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.

Hello, on free thinking tonight, a room of her own.

As an exhibition of Virginia Woolf images opens at the National Portrait Gallery,

we hear how she was at times a reluctant sitter for photographs.

First she said no and tried to turn it down,

but she agreed that they could come back in the afternoon and have a sitting.

And in the meantime, she sat down and wrote an entry in her diary saying how detestable it would

beat her to find herself like an animated colour portrait.

It was certainly an aspect of why she thought it would be a vulgar thing to do.

We'll be discovering whether we've underestimated the medical reputation of sore bones, quacks and the

like. But first, Topps books turn to fiction. When I was living on the other side of the

Iron Curtain in the Old East Germany, Stella Rimmington, the former head of MI5, and Alan Judd, an ex-intelligence

officer, were both carrying out their secret work. The spy game goes on, but now it's often

conducted by very different means. Today, for example, the government brought forward emergency

legislation in response to the renewed threat of jihadist terror, seeking to log records of telephone

calls and internet use. Both Stella and Alan reflect this altered world in novels this month.

Stella's entitled Close Call is her eighth featuring Liz Carlisle, a down-to-earth female head of

MI5, who, don't tell the Russians, has a little in common with

herself. It concerns the illegal trade in arms intended for extremist al-Qaeda jihadis.

...