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Speaker 1: Pushkin. It's a Saturday evening in May twenty eighteen. Across Europe,

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Speaker 1: nearly two hundred million people are watching the same live

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Speaker 1: broadcast on television. The Grand final of the Eurovision Song contest.

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Speaker 1: Eurovision goes back decades. Every year, dozens of countries send

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Speaker 1: a song. Each country appoints a jury of musical experts

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Speaker 1: to judge the other songs, and there's a televote for

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Speaker 1: the viewing public. The jury vote and the televote get

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Speaker 1: turned into points and added together to decide the winner.

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Speaker 1: This year, two countries are generating all the hype longis

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Speaker 1: Cypress have sent a catchy electro pop number performed with

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Speaker 1: hair flicking abandoned by a sultry singer in a sparkly

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Speaker 1: cat suit. Israel have sent a sassy song about female empowerment,

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Speaker 1: featuring Japanese lucky Cat figurines and an impersonation of a chicken.

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Speaker 1: For most people watching, this is lighthearted Saturday night entertainment,

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Speaker 1: but not for one man, and especially not this year.

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Speaker 1: If Cypress wins, Daniel Gould will lose his house. I'm

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Speaker 1: Tim Harford and you're listening to a Eurovision special of

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Speaker 1: cautionary tales In this Cautionary Tale, I want to tell

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Speaker 1: Daniel Gould's story and what a story it is, but

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Speaker 1: I'm going to do things slightly differently because I'm not

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Speaker 1: going to tell it alone. I'm joined in the studio

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Speaker 1: by one of the Cautionary Tales team, Andrew Wright. Andrew

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Speaker 1: Illou's him. Andrew helps me research and write the scripts

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Speaker 1: for these podcasts, and well, normally I sit in front

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Speaker 1: of the microphone by myself and take the glory. But

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Speaker 1: I couldn't keep Andrew out of the spotlight this time

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Speaker 1: because Andrew is a very old friend of our hero

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Speaker 1: Daniel Gould.

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Speaker 2: And you met him yourself to him, remember back in

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Speaker 2: the day.

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Speaker 1: Hey, yep, we were all at college together and you

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Speaker 1: and I were housemates, and I met Daniel because he

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Speaker 1: was a friend of yours. Of course I remember him,

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Speaker 1: although I remember him as Dan. Yeah, I got to

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Speaker 1: know him as Dan as well. A few years later,

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Speaker 1: I noticed he'd started to introduce himself as Daniel. I

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Speaker 1: asked him why, and he said, there's a certain Southern

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Speaker 1: English accent where the name Dan Gould sounds like the

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Speaker 1: word dangled. And as soon as he'd heard this, he

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Speaker 1: couldn't done hear it, and he hated being dangle. Okay, Daniel,

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Speaker 1: it is nobody gets dangled on my podcast without their

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Speaker 1: concer and so I didn't keep in touch with Daniel

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Speaker 1: after college. But I understand that he became a professional gambler.

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Speaker 2: Or not just any professional gambler, tim a professional gambler

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Speaker 2: on the Eurovision Song Contest.

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Speaker 1: Right, So we should probably take a moment to explain

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Speaker 1: just what the Eurovision Song Contest is. Our listeners in

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Speaker 1: Europe will know exactly what it is, but for everyone

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Speaker 1: else it does take some explaining.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. I think here in the UK we've

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Speaker 2: got used to thinking of Eurovision as a bit of

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Speaker 2: a joke. People like to poke fun at the terrible

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Speaker 2: songs and the crazy costumes and the rather elastic definition

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Speaker 2: of Europe. So every year there's an entry from Israel,

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Speaker 2: which is I'm at least close to Europe, and also

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Speaker 2: from Australia.

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Speaker 1: Australia not conventionally regarded as being part of Europe. But

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Speaker 1: I should say that although the British think it's a joke,

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Speaker 1: we do like a joke and I think a lot

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Speaker 1: of Brits like the Eurovision Song Contest as a.

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Speaker 2: Result we do. We enjoy it in a post modern

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Speaker 2: irony kind of way. But there's also this whole community

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Speaker 2: of fans across Europe who embrace Eurovision un ironically as

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Speaker 2: a cultural event that brings diverse people together. And a

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Speaker 2: lot of other countries take it rather more seriously than

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Speaker 2: the UK does. They see doing well in Eurovision as

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Speaker 2: a source of national pride. Eurovision's never been just about

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Speaker 2: the songs. There's always an element of politics to the vote.

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Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, for instance, the contest took place

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Speaker 2: not long after Russia had invaded Ukraine and the song

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Speaker 2: from Ukraine one in a landslide.

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Speaker 1: I'm guessing that wasn't because people really liked Ukraine's song.

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Speaker 2: Now, they did really like Ukraine's song. It was one

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Speaker 2: of the betting favorites even before Russia invaded. And the

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Speaker 2: song's an ode to motherhood in Ukrainian by a folk

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Speaker 2: rap group whose lead singer where as a knitted pink

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Speaker 2: bucket head. Okay, I'm sold impossible not to like Ukraine song.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, and clearly you're right, a lot of people

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Speaker 2: were voting to send a message of solidarity.

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Speaker 1: Now you mentioned that it was one of the betting favorites.

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Speaker 1: And that takes us back to Daniel Gould and the

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Speaker 1: way he made his living by betting on the Eurovision

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Speaker 1: Song contest. So help me out here, because you've always

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Speaker 1: known more about gambling than I have. So there's a

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Speaker 1: betting market on which country is going to win Eurovision.

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Speaker 2: There's all kinds of betting markets on Eurovision. You can

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Speaker 2: bet on who'll win, who'll be in the top four

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Speaker 2: or the top ten, you can bet on will finish last.

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Speaker 2: The UK traditionally competitive there. Some of Daniel's biggest bets

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Speaker 2: were on which countries would qualify for the final from

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Speaker 2: the semifinal.

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Speaker 1: Okay, I meanizing I'm behind the curve is that there

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Speaker 1: are now semi finals and Eurovision.

