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.

Hello, I'm Shahid Abari.

Thanks for downloading this edition of the Arts and Ideas podcast, which is recorded

with an audience before one of the concerts in this year's BBC proms.

This is the BBC.

If composers have idealised the countryside in their works, writers have certainly done it too.

The father of Virginia Woolf, Leslie Stephen, wrote that although he loved the country, he loved

it best in books.

Ever since the ancient Greeks, writers have waxed lyrical about rural life, associating it with beauty,

innocence and goodness. I'm Will Abbey, BBC New Generation Thinker and senior lecturer in English

at the University of Sussex, and I'm currently working on a project tracing the history of British

nature writing. So why exactly does the countryside capture our imagination?

When books transport us to worlds of shepherds and farmers, fields, forests, and rolling hills,

what deep desires are they appealing to?

And what place do they have in 21st century Britain, where most of us live in towns and cities. With me to explore these

questions is Melissa Harrison, who's written several books with rural settings, most recently her

novel All Among the Barley. Also joining me is the archaeologist and sheep farmer Francis Pryor,

who's written extensively about Britain's natural landscapes. His most recent book is Paths to the Past. Welcome, both of you.

Melissa, your two most recent novels, both involve characters moving from the city to the country.

Why do we so often imagine the countryside as an escape? That's a really good question. I think

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