down the garden path too, which is how he also led nine destroyers onto the rocks. First, there'd been that bearing from the radio station that was obviously back to front, the one that had put them south of Point Arguello when they'd been six hours north.

Just as Gary Klein fixated on the thought that the keys were bad, Hunter got it into his head that the radio bearings were backwards. When the next bearing told him he was still north of Point Arguello, he took it as confirming his view that he was. actually south. Then there was his fixation on not going too far south. The news of SS Cuba having run aground on the island of San Miguel reinforced that particular risk in Hunter's mind,

the risk of waiting too long before turning into the channel and hitting the island. Just as it didn't occur to Gary Klein that the lock might be the problem. It didn't occur to Captain Hunter that he might be turning too. early and smashing straight into the mainland instead. In the light being shone from USS Woodbury, one of the sailors stranded on the slippery side of USS Young found a fire axe. Officer Arthur Pete Peterson crawled along the slippery side of the ship.

Using the axe to smash out the thick glass of the portholes one by one, his idea was to provide handholds, and the other sailors didn't need that spelling out of them. They scrambled to grab netting that could be strung between them and the portholes, to give them some purchase on their treacherous platform. The young wasn't the only ship that was sinking, and the calamity was about to reach its final act, the desperate attempt to get to.

get as many sailors as possible, off their stricken ships and on to dry land. It was dark and foggy. Many of the men were barefoot, having been thrown out of their bunks by the force of the impact. The sea was churning violently and was thick with leaking oil. The volcanic rocks themselves were sharp enough to slice flesh. some of the acts of heroism that night defy belief with men diving into the foaming sea or braving the rocks in tiny lifeboats

all in the hope of carrying lines from their sinking ships to the safety of the shore or pulling their friends unconscious and covered with oil out of the foam and carefully carrying them over the rocky blades over the hours that followed 800 men helped each other off the ships, into lifeboats, or hand over hand along ropes,

and up the cruel rocks of the cliffs, feeling out a pathway in the darkness until they reached the flat cliff top. It was only in the morning. that they could take a roll call. 23 men were missing and would later be declared dead. 200 more were seriously injured,

burned or cruelly cut by the rocks. And it was only in the morning that the survivors could see how narrow was the pathway to safety that many had walked in the darkness, a natural arch of rock leading to that flat cliff top, just three feet wide,

and 30 yards down into the churning surf below, they hadn't realised that one false step would have been fatal. The death toll would surely have been worse, were it not for one stroke of luck. The drifting USS Chauncy finally came to rest just 25 yards away from the stricken USS Young. for the sailors clinging onto nets and portholes on the slippery side of young this meant a hope of rescue the crew of chauncey could lower them a rope

one sailor began to sing and as the waves broke around them the whole surviving crew of young joined in to the tune of yes we have no bananas they sang as one Oh yes, we have no destroyers. We have no destroyers today. As for Captain Hunter, it was another sound that made the master navigator realize finally where he was. As he stood shivering on the shore, he heard the whistle of a train.

There are no trains on San Miguel Island, but there is a track running right past the radio station at Point Arguello. Detailed source on the disaster is tragedy at Honda by Admiral Charles Lockwood and H.C. Adamson. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at Tim Harford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilley.

It's produced by Alice Fines and Marilynne Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Ben Nadaphaffi edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Melanie Guthridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hempbra, Sarah Jop, Masea Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Keir Raposy and Owen Miller.

Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardor Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. and if you want to hear the show ad-free, sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus. rules so confusing.

You got a hood of you. I'll take it off. I'm Mani. I'm Noah. This is Devin. And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called No Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming? I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule was the same, go off on me. I deserve it. You know, lock him up. Listen to No Such Thing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No Such Thing. on yourself talking to someone and the conversation has gone completely flat. Well, you never have to experience that horror again, but Twix the Sheets is filled with fascinating

historical nuggets that will make you the most interesting person at any party. You'll learn about medieval chastity belts, how people smell in the past, and whether or not famous Lotharios deserve their reputations. It's a podcast with all the best bits from history, which will make you understand the present day in a whole new way. Listen to Betwixt the Sheets, the History of Sex Scandal and Society, wherever it is, you get your podcasts. A podcast by History Hit. This is an IHeart podcast.