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Speaker 2: Remember that there are semifinals because they realized they have

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Speaker 2: too many songs to fit them all into one show

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Speaker 2: on a Saturday night. And the very first Eurovision was

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Speaker 2: way back in nineteen fifty six. They had only seven

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Speaker 2: countries in it. It got bigger and bigger, and in

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Speaker 2: two thousand and four the organizers realized they needed to

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Speaker 2: whittle down the countries with a semi final, and that

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Speaker 2: was when Daniel realized that he could make some serious

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Speaker 2: money from Eurovision. He'd always loved it as a fan,

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Speaker 2: and he'd bet small amounts on it for years. But

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Speaker 2: he realized that some countries were practically guaranteed to get

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Speaker 2: enough points to qualify for the final just from the

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Speaker 2: diaspora vote.

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Speaker 1: Why does the diasper matter?

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Speaker 2: So in Eurovision you can't vote for your own country.

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Speaker 2: If I'm in the UK, i can't vote for the UK.

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Speaker 2: But if you're a person of Polish descent who's living

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Speaker 2: in the UK, then you can certainly vote for Poland song.

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Speaker 1: So by looking at historical patterns of migration across Europe,

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Speaker 1: you could anticipate where some countries will get votes from

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Speaker 1: other countries. And if I'm remembering our days at college correctly,

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Speaker 1: Daniels studied history.

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Speaker 2: Right, he did, and he was working at the time

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Speaker 2: as a history teacher. He soon started to wonder if

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Speaker 2: he could quit that job and go full time as

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Speaker 2: a Eurovision gambler.

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Speaker 1: Wait, Eurovision's only one night a year, or the well semifinals,

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Speaker 1: So one night plus the semifinal, So how can betting

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Speaker 1: on Eurovision be a full time job?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's true, but there's a Eurovision season and the

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Speaker 2: Eurovision season lasts for four or five months because a

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Speaker 2: lot of countries hold their own national competitions to choose

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Speaker 2: which song to send, and if you basically live online,

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Speaker 2: you can get ahead of the curve by spotting a

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Speaker 2: good song early. So in two thousand and nine, Daniel

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Speaker 2: was sitting at home on Saturday night watching a live

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Speaker 2: stream of Norwegian television on his laptop as you do,

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Speaker 2: as you do, and they've played a song that was

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Speaker 2: competing to be Norway's entry that year, and Daniel heard

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Speaker 2: it and thought, this is going to do really well.

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Speaker 1: How could he tell?

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Speaker 2: And partly, of course it's intuition, but the singer was Norwegian,

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Speaker 2: but he was born in Belarus, so there's some points

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Speaker 2: from Belarus to start with. The song itself was a

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Speaker 2: kind of fusion of Eastern European folk violin and Western

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Speaker 2: European pop, and it seemed like the kind of thing

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Speaker 2: that would do really well all.

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Speaker 1: Across the continent.

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Speaker 2: So Daniel started to bet on Norway to win Eurovision

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Speaker 2: before Norway had even chosen this song to represent it,

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Speaker 2: and because he'd spotted the song early, the odds were

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Speaker 2: still good sixteen to one.

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Speaker 1: So for every dollar you bet you win sixteen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, Norway one. And Daniel won enough that

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Speaker 2: year to pay off the mortgage on his apartment in London.

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Speaker 2: Very nice, very nice, indeed, and he thought, well, I

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Speaker 2: don't need much money to live on anymore. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to take the plunge. I'm going to quit my day job.

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Speaker 1: So for four or five months of the year he

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Speaker 1: is now living online, watching live streams of Norwegian television

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Speaker 1: or whatever, and is following all the Eurovision news. What's

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Speaker 1: happening the rest of the year.

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Speaker 2: Well, he spent a lot of it traveling. He had

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Speaker 2: friends all over the world and he'd go and stay

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Speaker 2: with them, and he'd go to places he'd never been before.

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Speaker 2: That sounds a nice enough way to live. Yeah, it

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Speaker 2: was a lovely way to live. I think Daniel's the

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Speaker 2: only person I've ever known who lived exactly the lifestyle

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Speaker 2: he wanted to live, but who never had to do

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Speaker 2: anything he didn't enjoy to get the money to fund

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Speaker 2: that lifestyle. How much money are we talking about, Well,

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Speaker 2: Daniel told me that he could get by on twenty

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Speaker 2: thousand pounds a year if he had to. That's about

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Speaker 2: twenty five thousand dollars so not a fortune by any means,

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Speaker 2: But in a typical Eurovision he would win maybe two

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Speaker 2: or three times that.

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Speaker 1: So that's what fifty to eighty thousand dollars. So how

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Speaker 1: much did he have to risk to win that much?

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Speaker 2: Some of Daniel's biggest bets might be something like one

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Speaker 2: hundred thousand pounds on a country to qualify from the

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Speaker 2: Eurovision semifinal, and the odds would be very short on

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Speaker 2: those kind of bets. He might only stand to win

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Speaker 2: about three thousand, but he'd be ninety nine percent confident

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Speaker 2: in the bet coming in.

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Speaker 1: That's more than one hundred thousand dollars at stake. So

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Speaker 1: how did he get that kind of money?

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Speaker 2: Well, every year before Eurovision, Daniel took out a loan

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Speaker 2: secured against the value of his apartment in London, and

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Speaker 2: every year after Eurovision he paid the loan back again.

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Speaker 1: So each year he's putting his home on the line.

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Speaker 1: And some people might raise an eyebrow at that.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it will be different for you or me, Tim,

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Speaker 2: because we've both got kids and we wouldn't like to

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Speaker 2: sit them down and explain to them that we've gambled

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Speaker 2: their home away because we misjudged the popular appeal of

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Speaker 2: a Ukrainian folk rapper in a edited pink bucket hat.

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Speaker 2: But it was different for Daniel. He was a single man.

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Speaker 2: He had no dependence. He wasn't risking anybody's future but

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Speaker 2: his own. How would you find out whether he had

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Speaker 2: one three thousand or lost one hundred thousand? Presumably it's

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Speaker 2: the presenters of the program reading out a list of

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Speaker 2: names of countries that are qualified. Yeah, and with very

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Speaker 2: very long pauses for dramatic effect.

