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.

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 tonight's programme, an interview with John Beddington, who until recently was the

government chief scientific advisor. He and I agree to disagree about how scientists should

deal with politicians.

But first, Mark Rothko, one of the bravest of the abstract expressionist artists

who in the post-war period produced glimmering, colour-field paintings,

one of which, orange-red yellow, sold for $89.6 million last year in New York.

Mark Rothko was born in 1903 in Dauglopis, the second city of Latvia,

a country which shook off the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991.

Where the artists lived there, its population was 50% Jewish, a home for its

culture. Now there are only 400 people of Jewish descent. I took the long road to Dauglapies

for the opening of the Mark Rothko Art Centre, which used to be a military academy for cadets during Soviet times.

The endeavour couldn't even be imagined without the generosity of the two Rothko children, Kate and Christopher,

both US citizens who have loaned six important works of their father to the centre.

But as we'll hear, the key player is the chief curator Farida Zalethilo,

a small woman whose Muslim family were displaced from St Petersburg by the Nazis.

I couldn't even escape him on the aeroplane.

I'm flicking through one of those in-flight magazines

and I come across an advert,

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