Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: The opera singing rescue dog

Episode Date: May 25, 2024

How an injured greyhound found her voice, accompanying her adopted human 'big sister' while she plays the piano. Georgia, who now has a huge social media following, has a particular talent for opera. Also: The man who nearly became America's first black astronaut finally makes it into space -- the oldest person ever to do so. Meanwhile the spaceships of the future, imagined by children from around the world, have been flying over New York. We meet the man who spent twelve years fighting to save a forest from mining - and won. And, after seagull boy and lion girl, goat woman.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 Vanessa Heaney, and in this edition, uploaded on Saturday 25th May,

we meet Georgia, the singing greyhound. Who found her voice and a love of opera after being rescued. The man who nearly became the first black astronaut finally makes it into space six decades later. Absolutely fantastic. Absolutely. This is a life-changing experience. Everybody needs to do this.

Meanwhile, spaceships of the future, as imagined by children, fly over New York. It's like a straw hat with reindeer antlers. It's a dinosaur with a jet pack. The spaceship is like a dog and theirs have many bones. Also in this podcast, we meet the man who took on multi-billion dollar mining companies to protect an Indian forest and won. When he first went to these forests, he found them so beautiful that he was very surprised and shocked to hear that such a beautiful forest will be destroyed And

listener Julia, the goat whisperer. our first story covers an animal that makes me very happy dogs i have a beloved black labrador called olive who's known as the favorite child in my family but this story is about a rather special greyhound who sings. This is six-year-old Georgia and her take on Mozart's aria Queen of the Night, along with her big human sister, eight-year-old Hannah on piano. Georgia was a racing dog until a serious accident on the track three years ago. She has now amassed a huge following on Instagram, including me. She was rescued by the Albro family in Perth in Western Australia. I caught up with Hannah and of course Georgia along with mum Jess. Georgia was extremely anxious and stressed when she first arrived at our home.

It was obvious that it was the first time she'd ever been inside a house and she really had no idea how to navigate normal things inside a home like doors and stairs. And all of the sounds like TVs and things like that would just cause her to become extremely distressed. She'd just pace around the house and as if she was lost and she just didn't know what to do with herself. And we gave her toys but she just looked at them and didn't know what to do with them. She didn't make a sound when we first got her.

She'd whimper as if she was scared but she would never sing or bark or anything like that. We didn't even know that she could. And my daughter started learning the piano. And as soon as she started playing the piano, Georgia would just join in. And now it's just impossible for us to play a piano or have any music on in the house without Georgia joining in. It's, you know, she didn't know she had this voice but now we just can't turn it off that's so lovely I understand that Georgia is asleep at the moment but I wondered if you might play something for us

Hannah hello there Georgia I hope you are listening even if you're asleep and I wondered if you might sing for us our listeners would love that okay off you go. On cue. That's so lovely. Hannah, she certainly woke up and was in full voice. Does she have a favourite type of music? Is there something she likes more than others? Well, she loves, like, the noise of the piano and sometimes she sings to TV shows like Mary Poppins' movie.

And what do you think is her talent? Has she got an area that you think she's particularly good at? Yeah, opera. A lot of people might associate greyhounds with racing, but Georgia's story shows us that these dogs make wonderful companions. Could you tell us about her role in your family and in your life? We didn't really know about the plight of greyhounds before we rescued Georgia, but we were keen to sort of understand where she'd come from,

what she'd experienced and why this beautiful three-year-old dog had been discarded. To us, she was perfect. But then what we found out was that there's a lot of horrible things go on in the greyhound racing industry and yeah george has opened our eyes to that whole world introduced us to so many beautiful people that are all on the same page she's just changed our lives completely hannah i wondered if you might play us one of your favorite pieces and see if georgia wants to join in too georgia i hope you're still there yeah do i have to play another song for me? Yep. Georgia seems to be awake.

She's looking at me. Thank you so much, Hannah. What a duo. Hannah, I wondered if there was anything else you wanted to share. Well, making music with my dog is one of my motivations to learn music. And I love that she cooperates with my piano and sings. And she's the centre of our lives. She's what keeps us going. Eight-year-old Hannah Ulbrow, her mum Jess and their beloved greyhound Georgia. We would really love to hear from you about your talented pets. What can they do? Please do get in touch, send us an email or a voice note and if you'd like to see more videos of Georgia singing,

she is Georgia the Grey on Instagram. Now our next story is a case of better late than never. A man who originally trained to be an astronaut back in the 1960s has finally made it into space, becoming the oldest person ever to do so. Ed Dwight, who's 90 years old and a former Air Force pilot, was almost chosen as the first black astronaut, but didn't make the final cut. Jessica Wilkins has more.