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Speaker 1: I can imagine how can he bear to watch?

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Speaker 2: Well? I asked him that once. He said, what do

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Speaker 2: you mean watch? I'm standing in the corner of the room,

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Speaker 2: facing the wall, bent double and biting my fist. I

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Speaker 2: was always amazed that he got through those nights, because see,

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Speaker 2: I would have had a heart attack.

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Speaker 3: That got the second highest votes.

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Speaker 1: Now, I don't know much about gambling, but I do

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Speaker 1: know a bit about investing, and there is a term

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Speaker 1: of art for this sort of risk in the investment world,

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Speaker 1: where you're putting huge amounts on the line for the

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Speaker 1: near certainty of small rewards. People call it picking up

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Speaker 1: pennies in front of a steamroller, and that sounds very

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Speaker 1: much like what Daniel was doing with some of these

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Speaker 1: Eurovision bets.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's exactly what he was doing. Though he'd always

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Speaker 2: been careful to make sure that no single bet would

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Speaker 2: be big enough to wipe him out if it lost.

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Speaker 2: But then in twenty eighteen he took a bit of

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Speaker 2: a stumble in front of the steamroller.

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Speaker 1: Hold that thought. Cautionary Tales will return. You're listening to

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Speaker 1: a Eurovision special of Cautionary Tales. Our hero is professional

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Speaker 1: gambler Daniel Gould, and one of Daniel's closest friends is

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Speaker 1: Andrew Wright, who writes for Cautionary Tales. Andrew t I

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Speaker 1: met Daniel at college when we were all students. It

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Speaker 1: was when you and he were going to the racetrack together.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Daniel and I became friends as teenagers because we

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Speaker 2: shared an interest in betting on horses. We both learned

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Speaker 2: that there are people who make a living from betting

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Speaker 2: on horses, and we thought this sounded like a great

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Speaker 2: way to live, more fun than working.

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Speaker 1: But unlike him, you didn't become a professional gambler.

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Speaker 3: No.

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Speaker 2: I gave up on that idea very quickly because I

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Speaker 2: met some professional gamblers and I realized that it really

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Speaker 2: is hard work. Those guys put the hours in.

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Speaker 1: It explains it. You never did like hard work.

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to deny that, Tim, But it's not

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Speaker 2: just about the hard work. It's also mindset. I realized

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Speaker 2: that I didn't have the right mindset to be a

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Speaker 2: professional gambler, and Daniel did. But it was only years

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Speaker 2: later that I came across the vocabulary to explain why

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Speaker 2: that was when I read about a project that I

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Speaker 2: know you know very well, Tim, Philip Tetlock's work on

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Speaker 2: super Forecast.

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Speaker 1: Phil Tetlock, Yes, he's a psychologist, wonderful researcher, and we

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Speaker 1: met his work before on Cause Metales. In the episode

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Speaker 1: titled Buried by the Wall Street Crash. Back in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, Tetlock noticed that the world was full of

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Speaker 1: people who were treated as experts in areas such as

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Speaker 1: economics and politics, but they kept forecasting things that didn't happen,

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Speaker 1: and Tetlock asked, what does it even mean to be

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Speaker 1: an expert? He asked these supposed experts to make forecasts

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Speaker 1: on very specific future events, such as election results or

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Speaker 1: whether the stock market would reach a particular level, and

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Speaker 1: they had to put an exact percentage figure on how

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Speaker 1: likely they thought these things were. He held competitions at

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Speaker 1: first for established experts, and later he opened things up

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Speaker 1: to all comers. In fact, he even invited me to

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Speaker 1: join the experiment, and I got his email on April first.

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Speaker 2: I thought it was a joke. You didn't join the experiment, though,

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Speaker 2: did you?

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Speaker 3: Tim?

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Speaker 2: Oh?

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Speaker 1: No, I didn't and too lazy, too cowardly. But I

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Speaker 1: did pay close attention to the research. Tetlock's headline result

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Speaker 1: was very famous. Most high profile pundits do no better

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Speaker 1: than random chants. If you want to know who's going

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Speaker 1: to win an election or a war, you could listen

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Speaker 1: to the talking heads on television, or you could get

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Speaker 1: a chimpanzee to throw a data at a wall. Tellock

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Speaker 1: found that some people did make better than random predictions,

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Speaker 1: and he called them super forecasters.

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Speaker 2: And in his book he talks about how they have

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Speaker 2: a different thinking style. He quotes the philosopher Isaiah Berlin

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Speaker 2: on the two thinking styles foxes and hedgehogs.

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Speaker 1: Yes, which that distinction comes from an old fragment of

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Speaker 1: classical poetry. The fox knows many things. The hedgehog knows

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Speaker 1: one big thing. Tellog later said that the whole Fox's

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Speaker 1: hedgehogs thing was a bit of an oversimplification, but I

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Speaker 1: think it's stuck in people's mind because it's a great

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Speaker 1: way of understanding his meaning. The super forecasters, they're the foxes.

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Speaker 1: They look at many clues from many sources, and these

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Speaker 1: clues often contradict each other. They decide how much weight

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Speaker 1: to give to each clue. They think in probabilities, which

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Speaker 1: doesn't come easily to a lot of people. Hedgehogs are different.

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Speaker 1: They are convinced that there's one big idea that explains everything.

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Speaker 1: Maybe it's Marxism or libertarianism, but whatever it is, they

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Speaker 1: try to make all the clues fit that big idea.

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Speaker 2: When I read Tetlock's book, I realized that a lot

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Speaker 2: of the gamblers I've met in my horse racing days

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Speaker 2: were hedgehogs, although not quite in the way that Tetlock describes.

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Speaker 2: It's not that they have some grand theory of horse racing,

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Speaker 2: but they're convinced there must be a system, if only

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Speaker 2: they could join the dots and figure out what it is.

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Speaker 2: So maybe they'll bet on the favorites in certain kind

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Speaker 2: of race, or maybe they'll bet on certain jockeys at

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Speaker 2: certain courses. But the professional gamblers are all foxes. They

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Speaker 2: understand that there's no system to be found. They understand

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Speaker 2: that there aren't any hidden dots to be joined.

