Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Knitted together by an unloved sweater

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

When Celia's daughter asked about regrets, she posted a message about a puffin sweater she wished she'd bought. Just days later, a man she'd never met sent her the exact same one for free - saying it felt so good to be kind. Also: The earthquakes being caused by enthusiastic fans during Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. A BBC radio programme reaches 46 people celebrating mid winter in Antarctica. How artificial intelligence could help us understand what dogs are trying to say. Why a sculptor decided to create dozens of art galleries and museums around the world - underwater. And the festival celebrating the enduring traditions of Flamenco dancing - and bringing it into the twenty first century.Our weekly collection of happy news and positive stories from around the world.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Valerie Sanderson and in this edition, uploaded on Saturday the 22nd of June,

how a small act of kindness from someone you've never met can make the world seem brighter. It just felt like this perfect serendipitous moment where the universe tells you, I care about you and other people care about you. I just kind of feel a little bit overwhelmed by how good people are. A special radio program to help those celebrating midwinter in Antarctica feel closer to their loved ones. Merry midwinter, George. We are missing you very much and can't wait for you to come home. Hi Cameron, happy midwinter. I can't wait for you to come back. Is he going to take you home or something?

A penguin. A penguin. A penguin. Plus, being able to combine something such as like a popular music icon like Paine Swift with seismology would be a great way to see how effectively science can be communicated. The scientific study looking at earthquakes caused by a global superstar's fans. Also in this podcast, we hear how artificial intelligence could help us understand what our dogs are trying to tell us and... I saw a pair of eyes, you know, staring out from this gap. An amazing octopus that had sort of made a home

and as it came out, it sort of curled a tentacle around one of the faces of the pieces and it was incredible. The underwater sculpture exhibitions providing new homes for endangered species. Now here at the Happy Pod we love hearing about things that bring you joy and how small acts of kindness can make a big difference. Well, this story includes both. It started with Celia Robbins, an American woman living in Berlin, posting on X about a question her daughter had asked and ended with her receiving a gift and making a new friend.

Stephanie Zachrisson spoke to Celia to find out more. I think the way that I posed the question on Twitter was, you know, my daughter asked, do you have any regrets, mom? And while I know she was asking that on a philosophical level, my mind immediately went to a puffin sweater that I had seen in Iceland. And I kind of just expressed that it had been three years, and I still regretted not buying it. And then I don't have my phone for several hours. I looked at my phone, and it was just kind of going off. Someone had posted in all cap locks letters, Celia, did you see this post? Or did you see this comment? And it was a woman commenting below

a gentleman named Dave, who is now my friend. He is so nice. Where Dave had commented and said, my regret is that I bought this exact sweater for my wife. And she's never worn it in two years. He did talk to his wife, and she was very kind. And she basically was like, I would love to give this to this woman if it would make her happy because I haven't worn it. It just felt like this perfect serendipitous moment where the universe tells you, I care about you and other people care about you. And I just kind of feel a little bit overwhelmed by how good people are. That is just beautiful. And not only have you got that sweater hanging in your closet now, you've also, you know, made a friend in Dave as well. Yeah, he's my friend. And

when he talked about mailing the package to me, I said, Dave, if it's easier for you, you can mail it to my mom in South Carolina. We're going to come visit this summer, but whatever is easier for you. And he said, just give me your address. I'm going to figure it out. I went to pay him and he was like, nope, this is on me. Basically, he said it just felt so good to be nice. So it was like another example to me of just kindness. And he said, hey, when I come to Berlin, you could take me out. And we said deal. That is that is the best deal because we would love to meet you and just thank you in person. I mean, this time you were at the receiving end of this kindness. Has a whole kind of experience made you think a bit about how you want to pay kindness forward, I guess?

Yes, of course. I'm a mom. I have four kids. And I always try to teach my kids and show my kids that when we're kind, kindness comes back to us. I think that's been like the most amazing part of all of this is that my daughter was like, mom, I'm not surprised this happened to you. Like you're so nice to everyone. I'm glad that she could see through Dave's example. Like I try to be positive and I was met back with positivity. So it just kind of makes me want to continue that cycle of positivity. So like, what can I do for someone? What can we do for people we don't know?

