For Want of a Nail
A podcast about small mistakes that lead to big disasters. Disasters, fires, plane crashes, spree killings, institutional breakdowns, murders...let's talk about awful things that didn't have to happen, and the ways in which they should have been prevented.
Podcasting since 2022 • 10 episodes
For Want of a Nail
Latest Episodes
"A most noxious diet.": The Swill Milk Scandal
The young man is tired. His assignment that day had forced him up before the sun, tracking his target back to its resting place. And now that he is here, in this dark part of town with its hulking warehouses and polluted air, he wishes he...
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29:12
"I have just given up.": The tragic deaths of Fiona Pilkington and Francecca Hardwick
The car rolls into the layby, unnoticed in the darkness, and grinds to a halt on the dirt. She is crying at the wheel. Perhaps she knows what she is about to do is wrong, but for her, so far as she can see, there are no more options. This...
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29:45
"Mom, I've done something terrible": The final rampage of Laurie Dann
The young man stands in the sunwashed kitchen, sweat still drying on his skin. He cannot take his eyes from the young woman standing a few feet away, the young woman dressed only in a T-shirt and a plastic garbage bag wrapped around her w...
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Season 1
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Episode 8
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1:34:10
"Men awakened but to die" - The Burning of the Sultana
The engineer of the steamboat hears the crew, shouting and raging once again. His stomach turns as he hears their protests. He knows what the captain will say, and he knows why it is necessary, but he also understands why the crew is so r...
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Season 1
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Episode 7
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56:06
"A tiny little thing": The Rana Plaza Collapse
The young man weeps as he stands at his window. For months his mind has been dominated by the memory of falling masonry, his ears ringing with the screams of the dying, his nose choked by the stench of decomposing flesh. When he closes hi...
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Season 1
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Episode 6
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58:46