DOUBLE BILL: When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft/Blood on the Tracks
Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2023
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a special New Year treat we're presenting two Cautionary Tales Shorts - which have previously only been available to paying Apple and Pushkin+ subscribers.
When a Plague Struck World of Warcraft: The makers of WoW wanted to spice up the fantasy computer game by introducing a virtual disease - "Corrupted Blood". It was supposed to be a fun challenge for expert player - but the illness became a pandemic which wiped out villages, cities and then whole realms.
AND
Blood on the Tracks: The signalmen running a busy stretch of railroad on the Scottish border had to adhere to strict rules to prevent crashes - but did those regulations fail to take into account human nature? Despite all the logbooks, alarm bells, levers and regulations, the signalmen didn't seem to notice a packed troop train barrelling towards them.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. |
| 0:07.0 | Hello, Tim Haafard here, and I have a special start to the year for you. |
| 0:13.8 | I've been sitting on some great ideas for gripping cautionary tales. |
| 0:17.5 | Their stories full of exactly the kind of instructive downfalls and disasters I love, |
| 0:22.7 | but I've never quite found the right place to tell them during our normal shows. |
| 0:27.0 | They're cracking yarns that just don't require a full episode to recount. |
| 0:32.1 | That's why I came up with cautionary tales shorts. |
| 0:35.2 | And so far, these bite-sized stories have only been available to pushkin plus subscribers, |
| 0:40.4 | but I'm going to let you hear two of them here back to back. |
| 0:44.2 | The first of our cautionary tales shorts starts in another world. |
| 0:51.3 | Just another day in Azeroth. |
| 0:54.4 | Some citizens are enjoying themselves indulging in the everyday activities that Azeroth has to offer. |
| 1:01.4 | Exploring. |
| 1:03.2 | Accepting quests. |
| 1:05.4 | Trading. |
| 1:06.6 | Hanging out with their pet scorpids and octopus. |
| 1:10.9 | Or getting into fights. |
| 1:13.2 | Living their best lives in a fantasy kingdom. |
| 1:17.6 | But for the mighty heroes, tough enough to enter the unexplored jungle realm of Zul-Gurube. |
| 1:24.7 | The expectation was they would leave a dream. |
| 1:28.6 | And enter a nightmare. |
| 1:31.5 | The domain of the blood god, Haka the Soul Flare. |
... |
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