talk normal

I was walking through London St Pancras Station Monday lunchtime, and I thought: “That sounds like Tim Harford, the guy who presents More or Less on the radio”. This thought is not as weird as it seems. I listen to the podcast, and occasionally steal his ideas. I like him because I have an exaggerated respect for economists who talk like ordinary people, having met far too many of the other type.

By chance I was passing at exactly the right time to hear him record his new programme, Pop-up Economics, in which he stands up in front of people and tells them stories about economics. The first episode is on Radio 4 tonight. Here’s a really bad picture I took on my phone. It proves I was there, but not much else:

A bit of Tim Harford’s head. Look, there were a lot of people there, ok?

He performed two stories, apparently from memory, of about 10 minutes each. I’m not going to tell you about them, because they were excellent – so it’s better if you listen to them on the radio (I think this show will be broadcast on 23 January, but you can listen to it on iPlayer afterwards). I can reveal that the first story covered the best way to match kidney donors to people who need a kidney, and the second one was about Full Tilt Poker. As someone who teaches people to tell stories, has an interest in economics, and who plays poker at Full Tilt, I couldn’t have been happier to hear what he had to say – unless I was suffering from kidney failure, I suppose.