I feel like so often we give kindness to people who know us and that's, that's kind of expected and that's encouraged, but just absolute kindness without receiving anything. Like it kind of makes me want to just be not only kind to people that I know, which I already tried to do, but kind of people I don't know and be more like cognizant of the fact that, um, we have the ability to just really affect positive change. I've just had so many people say like, we're so excited for you. And I mean, I as a human feel like loved and edified by this whole experience. Celia Robbins talking there to Stephanie Zachrisson. We'd love to hear about the small

acts of kindness from strangers that have made your day. Send us a voice note or an email to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. Now in Antarctica, temperatures are below freezing and sunrise is weeks away. But the three research stations of the British Antarctic Survey continue to operate through the long dark season. And the people living there have just celebrated Midwinter's Day on June 21st. They have a meal, they have presents and a special Antarctic Midwinter programme from us here at the BBC. It's broadcast to a captive audience of just 46, plus that is a few thousand penguins. As Rebecca Wood reports. This is the BBC World Service calling Antarctica.

When the midwinter broadcast started decades ago, shortwave radio was the only means of communication. But technology has changed. I'm literally looking at snowy mountains right in front of me. Temperatures have got into minus figures, finally. And there's two king penguin chicks right outside my window with one of their parents. That's Nadia Frontier, a marine biologist speaking clear as day from King Edward Point on South Georgia Island. She's one of 46 scientists and support staff working at British research stations in the Antarctic. With no sunlight it's at its coldest this time of year

and those stationed there face months of total isolation, apart, of course, from the company of tens of thousands of seals, penguins and albatross. We are currently in the middle of winter, so we've got a few hours of twilight in the middle of the day, and then for the rest of the time, it's pretty dark here. But for scientists like Ali Clement there, they've just reached a turning point. Midwinter, the 21st of June, the shortest, darkest day. Celebrated a bit like Christmas, the tradition is to have a special meal, exchange gifts and settle down to watch this.

Mayday, Mayday. Thank you, Judy. This is US station 31. The Thing, a 1982 horror film about an alien monster that terrorises an Antarctic base. Perhaps not the most cheery of viewing, but then it's time for the BBC's midwinter broadcast. They all gather round radios

and listen on special shortwave frequencies. There are song requests and messages from family and friends at home. Merry Midwinter, George! We are missing you very much and can't wait for you to come home, but I am so, so proud of you. Hi, Cameron. Happy Midwinter. I can't believe it's been a whole year since we spent midsummer on our honeymoon in Iceland. I can't wait for you to come back. This message is for

Ben Stimson from his mum and dad in Queensland, Australia. If ever there was a job made for you, Ben, you're in it. Is he going to take you home or something? Okay, great. Okay, great. Okay, great. Have a wonderful adventure, Vic. We miss you a lot and Phoebe misses you. Welcome messages from people and pets that despite the kilometres of frozen landscape between them, make home feel that little bit closer. And happy midwinter from us here on the Happy Pod. And to hear the whole wonderful podcast, search BBC The Documentary wherever you find this podcast. Search BBC The Documentary wherever you find this podcast. Now, can you tell the difference in mood between this dog and this one? Well, if you couldn't tell that the first dog, Kira, was playing while the second, Lassie,

was angrily barking at a stranger, artificial intelligence might be able to help you. Researchers have been using it to interpret what dogs are trying to tell us. They gathered the barks, growls and whimpers of 74 dogs in a variety of contexts and they fed that into existing computer models trained on human speech. Andrew Peach spoke to the lead author of the study at the University of Michigan, Artem Abziluev. We investigated four different components. So first one was gender, which was the hardest task. Second one is whether

dog, for instance, is aggressive or playful. The third one is the individual dog, whether we can recognise individual dogs. And the fourth one was the breed. I'm clearly not doing a scientific study here, but I think I could tell if a dog was angry by the way it was barking, no? That's true. I guess people are very good. But you know, we had several thousand years to live with dogs together, so we understand them pretty well. But it's much harder for the computer. So therefore, it's just a question of having, what, lots and lots of samples teaching the computer gradually what they mean. That's exactly right.