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Speaker 1: And Tetlock makes the point that forecasting isn't just about

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Speaker 1: politics or stock markets, or even horse races or indeed Eurovision.

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Speaker 1: We're all forecasters all the time. Am I going to

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Speaker 1: be happier if I moved to this city? Am I

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Speaker 1: going to be healthier if I go on that diet?

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Speaker 1: When you're forecasting the future, what you're really doing is

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Speaker 1: trying to understand what forces are acting to shape the present.

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Speaker 1: And we all do that so that we can make

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Speaker 1: better decisions. You mentioned health, Tim, and Daniel's story isn't

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Speaker 1: just about gambling. Let me tell you about something that

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Speaker 1: happened to him early in twenty seventeen. This is the

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Speaker 1: year before that tumultuous Eurovision. That's right, Daniel had been

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Speaker 1: on holiday in New York. The day after he got

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Speaker 1: back to London, he had a routine appointment at hospital.

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Speaker 1: A few years earlier, he'd been treated for skin cancer.

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Speaker 1: The doctors removed a mole, and every year since then

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Speaker 1: the dermatologists got him back in to check him over

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Speaker 1: and make sure that there was no sign of it

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Speaker 1: coming back. He'd just been checked over by the dermatologist

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Speaker 1: and got the all clear. He was buttoning up his

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Speaker 1: shirt again when he had a stroke. Wow. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's an astonishing coincidence. If you're going to have a stroke,

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Speaker 1: you want to be in hospital standing in front of

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Speaker 1: a doctor.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. It meant that he got treatment straight away, and

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Speaker 2: that meant that he recovered remarkably quickly, in just a

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Speaker 2: few days. He was fascinated afterwards to look back on

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Speaker 2: how his brain had reconstructed itself. So on the first

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Speaker 2: day his speech was very garbled, and then there came

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Speaker 2: a day when he was almost back to normal, but

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Speaker 2: he just couldn't access parts of his memory. So doctor

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Speaker 2: asked him to count to ten, and he said one, two, three, four, five, six,

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Speaker 2: That number between six and eight, eight nine, ten. Well,

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Speaker 2: he couldn't think of the number seven or the name

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Speaker 2: New York. When the doctor asked where he'd just been

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Speaker 2: on holiday, all he could say was, oh, you know

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Speaker 2: the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps. But that passed,

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Speaker 2: and he then became very anxious to understand why the

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Speaker 2: stroke might have happened, and what he might be able

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Speaker 2: to do to stop it happening again, Because it's just

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Speaker 2: like what you said, Tim, when we're forecasting the future,

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Speaker 2: what we're really doing is trying to understand the present,

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Speaker 2: and we do that so that we can make better

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Speaker 2: decisions to shape the future. But when we looked at

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Speaker 2: the list of risk factors for stroke, none of them

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Speaker 2: really applied to Daniel because he wasn't old, he wasn't obese,

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Speaker 2: he didn't smoke, he didn't drink much.

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Speaker 1: But it'd just been on a long haul flight from

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Speaker 1: the Big Apple the day before the stroke. Said doesn't

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Speaker 1: that explain it?

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Speaker 2: Well, you're thinking of deep vein thrombosis to Tim, And

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Speaker 2: the doctors wondered that too, but no, they couldn't find

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Speaker 2: any evidence for it. The only thing the doctors could

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Speaker 2: think of was that for many years Daniel had been

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Speaker 2: living with HIV and he was still on an old

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Speaker 2: fashioned drug regime, one that raised the risk of blood clots.

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Speaker 2: So they swapped him onto a newer drug and he

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Speaker 2: started to take asprin every day, and he hoped that

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Speaker 2: would be enough to minimize the chance of it happening again.

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Speaker 1: Now in that situation, i'd be worried about lingering effects. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I was very worried about it because the stroke happened

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Speaker 2: soon before Eurovision and Daniel was going to have to

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Speaker 2: do his usual rapid mental arithmetic on odds and probabilities.

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Speaker 2: And this is a man who just briefly lost the

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Speaker 2: ability to say the number seven. So yeah, I was

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Speaker 2: worried what would happen if he wasn't on tiptop mental form.

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Speaker 1: And this was when twenty seventeen, Yeah, the.

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Speaker 2: Twenty seventeen Eurovision Song Contest and tim am I allowed

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Speaker 2: to swear on the podcast.

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Speaker 1: It rather depends on what the word is. Let's find out,

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Speaker 1: go for it.

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Speaker 2: Well, I wanted to introduce you to a term of

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Speaker 2: art from Eurovision betting, and that term is fan wank.

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Speaker 1: This was very good, all right, yes, I'll allow it.

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Speaker 2: Excellent. Well, this was Daniel's word for a song that

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Speaker 2: was really popular with the Eurovision fan community, but that

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Speaker 2: wasn't going to catch on with the wider viewing public,

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Speaker 2: the people that actually vote for the winner, because for

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Speaker 2: most of Eurovision season it's only really the fans who

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Speaker 2: are engaging with the betting, and a lot of people

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Speaker 2: make the mistake of betting on things that they want

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Speaker 2: to happen. Over the years, Daniel had made a lot

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Speaker 2: of money by identifying these fan wank songs and betting

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Speaker 2: against them, betting against them. So, just so I understand

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Speaker 2: that means, say, the odds are sixteen to one, and

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Speaker 2: I'm a fan, so I'm betting a dollar to win

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Speaker 2: sixteen dollars. And then Daniel's on the opposite side of

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Speaker 2: the bet, so he is risking sixteen dollars in the

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Speaker 2: hope of winning one dollar because he thinks that actually,

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Speaker 2: my sixteen to one song has basically no chance. He's

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Speaker 2: picking up the pennies in front of a steamroller again. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that's exactly right. And in twenty seventeen, Daniel thought that

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Speaker 2: the song from Portugal was an example of fan wank.

