Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps that it's a long time ago, right?

It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream van plays music when it's out of ice cream.

Listen to evil genius on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio podcasts.

Hello, I'm Eleanor Rosamund Baraklough,

and I'm delighted to be introducing this short talk

recorded at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival

as a BBC Arts and Ideas podcast.

Des Fitzgerald is a sociologist at the University of Cardiff.

He spends his time wandering around cities

thinking about how humans should live

in these peculiar environments.

He's a new generation thinker on the scheme

the BBC runs with the Arts and Humanities Research Council

to make radio programs from academic research.

And today he's going to be speaking on

the city is not a park.

Probably everyone at one time or another has found themselves in a building or a town that

was somehow, and just by its very nature,

unpleasant, grim, even a bit depressing.

Most people have also had the opposite experience, I think, a sense of taking comfort or pleasure

in the built environment, of feeling inspired, lightened, even moved by a room or a view.

...