Tell me about how you can determine a dog's gender or breed from its bark, because I have to say I couldn't do that. So gender, in fact, we show in our studies, gender is very hard. But the breed, I would say different breeds have different variations of peach, for instance. What use is all this? Personally, I hope in the short term, we might be able to recognize, let's say, anxiety in dogs. So help humans understand, hey, something is going wrong with my dog. Or I don't know, with dogs in shelters, for for instance and this would help hopefully improve the well-being of dogs. Yes I can see that you maybe you could get your dog to

bark into your smartphone or something like that and then the technology would be able to tell you a bit about the dog and tell you if there was anything wrong. This is probably more long-term approach indeed having an app but I think a lot of information also comes from the visual. In the long term, we also want to add visual information. Let's say we can look at the tail of a dog, we can look at the ears of a dog, and so on. Are you a dog person yourself, Artem? Yes, yes, very much. I have a dog called Nova, called Nutriver, and she's now four years old.

Okay, and I bet you can tell exactly what mood she's in and what her needs are from the way she barks at you. Yes, that's true. If she barks at me, she's already in a bad mood, I guess. Does it mean she wants something or she's unhappy about something? Yes. Fascinating stuff. And it may be that some dogs might be easier to understand than others. That was Artem Abzilev speaking there to Andrew Peach. Now, have you ever danced so hard you made the Earth move? Well, that's what fans of Taylor Swift have been doing during her tour currently taking place across Europe.

Seismic activity has been detected at several shows and our researchers in Ireland are hoping to use her concerts there to make science more popular. The Happy Pod's very own Swifty, Holly Gibbs, has been finding out more. Welcome to the Eras Tour. Over the past year, Swifties across the world have been flocking to the Eras Tour to see their favourite superstar. People come up to me and they'd be like, you're going to just do a show with all the albums in it. And I was like, yeah,

it's going to be called the Eros tour. See you there. But what they may not realise is that their enthusiasm has literally been making the earth move. Last July, when Taylor Swift was performing at the Lumenfield Stadium in Seattle, it was reported that fans caused the equivalent of a 2.3 magnitude earthquake by jumping, dancing and singing. And earlier this month, Swifties in Scotland did the same. Seismic activity was detected up to six kilometres away from the Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh.

I dropped it, champagne problems. Three songs generated the most movement, including her opener Cruel Summer and the song Champagne Problems. Experts say the activity peaked atatts of power during the song, which is the equivalent of more than 10 car batteries. The searchers in Dublin are hoping fans will also make the earth move when Taylor Swift performs three shows there at the end of June. Eleanor Dunn is a PhD student at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. She has set up a project called Swiftquake to try to mix pop culture and science. Being able to combine something such as like a popular music icon like Taylor Swift with

seismology would be a great way to see how effectively science can be communicated. I would love to kind of make more people aware, especially as in Ireland, it's kind of assumed that we don't really have any sort of seismic activity, we don't have any earthquakes or anything like that, whereas that's not the case. We do actually have earthquakes,

they're just very, very small. I never thought that I would be able to incorporate Taylor Swift into my PhD. Enthusiastic crowds have done this before. In 2011, American football fans caused what's become known as the Beastquake during a match between the Seattle Seahawks and the New Orleans Saints. Eleanor told me her prediction for which era she thinks will get the fans in Dublin going. I definitely think the reputation era is an era which has the most songs that you can scream and shout to.

But then also maybe it'd be interesting to see if the tortured perks department also does cause a lot of activity because obviously it's the newest era. The music of Taylor Swift. And that was Eleanor Dunn ending that report by Holly Gibbs. And we'll hopefully hear what Eleanor discovers in a few weeks' time here on The Happy Pot. Coming up in this podcast... It's not only surviving, it's really, I think, more alive than ever. The festival's celebrating the traditional and the modern flamenco.

