DOUBLE BILL: A Monkey For Mayor / A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet

Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford

Pushkin Industries

History, Society & Culture

4.7 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2023

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we've twice the storytelling fun for you: two Cautionary Tales shorts, previously only available to Pushkin+ subscribers.

A Monkey for Mayor: It was supposed to be a publicity stunt, but when the man who dressed as Hartlepool United’s monkey mascot stood in a mayoral election... he won. Actual politicians predicted disaster - since thousands of workers and millions of dollars were now in the hands of a complete novice.

But H’Angus the Monkey proved to be a more effective leader than anyone had predicted, raising interesting questions about how we select the best people to be our managers and our mayors.

And

A Screw Loose At 17,000 Feet: Can you tell the difference between an A211-7D bolt and an A211-8C? Well, nor could the tired and stressed engineer fitting a cockpit windshield to Flight 5390. The difference is tiny, but the consequences of muddling them up - which played out at 17,000 ft - were dramatic.

Such design flaws are common - and result in far more loose aircraft windows than you would imagine.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this week I'm sharing with you a double bill, two shorter mini episodes of
0:16.5	cautionary tales, twice the storytelling excitement.
0:20.7	These cautionary tales shorts were previously only available to Pushkin Plus subscribers,
0:26.2	but now everyone can hear them.
0:29.3	A reminder that if you are a Pushkin Plus subscriber, we've released our epic series
0:34.4	on the V2 rocket, looking at this fearsome Nazi weapon from three very different perspectives.
0:41.8	For now and for everyone, I present a screw loose at 17,000 feet, and first, a monkey for mayor.
0:50.4	It's early in the 19th century, and England is at war with Napoleon's France.
1:02.0	Far up the northeast coast of England, a long way from the action,
1:06.2	there's been a shipwreck, so the story goes, and something else that was on the ship has washed
1:12.4	up too. A man? Is it a man? It's like no man I've ever seen.
1:21.6	The people of Hartlepool had never seen a monkey. There was something else that also never seen.
1:28.8	A Frenchman. Could it be a Frenchman come to spy on us? You think? I suppose it could be.
1:36.6	Seize him. If this was indeed a French spy, clearly they would have to hang him.
1:45.1	The countries were at war, but first he deserved a fair trial.
1:54.0	Are you a French spy? What's he saying? I don't know. I don't speak French.
2:06.0	The people of Hartlepool hung the monkey.
2:13.3	I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Portion Retails.
2:36.4	Did this really happen? Did the people of Hartlepool really mistake a monkey for a French spy
2:49.2	during the Napoleonic Wars? Well, that would be telling, wouldn't it? And it doesn't actually matter
2:56.3	for the purposes of our cautionary tale. What we do know from the historical record is that the legend
3:02.7	soon came to be widely believed. People from nearby towns poked found that Hartlepuddians
	...

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