America's oldest astronaut has finally taken off. 90-year-old Ed Dwight was originally a candidate for NASA's space program back in 1963. He had the support of then-President John F. Kennedy and had hoped to become America's first black astronaut. Unfortunately, NASA did not select him for the programme. Last Sunday, he finally caught a ride in one of Jeff Bezos' rockets. And here's a grand opportunity at this late date to fulfil that for self-satisfaction, yes, but more importantly to satisfy all the wonderful people

that have showered me with love for all these years. The ten-minute trip made Mr Dwight, a retired Air Force pilot, the oldest person ever to go into space. Now a sculptor, he is two months older than the previous record holder, Star Trek's William Shatner. When he was interviewed immediately after landing, Mr Dwight sounded over the moon. Long time coming.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Absolutely fantastic. Absolutely. Life-changing experience. Everybody needs to do this. We're going to stay with space now. Have you ever wondered about the future of space travel? Well, some children around the world

have been drawing what they think the spaceships they might travel in will look like. Thousands sent in their designs and a few lucky winners had them turned into drones by Lego designers. And they blasted off into the skies of New York for a display of what the organisers called unidentified playing objects.

I spoke to seven-year-old Gillian from the US, 13-year-old Jace from Hong Kong and 10-year-old Sebastian from Denmark who told me about their designs. It's like a straw hat with reindeer antlers and a rocket underneath the straw hat with some reindeer ears. The straw hat is like because I love summer

and like it's a good hat and like the antlers is like reindeers. I love Christmas and like they can fly. And the giant rocket, how else can they fly around? I'm now going to say hello to Jillian. It's a dinosaur with a jetpack flying

to a dinosaur moon. There's a bunch of dinosaurs waiting for him to arrive on the moon from dinosaurs. So why i chose that because oh because i like dinosaurs and all of that and and i like really going fast hi jace could you tell us about your design please jace my i designed the spaceship is like a dog and stairs have many bones. It's surrounding my spaceship is like a little bit of pink.

I want to try and design more other kind of spaceship and also others of like transportation. And I really want to try try design other thing else. How did it make you feel when you saw your design up in the sky as a drone? Yes, I really feeling so excited and I feel it really amazing because I never thought about it will be my design in the space and I'm really happy of it. It was like really amazing. I felt really, really good and it was really pretty. I think I would never forget it. It was pretty cool and amazing, like the actions and the movements.

And would you go on the moon in the dinosaur? Would you like to go there too? Yeah. go on the moon in the dinosaur would you like to go there too? Yeah it'll be uh we can see a lot of stars and a lot of planets. And would would there be people living on them do you think or would it just be dinosaurs? I think dinosaurs. And do you think that you might go to space one day when you're older are you interested in in maybe going to space, being an astronaut? Yeah, there's going to be a dinosaur on it with a tail. I think it could be fun to travel out to another universe, see if there's life. I really want to go to space because I think space is a really amazing place

and I think it will be super beautiful. Gillian, Jace and Sebastian talking about their drone designs for LEGO. We've been asking for your stories of meeting people you know in unexpected places and lots of you have been in touch including Leo. I relocated from the UK to mainland Europe five, six years back. I went back to the UK in January because I still had things in storage there with a friend. Train arrived in London, caught a connection to Maidenhead where my friend was. After two nights I was coming back, standing at Maidenhead station. We'd just arrived on the platform, and someone said, hey Leo! And I turned around to see none other than Alex, Alexander Martinelli. Martinelli's were family friends from Zimbabwe back in the 90s. That's where we both spent

a large part of our childhood yeah we spent some memorable times together and attended the same church and even had a holiday together and you know we're chatting about these things and i said you know you wouldn't believe it but i've got an album in my my day pack on my back and i said listen there's some pictures in there of us and lo and behold there were pictures of us on holiday in Cape Town six seven eight pictures you know of of the two families of us brothers them the sisters all posing together in Cape Town on the beach in a holiday cottage yeah it was great it was really uh one of those chance meetings. Just wonder, was it meant to be?

