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.

Good evening, everyone.

It is 1857 on a scorching hot day just outside cornpour.

And Times journalist William Howard Russell is partway through one of the most arduous assignments of his professional career.

A veteran correspondent who had reported from the Crimea only a few years before,

Russell was in India to cover the aftermath of the Indian rebellion,

embedded, as we would say now, with the Highlanders,

as they sought to re-establish British authority across India's central plains.

His journals variously described the bloody conflict,

the shocking violence meted out to those native troops thought to have rebelled,

and the ongoing hardship of the march itself.

Despite the extraordinary experiences he sets down in his public accounts, though,

his private journal tells us that Russell's chief dilemma

was over something much more prosaic, even quite familiar to us.

At two o'clock, he writes, came the great ordeal of lunch,

curries and chops, cold meat, pickles and pale ale.

You knew it was very wrong, but it was also very nice.

And whatever a man's liver says the next day,

it is a most complicitous witness.

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