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Speaker 2: It was a very simple jazz waltz. The fans loved

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Speaker 2: it because they thought it was charming and authentic. Daniel

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Speaker 2: thought that the wider TV viewers would see it as

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Speaker 2: did and dull. You can only really get a sense

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Speaker 2: of what's proven popular when the semi finals are broadcast,

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Speaker 2: And it turned out that Daniel had got it wrong.

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Speaker 2: The wider viewers really did like Portugal song as much

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Speaker 2: as the fans did. So how could he tell that

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Speaker 2: because the song qualified for the final Well, that alone

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Speaker 2: doesn't tell you much, because more songs qualify than not.

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Speaker 2: But there's other data that you can look at to

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Speaker 2: get a sense of which of the songs have caught

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Speaker 2: the attention of the viewing public. You can look at

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Speaker 2: which of them people are listening to on Spotify. You

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00:19:35,530 --> 00:19:37,930
Speaker 2: can look at which of the performances people are rewatching

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Speaker 2: on YouTube. You can look at Google trends. So you

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Speaker 2: were right to worry because Daniel had made a mistake. Well,

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Speaker 2: Daniel had made a mistake, But that doesn't mean I

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Speaker 2: was right to worry because professional gamblers make mistakes all

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Speaker 2: the time, and part of the reason they're professional is

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Speaker 2: that they notice those mistakes quickly and they act quickly

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Speaker 2: to cut their losses and minimize the damage.

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Speaker 1: So minimizing the damage that's for example, it's like buying

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Speaker 1: a share in a company and then the share price falls,

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Speaker 1: so you've lost money. Now, cutting your losses means you

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Speaker 1: anticipate that the share price is going to continue to fall,

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Speaker 1: and you sell before that happens. You lost money, but

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Speaker 1: you could have lost a lot more. Yeah, And psychologically

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Speaker 1: that's really difficult to do. Whether you're an investor or

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Speaker 1: a gambler, the temptation is always to be stubborn, to

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Speaker 1: hold on and hope. Now, Philip Tetlock tells us that

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Speaker 1: foxes are good at changing their minds and hedgehogs aren't,

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Speaker 1: and that's part of the reason why foxes do so well. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I remember in Tetlock's competitions for super forecasters, the ones

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Speaker 1: who did best would be constantly updating their forecasts in

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Speaker 1: response to new information. And sometimes they'd just be tweaking

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Speaker 1: a prediction by a percentage point or two, but sometimes

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Speaker 1: they'd completely reverse their opinion.

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Speaker 2: And Daniel was great at completely reversing opinion when he

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Speaker 2: saw that he had to. So Yeah, he lost money

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Speaker 2: on Portugal, but not too much because he acted quickly

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Speaker 2: to cut his losses, and he made lots of money

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Speaker 2: on most of his other bets that year, so he

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Speaker 2: ended the year with his normal kind of profit to

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Speaker 2: fund another year's travels, which brings us to the following

435
00:21:02,290 --> 00:21:06,050
Speaker 2: year's Eurovision twenty eighteen, the last Eurovision that Daniel ever

436
00:21:06,090 --> 00:21:08,530
Speaker 2: bet on, and this time he made a mistake that

437
00:21:08,570 --> 00:21:12,290
Speaker 2: he couldn't back out of cautionary tales. Will be back

438
00:21:12,290 --> 00:21:23,930
Speaker 2: in a moment. It's the twenty eighteen Eurovision Song Contest

439
00:21:24,290 --> 00:21:26,050
Speaker 2: what we heard about at the start of the show,

440
00:21:26,250 --> 00:21:30,890
Speaker 2: with two songs in contention for the win, Cypress and Israel.

441
00:21:31,450 --> 00:21:34,050
Speaker 2: Andrew Wright is with me in the studio to tell

442
00:21:34,050 --> 00:21:37,690
Speaker 2: the story. All through Eurovision season, Daniel had been very

443
00:21:37,770 --> 00:21:40,330
Speaker 2: keen on the chances of the song from Israel That's

444
00:21:40,370 --> 00:21:43,210
Speaker 2: the sassy female empowerment song with the chicken noises of

445
00:21:43,250 --> 00:21:47,370
Speaker 2: the Japanese lu Fagorinas. He also thought that he'd spotted

446
00:21:47,490 --> 00:21:49,330
Speaker 2: a fan wank in the shape of the song from

447
00:21:49,370 --> 00:21:52,610
Speaker 2: Cyprus Fuey Go that's the sultry singer in the Sparky

448
00:21:52,610 --> 00:21:56,250
Speaker 2: Cat sued. The fans loved Cypress. They thought it was

449
00:21:56,250 --> 00:21:59,850
Speaker 2: a classic euro dance banger. Daniel thought that the wider

450
00:21:59,890 --> 00:22:01,970
Speaker 2: viewing public would think of it as something they'd seen

451
00:22:01,970 --> 00:22:02,930
Speaker 2: a hundred times before.

452
00:22:03,370 --> 00:22:06,370
Speaker 1: So he was betting for Israel and he was betting

453
00:22:06,410 --> 00:22:09,690
Speaker 1: against Cypress winning, just as he'd bet against Portugal the

454
00:22:09,690 --> 00:22:12,170
Speaker 1: previous year. And just like the previous year. When the

455
00:22:12,170 --> 00:22:15,650
Speaker 1: semi final was broadcast, the data from YouTube and Spotify

456
00:22:15,850 --> 00:22:19,370
Speaker 1: showed that people actually did like the song. Yeah, he'd

457
00:22:19,370 --> 00:22:21,610
Speaker 1: got it wrong, But as I said, that happens. The

458
00:22:21,650 --> 00:22:24,490
Speaker 1: trick is to notice your mistake early and act quickly

459
00:22:24,570 --> 00:22:26,930
Speaker 1: to cut your losses. So what went wrong this time?

460
00:22:26,970 --> 00:22:29,290
Speaker 1: Did he stubbornly ignore the data or did did Daniel

461
00:22:29,330 --> 00:22:30,650
Speaker 1: fail to notice what was happening?