If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, AmeriCast and The Global Story, plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. A sculpture exhibition with a difference is about to open in the Caribbean, and I mean literally. The artwork, 30 small origami-style boats,

each carrying a model of a local schoolchild, is being installed underwater, just off the island of Cariocco in the Grenadines. The sculptures, designed to symbolise the fragility of the ecosystem in the face of climate change, will act as individual artificial reefs. They're the work of Jason DeCairre-Taylor, who's created more than a dozen underwater galleries and museums,

and will be installed close to his first underwater exhibit. He spoke to the BBC's Anoushka Mutanda-Doherty about his inspiration and that first sculpture park. So I installed all the sculptures in an area called Molinere Bay, which was off the west coast of Grenada. It had these beautiful areas of white sand surrounded by sort of little coral enclaves. He was a trained sculptor turned scuba diving instructor who had always fancied the idea of placing his art underwater

but hadn't quite got around to it. But that all changed in September 2004, when Hurricane Ivan hit. For eight hours, the islands were pounded with 120 miles per hour winds. When a hurricane hits an underwater area, it basically lifts everything off the seafloor, so rocks, boulders, and then it kind of scours the surface. Any fragile corals, sea fans, sponges, all get completely scraped off and ground down.

Jason worried that as Grenada started to rebuild, the few remaining reefs would be vulnerable to an influx of scuba divers. I mean, the main reasons I decided to put sculptures underwater were first I wanted to divert tourists away from fragile pristine areas. I also wanted to create a habitat, an artificial reef for marine creatures to live in, for corals and sponges etc to grow on. And it didn't take long to see it was a success. So the sculptures changed very quickly after After a couple of days, I started to see thin film of green turf algae

that would grow on the faces. That was quickly followed by these beautiful purple sponges and blue sponges. Then there were little juvenile corals. I started to get patches of fire coral, which is this beautiful, bright, orange orange sort of furry coral that sends off little fingers in different directions and then also the fish started to move in, parrotfish started to eat some of the algae on the surface, there were little fire worms that would actually eat the fire coral and crawl across the faces and scrawl little lines as they walked

across. One of my favourite moments was seeing a sculpture that was actually on the seabed. And when I went down to look at it, I saw a pair of eyes staring out from this gap. And I looked under, it was this amazing octopus that had sort of made a home and it made a little entrance with shells around. And as it came out, it sort of curled a tentacle

around one of the faces of the of the pieces and yeah it was incredible. He hasn't stopped submerging his sculptures ever since. We worked in a in a sort of city fjord that was quite polluted very sort of brown water but actually when you put your head beneath the water, from underwater looking to the sky, the light turned into all this beautiful golden brown green colour, like golden clouds hovering over your head. Tiny shrimps, little banded shrimps started appearing, white calcareous worms. And that was just sort of on a macro scale. And then when you sort of panned out, there was thousands of mussels that lived on them,

started to see seagulls going underwater that were eating the mussels that were growing. And then the sort of the highlight for me was at the end, as I went to leave, we saw some seals and they were the sort of the apex predators of the whole chain of life. And for me, that was sort of, you know, a really humbling and inspiring thing that, you know, didn't take a very big intervention to sort of begin this whole web of life. And you could see how quickly nature rejuvenates, it changes, it evolves and how resilient it is.

The sculptor Jason DeCur-Taylor. Now, we just love animal stories here on The Happy Pod, so here are a few we've spotted. An Asian elephant in central Thailand has given birth to a rare set of twins in what's been described as a miracle. Workers at the Ayutthaya Elephant Palace hadn't realised that the mother, a 36-year-old named Chamchuri, was carrying two calves, a boy and a girl. The twins have been featuring in live streams on social media.

A critically endangered Bornean orangutan has been born in northern England. Staff at Blackpool Zoo say they're delighted by the second birth in 12 months after more than 20 years of waiting. Both mother and baby, who is yet to be named, are doing well. And a flamingo who is described as having been unlucky in love has laid her first egg at, wait for it, the age of 70. Gertrude is part of a flamboyance of more than 65 flamingos at a nature reserve in eastern England. Staff say the egg may not hatch, but it's amazing that she's displayed maternal characteristics at such a ripe old age. Good for Gertrude.

For the latest in our series of Your Chance Overseas Encounters, lots of you have been in touch, including Jack, who now lives in Malaysia. I'm originally from Ndola, Zambia, a small mining community on the Zambia-Congo border. I moved to Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, when I was seven, and left to live in Toronto when I was 14. I lived in Toronto for about 35 years. I met one person who also went to the same primary school as I did in Zimbabwe, but never met anybody from Zambia or Indola. When I moved to Penang in 2016, I was looking at apartments to rent and was chatting with a gentleman about that unit.