I think so. Now, if you have a story of a chance meeting, please do send us an email or a voice note. The address, as ever, is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. And thanks very much to those who have already sent theirs in. We're planning to run them in the next coming weeks. Coming up in this podcast. He's usually hyper and just like any toddler. But when you see him painting, he's so focused.

He looks like an elderly artist that has been doing this for years. Ghana's art prodigy, who is just 17 months old. 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, Thank you. membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Now to the story about a man who took on the coal industry to save a forest and won. Alok Shukla fell in love with the Hastio Arunya forest in central India, home to thousands of tribespeople, endangered animals and rare plants. So much so, he dedicated his life to stopping multi-billion dollar companies uprooting the trees in their search for coal. Twelve years later, after online campaigns, protests in the

capital and tree sit-ins, he has saved a huge area of the forest, known the lungs of Chattisgarh and been awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize also known as the Green Nobel Prize. I spoke to Alok with the help of his friend and interpreter Priyanshu Gupta and asked why the forest is so special. Thank you so much for the opportunity to convey the thoughts and feelings. When he first went to these forests, he found them so beautiful, so rich, that he was very surprised and shocked to hear that such a beautiful natural salt forest will be destroyed for coal mining. And it is then that he felt what is the point of all the talks about mitigating climate change if we do not preserve forests like Hazebaran. The forest is not just special to you. Tell us about all the people and the animals and the communities that live there. The richest forests in India are precisely where tribal population has been living.

So in many ways, these forests exist because of these tribals. In turn, the tribal or Adivasi, as we call them in India, they depend completely on these forests for their livelihood, but also for their cultural identity, their festival. Close to 25 endangered wildlife species of mammals, thousands of birds and other flora and fauna survive in Hazevaran forest. And most important, this is the elephant habitat

where a large, a significant elephant population thrives. Did you ever think that you would have to give up? How did you keep going? What he said is that firstly, it is important to recognize that it's been a long struggle and the struggle has not really ended. It is still ongoing. But the question you raise is very important. How did we keep hope and optimism? Definitely, it's been a big challenge. So for Alok, the hope comes from when he goes and meets people, the Adivasi community, who are living in these forests and they are determined to save their forests at every cost.

This message from the local Adivasi that gives me hope to continue fighting. So it's a huge achievement. You've managed to save a lot of forest. And you've brought together so many people as well as the people who live in the communities in the forest to do this. This must be an amazing feeling. feeling? Obviously, it is a very happy moment that one has been recognized globally. When I started on this journey, it never ever occurred to me that I will ever be standing on an international platform. So definitely, it is a very, very happy moment. It is a big success. But more importantly, it is actually the success for the people of Hasef because finally the voice of the local Adivasis has now reached an international platform and it is able to attract, in some sense, a global solidarity. I also feel a lot of responsibility.

We have won this award, but how do we use it to further the struggles? Yes, we all need development, but development at what cost? Especially in this era of climate change, how can I now play my responsibility of lending support to that cause as well. So in some sense, I see both happy as well as burdened with a sense of responsibility. Alok Shukla and his interpreter Priyanshu Gupta. Time for a few other stories we've spotted this week. That's the sound of Diogo Elias becoming South America's first ever squash world champion.

The 27-year-old claimed victory over the former world number one Mustafa Assel in the men's final. Speaking at the tournament in Cairo, Elias said it was going to be a big deal for his fans in Peru. I just can't believe it, to be honest. I still don't know how it's going to be, but I know it's going to be huge. It's going to be massive in Peru, all the people that have been following me for so many years. And, yeah, to be honest, I don't even know how I feel right now. I still don't. I haven't

processed it yet. And just very happy. A man who is renovating his wine cellar in Austria has made an extraordinary discovery. Not a bottle of vintage red or white, but the remains of at least three prehistoric mammoths. Andreas Pernestorfer made the find whilst renovating his cellar. He told the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation ORF that at first he thought it was just a piece of wood left by his grandfather, but then he remembered that in the past his grandfather had found teeth and he thought it might be a mammoth. Archaeologists estimate the bones are between 30,000 and 40,000 years old. The French post office has rolled out a scratch and sniff postage stamp to celebrate the world famous baguette. The stamp, which costs just over two dollars, shows the distinctive loaf of bread

decorated with a blue, white and red ribbon. The ink used on the stamps contains micro capsules, which provide the bakery fragrance when scratched. Stamp collectors need to act quickly, though, as there's a limited print run. Now, in the art world, many artists wait years for some sort of recognition of their talent. In the case of Vincent van Gogh, fame didn't come until after his death. But for one Ghanaian artist, it's all come a little bit sooner than expected, as Rebecca Wood reports. How to walk, how to talk, how to eat real food.