462
00:22:30,850 --> 00:22:33,170
Speaker 2: Not at all. No, he saw straight away that there

463
00:22:33,210 --> 00:22:36,530
Speaker 2: was this huge positive reaction to Cyprus, and he immediately

464
00:22:36,570 --> 00:22:39,730
Speaker 2: tried to cut his losses. What happened this time is

465
00:22:39,730 --> 00:22:43,290
Speaker 2: that the markets moved too quickly for him. Fuego really

466
00:22:43,330 --> 00:22:44,050
Speaker 2: caught fire.

467
00:22:44,250 --> 00:22:46,690
Speaker 1: Very nice. So this time it was like he'd bought

468
00:22:46,690 --> 00:22:48,930
Speaker 1: a share, he'd seen the price go down, he'd tried

469
00:22:48,970 --> 00:22:51,530
Speaker 1: to sell the share before he could find a buyer.

470
00:22:51,770 --> 00:22:53,290
Speaker 1: The share price had basically gone to nothing.

471
00:22:53,570 --> 00:22:57,130
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he was left with bigger liabilities on Cyprus

472
00:22:57,170 --> 00:23:00,730
Speaker 2: than he'd ever had on any song before. And if

473
00:23:00,730 --> 00:23:02,890
Speaker 2: you'll forgive me another swear word, let me read you

474
00:23:02,890 --> 00:23:05,090
Speaker 2: the message that he wrote me after that semi final

475
00:23:05,290 --> 00:23:10,570
Speaker 2: It read I'm really rather fucked Andrew probably. So. You see,

476
00:23:10,610 --> 00:23:12,450
Speaker 2: when he'd had these big bets in the past, he'd

477
00:23:12,450 --> 00:23:14,490
Speaker 2: been ninety nine percent sure that they were going to

478
00:23:14,490 --> 00:23:16,970
Speaker 2: come in and this time it was looking really rather

479
00:23:17,130 --> 00:23:19,970
Speaker 2: likely that Cyprus was going to win. And when he'd

480
00:23:19,970 --> 00:23:21,970
Speaker 2: had these big bets in the past, they'd always been

481
00:23:22,050 --> 00:23:24,450
Speaker 2: small enough that he could survive them. This loss would

482
00:23:24,490 --> 00:23:26,290
Speaker 2: be bigger, This loss would be life changing.

483
00:23:26,530 --> 00:23:28,730
Speaker 1: He'd borrow the money against his apartment again.

484
00:23:28,690 --> 00:23:31,970
Speaker 2: That's right, And if Cyprus won Eurovision, he was going

485
00:23:31,970 --> 00:23:34,210
Speaker 2: to have to sell his apartment. He had a few

486
00:23:34,290 --> 00:23:36,450
Speaker 2: days between the semi final and the final to try

487
00:23:36,490 --> 00:23:38,570
Speaker 2: to get used to this idea, but he also still

488
00:23:38,570 --> 00:23:41,250
Speaker 2: had hope that Israel was going to come to his rescue,

489
00:23:41,290 --> 00:23:43,890
Speaker 2: because he'd been convinced all along that the SaaS and

490
00:23:43,890 --> 00:23:45,970
Speaker 2: the chicken noises would be just the kind of thing

491
00:23:46,010 --> 00:23:47,970
Speaker 2: the Saturday night audience would go for. Well.

492
00:23:48,170 --> 00:23:51,570
Speaker 1: From Bellarus, I'm guessing they'd drag out the votes in

493
00:23:51,610 --> 00:23:54,810
Speaker 1: the Eurovision Final, it takes forever to announce the results.

494
00:23:54,850 --> 00:23:57,610
Speaker 2: They go around every single country to ask which of

495
00:23:57,650 --> 00:24:00,850
Speaker 2: the songs that country's expert jury has given their points to.

496
00:24:00,890 --> 00:24:05,570
Speaker 1: The funds go to Cyprus, Cyprus, And at the end of.

497
00:24:05,570 --> 00:24:08,930
Speaker 2: All this, Israel was ahead of Cyprus, but only just.

498
00:24:09,570 --> 00:24:12,450
Speaker 2: But Eurovision voting isn't isn't just long, It's also really complicated.

499
00:24:12,450 --> 00:24:14,610
Speaker 2: At this point, they're still only halfway through. They have

500
00:24:14,690 --> 00:24:17,130
Speaker 2: to add in all of the combined votes from the

501
00:24:17,210 --> 00:24:19,850
Speaker 2: viewers across the continent, and the way they do this

502
00:24:20,130 --> 00:24:22,890
Speaker 2: is in reverse order. So it gets to the point

503
00:24:22,930 --> 00:24:26,210
Speaker 2: where they have only two countries left to announce the

504
00:24:26,210 --> 00:24:30,890
Speaker 2: televote score for Israel and Cyprus, and Daniel is desperately

505
00:24:30,930 --> 00:24:33,170
Speaker 2: hoping that Cyprus is going to be second in this

506
00:24:33,210 --> 00:24:33,610
Speaker 2: one too.

507
00:24:33,650 --> 00:24:41,810
Speaker 3: The country that got the second highest vote with two

508
00:24:41,890 --> 00:24:55,770
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty three points is Cyprus, which means that

509
00:24:56,370 --> 00:24:58,690
Speaker 3: Israel is the winner.

510
00:24:59,050 --> 00:25:01,090
Speaker 1: Israel one. Daniel got away with it.

511
00:25:01,410 --> 00:25:04,610
Speaker 2: I was watching and my heart was pounding. I can't

512
00:25:04,650 --> 00:25:07,810
Speaker 2: imagine how Daniel felt. I sent him a message, when

513
00:25:07,810 --> 00:25:09,530
Speaker 2: you get a moment, let me know your st alive.

514
00:25:09,970 --> 00:25:10,770
Speaker 1: What did he reply?

515
00:25:11,170 --> 00:25:13,930
Speaker 2: Always in the bag? You can imagine the relief He

516
00:25:14,130 --> 00:25:16,130
Speaker 2: kept his apartment, and not only that he'd won a

517
00:25:16,130 --> 00:25:18,370
Speaker 2: lot of money on Israel. It seemed like he was

518
00:25:18,410 --> 00:25:20,450
Speaker 2: set for to go off on his travels and come

519
00:25:20,490 --> 00:25:22,610
Speaker 2: back next year and do it all again. Yes.

