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.

This is the BBC.

Hello, I'm Shahid Abari.

Welcome to Broadcasters of the Future on those we have forgotten, but really shouldn't have, a series of the essay program recorded for BBC Radio 3 in front of an audience at the York Festival of Ideas.

Seb Falk is a fellow at Gerton College, Cambridge, who specialises in medieval science.

When not pouring over manuscripts,

he can sometimes be found

trying to navigate a sailing boat

using medieval instruments.

Please join me in welcoming Subfork

and his portrait of a most eloquent

14th century pessimist

and poet John Gower.

I shout what the voice of the people shouts.

I only call out those whose crimes stand out.

So my writings target people led astray by greed.

There's fraud hiding under the cloak of law, law but lacking justice.

And that law daily distorts to follow its own desires. That political opinion piece wasn't

written last week, but in the late 1300s. Today, everyone's got an opinion and wants to tell you about it,

but people were opinionated 600 years ago too, and they had plenty to be opinionated about.

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