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.

I'm Lisa Mullen, and in this essay episode of the Arts and Ideas podcast,

I'm going to talk to you about one of the writers I think you should make space for on your bookshelves.

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

No one gets to write their own obituary, but few people can have been stitched up quite so

monstrously as the novelist and journalist Ines Holden.

Google her, and one of the first things you'll find is a savage little posthumous sketch by her so-called friend, Anthony Pole.

She was a pretty enough thing, he remembers, when she was skinny. But though she'd started out,

promisingly young, she'd ended up disappointingly old. Why do girls keep making that mistake?

Innes Holden's life was full of wild and fabulous intensity, and she lived it with unapologetic

commitment. She was born into the sort of dysfunctional family that looked posh from the outside,

but was booze-addled and neglectful indoors. At the age of 15, she turned

her back on certain horrors that she could never bring herself to talk about, and embarked on

adulthood in the guise of a minor socialite. As a half-hearted flapper, she hung out with the

bright young things of 1920s London, rubbing shoulders with Cecil Beaton and his smart set.

But the bohemian life bored her.

It felt like another kind of trap.

And besides, unlike the realtoffs, she needed to earn a living.

She picked up a pen, first as a journalist,

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