520
00:25:23,850 --> 00:25:25,810
Speaker 1: Well, now it's time for us to come clean with listeners,

521
00:25:25,850 --> 00:25:29,330
Speaker 1: because we've been telling Daniel's story as if it was

522
00:25:29,370 --> 00:25:32,050
Speaker 1: all leading up to that big Eurovision moment. But in fact,

523
00:25:32,170 --> 00:25:34,250
Speaker 1: we are going somewhere else with this, aren't we.

524
00:25:34,290 --> 00:25:37,290
Speaker 2: Andrew, I'm afraid we are, because when I sent Daniel

525
00:25:37,330 --> 00:25:40,530
Speaker 2: that joking message, let me know you're still alive, it

526
00:25:40,570 --> 00:25:42,330
Speaker 2: never occurred to me. It would never have occurred to

527
00:25:42,410 --> 00:25:46,050
Speaker 2: him that at this point Daniel still being alive really

528
00:25:46,170 --> 00:25:48,770
Speaker 2: wasn't something we should have been taking for Granted, he

529
00:25:48,890 --> 00:25:50,610
Speaker 2: had only seven months to live.

530
00:25:50,530 --> 00:25:52,730
Speaker 1: But since the stroke his health had been fine.

531
00:25:52,850 --> 00:25:55,170
Speaker 2: It had a bit later in the year, just before

532
00:25:55,170 --> 00:25:57,890
Speaker 2: one of his overseas adventures, he sent me a message

533
00:25:57,930 --> 00:26:00,690
Speaker 2: about a strange pain he'd been having in one leg.

534
00:26:00,970 --> 00:26:02,850
Speaker 2: He wasn't sure how much to be worried about it.

535
00:26:03,210 --> 00:26:06,290
Speaker 2: I said, pain in one leg? Is that sciatica? He

536
00:26:06,330 --> 00:26:09,090
Speaker 2: looked it up and said, Yeah, that's exactly what it is.

537
00:26:09,170 --> 00:26:13,450
Speaker 2: It fits the symptoms perfectly. Sciatica. That's when a slip

538
00:26:13,490 --> 00:26:17,210
Speaker 2: disc puts pressure on the sciatic nerve. Yeah, it's normally painful,

539
00:26:17,250 --> 00:26:19,610
Speaker 2: but not too serious. It tends to get better on

540
00:26:19,610 --> 00:26:21,290
Speaker 2: its own in a few weeks. And that was a

541
00:26:21,290 --> 00:26:23,650
Speaker 2: relief because it meant that Daniel didn't need to cancel

542
00:26:23,730 --> 00:26:26,650
Speaker 2: his travel plans a bit later, he started to get

543
00:26:26,650 --> 00:26:30,090
Speaker 2: some bad headaches that seemed like a separate problem, and

544
00:26:30,130 --> 00:26:33,490
Speaker 2: then he died at the age of forty three. What

545
00:26:33,650 --> 00:26:37,610
Speaker 2: happened I don't know exactly, and norder his family, who've

546
00:26:37,610 --> 00:26:40,210
Speaker 2: given me permission to tell his story. He was on

547
00:26:40,290 --> 00:26:43,570
Speaker 2: vacation in Fort Lauderdale. Nobody was with him at the time,

548
00:26:43,650 --> 00:26:46,170
Speaker 2: but he's there on the hotel security camera coming back

549
00:26:46,210 --> 00:26:49,570
Speaker 2: from a swim, looking fit and healthy. And then he

550
00:26:49,690 --> 00:26:52,730
Speaker 2: died in his hotel room of what well. The post

551
00:26:52,730 --> 00:26:56,730
Speaker 2: mortem found that it was cancer. His body was riddled

552
00:26:56,730 --> 00:26:59,650
Speaker 2: with tumors when he'd been treated for skin cancer a

553
00:26:59,690 --> 00:27:02,410
Speaker 2: few years earlier. The doctors removed the mole, and they

554
00:27:02,570 --> 00:27:05,610
Speaker 2: thought they'd caught it in time. They hadn't. It had

555
00:27:05,650 --> 00:27:08,690
Speaker 2: since been spreading inside his body, and he hadn't been

556
00:27:08,690 --> 00:27:09,090
Speaker 2: aware of it.

557
00:27:09,330 --> 00:27:12,370
Speaker 1: But people don't just drop dead from cancer, do they.

558
00:27:12,410 --> 00:27:14,610
Speaker 1: I mean, everyone I've known who's died of cancer, there's

559
00:27:14,610 --> 00:27:16,490
Speaker 1: been some warning, even if it's only a few days.

560
00:27:16,570 --> 00:27:19,090
Speaker 2: Well. I also hadn't realized that this could happen, so

561
00:27:19,330 --> 00:27:21,770
Speaker 2: I started to google. One way it can happen is

562
00:27:21,810 --> 00:27:24,370
Speaker 2: if you have a brain tumor that bleeds. The post

563
00:27:24,370 --> 00:27:26,650
Speaker 2: mortem fan that that's what had happened to Daniel.

564
00:27:26,730 --> 00:27:29,330
Speaker 1: But a brain tumor would well with hindsight, it would

565
00:27:29,330 --> 00:27:31,570
Speaker 1: explain his stroke, Yes it would.

566
00:27:31,890 --> 00:27:35,010
Speaker 2: And remember that ironically he'd had the stroke while standing

567
00:27:35,050 --> 00:27:37,650
Speaker 2: in front of the dermatologist, and the dermatologist had just

568
00:27:37,770 --> 00:27:39,730
Speaker 2: checked him over and said, there's no sign of the

569
00:27:39,730 --> 00:27:43,530
Speaker 2: skin cancer coming back. The tumor would explain his headaches too,

570
00:27:43,810 --> 00:27:46,330
Speaker 2: of course, and I kept googling. I read up more

571
00:27:46,370 --> 00:27:50,090
Speaker 2: on sciatica. It's usually a slip disc that puts pressure

572
00:27:50,090 --> 00:27:53,690
Speaker 2: on the sciatic nerve. Sometimes, in very rare cases, it's

573
00:27:53,730 --> 00:27:57,570
Speaker 2: a tumor. With hindsight, the dots were there to be joined.