Turned out he had lived in both Zambia and Zimbabwe. I was amazed. A few days later, I was introduced to a couple that had just moved from Hong Kong to Penang. In chatting with the husband, John, it turned out that he was from just outside of Indola, couple that had just moved from Hong Kong to Penang. In chatting with the husband, John, it turned out that he was from just outside of Indola, where his family had a farm with a pond on it. When I was a child, I used to go fishing with my father and brother on a farm pond. I suspect very strongly it was the same pond and our parents knew each other. John and I are now

firm friends. Thanks, Jack. And if you'd like to tell us about an unexpected meeting, send us an email or a voice note. Some of the world's top flamenco performers have been bringing their soulful voices and dramatic dance moves to Sadler's Wells Theatre here in London. The goal of the 19th edition of the Flamenco Festival to prove that the ancient art form, which dates back

hundreds of years, is thriving and adapting to the modern day. And Isabella Jewell went to check it out. It's not only surviving. It's really, I think, more alive than ever because it's not only surviving, he's really, I think, more alive than ever because he's not only associated to a folkloric, popular expression of dance of some people in the south of Spain. No, he's an expression that can connect with anybody. He's a universal expression. That's Miguel Morin, director of the Flamenco Festival at Sadler's Wells.

Since 2003, he's been bringing global talents in the world of flamenco to London. And for Miguel, it's all about lifting the lid on a dance style that's often seen as a bit old school. For me, it's like I want people to see the meaning of the word flamenco. Usually it's associated to a traditional art form, but today it's not so. It's associated to that, but also to avant-garde, to contemporary, to choreography, to large-scale production. One of the performances flipping tradition on its head is a fandango. And there wasn't a red ruffle dress or polka dot in sight. The show featured a collective of dancers, a singer and a band,

and the music sometimes floated into the realm of jazz and electronic. David Correa is the choreographer and one of the main dancers in the show. In Fandango, we look at customs of Spain and our people. We play on flamenco and a variety of folklore traditions. What I do specifically is I try and mix styles of dance from very traditional and all Spanish dances to the contemporary. Coria worked with esteemed flamenco singer David Laos to put together this performance,

which takes the audience on a journey through Spanish history, examining themes like the Civil War and bullfighting, but doing it in a modern way. But that's not new in flamenco. It is a living art form. There is so many different influences that integrate themselves into flamenco, so many different aspects of other cultures and music styles. For example, the box, the cajon, is a Peruvian instrument that was introduced in the 70s to Andalucía. It isn't from our culture, but it's now a key part of flamenco.

And despite its usual associations with southern Spain, the art form has an international appeal. Florencia Oz also performs in fandango. I'm from Chile, but I've lived in Spain for 18 years. I actually learned flamenco in Chile outside of school. It's a really popular extracurricular activity there. Flamenco for many years has gone beyond its traditional associations, so it's really been expanded in terms of music and dance style. So with electronic music, it's one of the ways in this case

it's being used to break the stereotypes of the fandango. It's not just the music that's constantly changing and modernising. Eva Yerba Buena, who's widely considered one of flamenco's leading performers, showcased how the costumes on stage have adapted since the birth of the art form. At one point she wore a shiny black PVC skirt alongside a traditional colourful shawl. Festival director Miguel Marin. How the young generation is going to relate to flamenco is the aesthetic, is something that only the grandparents would relate to. It's not possible. It has to be

something that you really, is part of your time. But what is it about flamenco that continues to connect so deeply with people? It's a mix of many different cultures. There is the gypsies that came from India, the Jewish community that was established in Spain, the Muslim community that was established in Spain, and of course the Iberian community. That brings many angles together, which I think makes that people can relate to flamenco,

but also because it really triggers the basic human emotions and anybody can connect with that. The music pre-run Del Miedo by David Lagos, ending that report by Isabella Jewell. And that's it from the Happy Pod for now. We'd love to hear from you if you have any stories to share that will make us all smile. As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Nick Randall.

The producers were Holly Gibbs and Rachel Buckley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Valerie Sanderson. Until next time, bye-bye. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Global News, Americast and The Global Story,

plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts.