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.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

This is the Arts and Ideas podcast, and my name's Matthew Sweet,

and I want to say thank you for finding us, because we know, like you know,

that the internet is a bit of a labyrinth.

You're about to end to one now, and a whole conurbation of buildings

that seem to have a strange life of their own.

Cross the threshold after these messages.

Before your chosen podcast, my name's Ian McMillan,

Keeper of the Box of Delights that is The Verb.

If you like poetry and stories and spoken word and performance

and language that falls between the cracks, then the verb is for you.

Downloaders wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to Freethinking. New listeners start here, or possibly from just over there.

Or maybe in the flooded chamber, three doors down on the right, because the subject of this

programme is architecture

that won't behave itself. Haunted hotels, motorway service stations floating in space,

houses that Shirley Jackson built. We'll tour a couple of those. What route will we take? Well,

think of one of those prints by M.C. Escher, with their recursive

staircases and courtyards that lead back to themselves. We can make something like that happen now

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