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 at 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.

With the heated arguments about HS2, Scotland's referendum on independence, and the local elections looming,

the question of whether Britain's cities outside of London need more clout is back on the agenda.

So we're taking the temperature of regional Britain tonight,

from the arts to politics and the future of our economy,

as well as delving into the cultural resonances of place and identity.

There's this idea that because a lot of people worked in the mills in Manchester, which

was so noisy you couldn't hear, they'd be at work for 12 hours a day and wouldn't speak.

So maybe their oral skills didn't develop so much through lack of use.

But Liverpool had the docks, which was so public and almost a performance.

They'd be sitting around a lot waiting for the next ship to come in,

so maybe this brought out their creativity in banter and storytelling.

An extract from Michael Wynne's new play set in his hometown of Liverpool.

More on how he's using that culture of banter and storytelling

later, and we catch up with some more of Radio 3's new generation thinkers.

But first, it was back in 1820 that William Cobbett coined the rather disparaging nickname of

the Great Wen, referring to London as a pathological swelling on the face of the nation.

These days, the Great Wen size and wealth dominate on a scale far more pronounced than in many

more federalist countries like the US and Germany. As London accounts for more GDP and population

growth, there have been louder calls for some rebalancing towards the

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