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, it's 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. This is a download

from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.uk slash radio three.

We'll be taking you from Revelle to ruins on the programme tonight, asking why artists, writers and audiences have such fascination with abandoned places.

And we anticipate Revelle Day on Radio 3 tomorrow.

The choreographer Richard Arlston will be along to talk about reinterpreting the composer in the shimmer of modern dance.

But first, a voice who celebrated the rural past with a vocative writing that's echoed down the Victorian lanes

and still has a grip on imaginations far beyond the rural pockets of a bygone world.

The Hargites stood on a gentle rise in the flat wheat-growing northeast corner of Oxfordshire.

We will call it lark rise because of the great number of skylarks

which made the surrounding fields their springboard

and nested on the bare earth between the rows of green corn.

All around, from every quarter, the stiff clay soil of the arable fields crept up, bear, brown,

and wind-swept for eight months out of the twelve. Spring brought a flush of green wheat,

and there were violets under the hedges and pussy willows out beside the brook at the bottom of the hundred acres.

But only for a few weeks in later summer had the landscape real beauty.

Then the ripened cornfields rippled up to the doorsteps of the cottages, and the hamlet became an island in a sea of dark gold.

To a child, it seemed that it must always have been so.

Lark rise to Candleford there by Flora Thompson.

It tells of the world of England's rural communities

and the women who lived among their beauties

...