574
00:27:57,970 --> 00:28:00,930
Speaker 2: And as I sat there googling and joining the dots,

575
00:28:01,290 --> 00:28:04,250
Speaker 2: I found myself thinking about Philip Tadlock and his foxes

576
00:28:04,290 --> 00:28:05,010
Speaker 2: and edgehogs.

577
00:28:05,370 --> 00:28:08,290
Speaker 1: The hedgehog wants to find the one key insight that

578
00:28:08,370 --> 00:28:12,650
Speaker 1: explains every and usually there isn't one, but sometimes there is,

579
00:28:12,930 --> 00:28:17,730
Speaker 1: including Daniel's cancer, which explained all his mysterious symptoms. So Andrew,

580
00:28:17,730 --> 00:28:20,810
Speaker 1: do you feel you could have You should have joined

581
00:28:20,850 --> 00:28:21,490
Speaker 1: the dot sooner.

582
00:28:21,650 --> 00:28:24,770
Speaker 2: It's hard not to wonder, isn't it. But I think

583
00:28:24,810 --> 00:28:27,450
Speaker 2: that by the time there were enough dots to be joined.

584
00:28:27,610 --> 00:28:30,210
Speaker 2: It would have been too late because the prognosis for

585
00:28:30,330 --> 00:28:34,810
Speaker 2: metastatic melanoma generally isn't great. Daniel's memorial service, I think

586
00:28:34,850 --> 00:28:37,490
Speaker 2: we were all quite happy that he hadn't known, because

587
00:28:37,530 --> 00:28:39,810
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have saved his life. He might have eked

588
00:28:39,810 --> 00:28:42,210
Speaker 2: out a few more months in hospital, but because he

589
00:28:42,250 --> 00:28:44,450
Speaker 2: didn't know, he enjoyed his last few months. He spent

590
00:28:44,490 --> 00:28:46,570
Speaker 2: them hanging out with his friends and jetting off to

591
00:28:46,610 --> 00:28:47,210
Speaker 2: new places.

592
00:28:47,810 --> 00:28:50,130
Speaker 1: So what's the moral of this story, Because we like

593
00:28:50,170 --> 00:28:54,330
Speaker 1: a moral with our cautionary tales. Maybe it's that sometimes

594
00:28:54,450 --> 00:28:59,210
Speaker 1: hedgehog thinking has its uses. Philip Tetlock defends the hedgehogs too.

595
00:28:59,370 --> 00:29:02,770
Speaker 1: I mean to be sure, the foxes make better forecasters.

596
00:29:02,770 --> 00:29:04,850
Speaker 1: If you want to weigh up whether chicken noises beat

597
00:29:04,890 --> 00:29:08,170
Speaker 1: Sparkley cat suits on Eurovision, definitely think like a fox.

598
00:29:08,610 --> 00:29:11,570
Speaker 1: But if you're trying to make sense of a puzzling situation,

599
00:29:12,250 --> 00:29:14,530
Speaker 1: it can help to have a hedgehog around. They'll try

600
00:29:14,530 --> 00:29:17,010
Speaker 1: to make one explanation fit all the clues, and they'll

601
00:29:17,010 --> 00:29:19,410
Speaker 1: often be wrong, but in the process they can ask

602
00:29:19,490 --> 00:29:22,650
Speaker 1: deep or original questions, and they can find insights that

603
00:29:22,650 --> 00:29:24,530
Speaker 1: the foxes might not have thought of.

604
00:29:25,130 --> 00:29:29,370
Speaker 2: That's right, and I think that's another moral too. It's

605
00:29:29,450 --> 00:29:33,090
Speaker 2: that Daniel died far too young, but more than anybody

606
00:29:33,170 --> 00:29:36,930
Speaker 2: else I've ever known, he died living exactly the life

607
00:29:37,090 --> 00:29:40,010
Speaker 2: that he wanted to live. That's something for foxes and

608
00:29:40,010 --> 00:29:44,330
Speaker 2: hedgehogs alike to aspire to. Thank you, Andrew, Thank you, Tim,

609
00:29:44,490 --> 00:29:47,770
Speaker 2: and thank you also to Carinn and Martin Gould, Daniel's

610
00:29:47,770 --> 00:29:50,250
Speaker 2: parents for giving me their permission to tell Daniel's story,

611
00:29:50,410 --> 00:29:52,570
Speaker 2: and to Daniel's friend Katie Southern for all of her

612
00:29:52,650 --> 00:29:53,530
Speaker 2: advice and support.

613
00:29:57,130 --> 00:30:01,770
Speaker 1: This Cautionary Tales Eurovision special was written and presented by me, Tim.

614
00:30:01,570 --> 00:30:03,690
Speaker 2: Harford and me Andrew Wright.

615
00:30:09,650 --> 00:30:13,490
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is produced by Alice Fines with support from

616
00:30:13,690 --> 00:30:17,570
Speaker 1: Edith Russlo. The sound design and original music is the

617
00:30:17,570 --> 00:30:21,730
Speaker 1: work of Pascal Wise. The show wouldn't have been possible

618
00:30:21,850 --> 00:30:25,850
Speaker 1: without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Julia Barton,

619
00:30:26,170 --> 00:30:31,250
Speaker 1: Greta Cohne, Little Millard, John Schnaz, Carli mcgliori, Eric Sandler,

620
00:30:31,610 --> 00:30:36,930
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, and Morgan Ratner. Cautionary Tales is

621
00:30:36,930 --> 00:30:40,330
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show.

622
00:30:40,730 --> 00:30:44,010
Speaker 1: Please remember to share, rate, and review. It helps us

623
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Speaker 1: for mysterious reasons, and if you want to hear the show,

624
00:30:47,570 --> 00:30:51,010
Speaker 1: add free sign up for Pushkin Plus on the show

625
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Speaker 1: page and Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, Slash

626
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Speaker 1: plus s