Just some of the skills that a typical one-and-a-half-year-old might be attempting to master. But not Ace Liam Nanasam Ankara from Ghana. Aged just one year and 152 days old, he's entered the Guinness World Records as the world's youngest male painter. His paintings are usually vibrant, extremely abstract. From the age of 11 months, he's good at complementing the colours he chooses in the sense that if he chooses green, he knows it matches pink and he knows which shade of pink it matches with.

That's his mother, Chantal Kuka Egan, an artist too she needed to find a way to keep Aisley and busy while she worked. So at just six months old, she got him rolling around on canvas with some paint and it's then she realised his potential talent. At that stage he couldn't even hold a brush. He would try and grab the colour and squeeze it in between his fingers and then spread it out and then at the end when it dried I raised the canvas and it had turned into something beautiful so I was like okay this could be part of his playtime then. But playtime soon turned into professional pieces. In order to qualify for the record, Ace Liam needed to be part of a public exhibition and sell his work.

So a few months ago, his work was exhibited at the Museum of Science and Technology in the capital, Accra. Not only that, but he sold nine out of ten works on display and was even commissioned to make a piece by the First Lady of Ghana. So how was he handling it all at such a young age? He's usually hyper and just like any toddler, hyper, they're just exploring the world. But when you see him painting, he's so focused. He looks like an elderly artist that has been doing this for years. I'm pretty sure he's aware now because there was one time I told him he was the Guinness World Record holder and his reaction alone, he was sitting in the backseat and he was just singing, Guinness, Guinness, Guinness. Chantelle's hope is the record will help raise the profile of art in her country. As for Ace Liam, her dream is

an international scholarship to continue to grow his artistic talent. But in the meantime, he can be found in his own studio, surrounded by bright pinks and greens and yellows, ready to create his next masterpiece. Watch this space. That was Rebecca Wood reporting. Now we started with an animal singing like a human. So we thought we'd end with humans sounding like animals. Over the past few weeks, we've heard from a nine-year-old boy who sounds like a seagull and a five-year-old girl who does a great impression of a lion. So of course, we asked you for your animal noises. Hi, my name is Julia Lawrence. I'm from Stanford, California in the United States. And I've been told I can do a pretty good goat noise.

Brilliant. That clip made the HappyPod team really laugh. But it also left us with many questions. So we asked Julia to tell us more, including how she first learned she could sound like a goat. I have many fond memories of my mother taking me to the Woodland Park Zoo as a child. And one in particular stands out, which is I was waiting for her to use the restroom in the farm section. I must have been seven or eight at the time. And while I was idling by the goats I decided

to try to imitate their noise, their bleating. I remember showing my mom when she came outside and she was quite amused when they called back and the peculiar ability, I wouldn't call it a talent, has been following me ever since. My boyfriend was surprised to realize I could make this unpleasant noise when we were hiking in Italy back in 2017 on Elba Island. We're going up from Porto Azzurro to the Madonna di Monserrato sanctuary, and we happened upon a small herd. I let out my bleat, and they paused, called back, and started walking toward us. And to my relief, my boyfriend was more amused than horrified. And we're still together some six years later, so he can't have minded that much. But just this past fall, we stopped

off in Kos, a Greek island, after a wedding in Turkey and once again came upon a group of goats, this time crossing the road in front of our rental car. And he egged me on to let out my goat sound and they once again paused and called back. The most recent use of my bleat, though, has been as a goat stand-in at a friend's Passover Seder dinner. I'm a law student, and for the past three years, a group of friends has kindly included me in their annual tradition of singing Chad Gadia, in which they assign students roles. And let's just say I'm glad to have been assigned the goat and not the butcher. Fabulous. Thanks so much, Julia. Well, if you think you or your children can do better, please do send us a recording.

And that's all from us now. Remember, if you'd like to be part of the Happy Pod, we'd also love to hear any stories you think will make us smile. As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Callum McLean. The producers were Holly Gibbs and Rachel Bulkeley. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Vanessa Heaney. Until next time, goodbye. 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?

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