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The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand
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Happy stories and positive news from around the world - our weekly collection
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Alan Smith
This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. I'm Alan Smith and it's great to be with you for half an hour or so of uplifting stories from around the world in this edition. It's creating a lot of laughter for us as a family with me doing them, but also when people are receiving them, they're just so ridiculous that people are just really enjoying it for what it is. We meet the artist who's creating what he says are terrible paintings. But that hasn't stopped him from getting commissions from all over the world. We'll find out why. Also the most lines that I hear is I feel young again. You've helped me relive my youth. The care home worker turned strip performer who's been entertaining some elderly fans. The man who's using his experience as a child refugee to design robots to help vulnerable youngsters. I stayed in my room and was coding like crazy and that inspired me to seek an education in computer science despite my parents guidance that was you're going to become a doctor like most immigrants. Plus Romeo, the lonely manatee. Remember him from a year ago? We've an update on how he's doing. But to begin, we're all supposed to have hidden talents. I'm still trying to think what mine might be. But one man in the northwest of England has gone viral with his. Jamie Lee Mateus paints portraits in his spare time. He must be good at it too because he's had more than a hundred commissions from people all over the world. But there's a catch. You see, these paintings are what Jamie calls terrible and some of his work has been mistaken for that of a child. It all started when Jamie painted a portrait of his wife on their wedding day as the happy pods Holly Gibbs has been finding out. We've painted as a family for a number of years. And my wife gave me quite a lot of grief about the quality of my work. So I decided to paint something of us on our wedding day. Gave it to her as a gift and it went down very, very well. I think she was a little bit shocked that that's what I thought she looked like, to be honest. It was done just from an image that hadn't been taken yet because it was before the wedding day. She looks nothing like that on the day, but she saw the humor in it, as did all of the guests on the day as well. What inspired you to draw the picture of you and your wife on your wedding day in the first place? She was basically saying how bad I was. So I thought it would be quite funny to present it as part of the wedding speech, knowing that it would be bad. And it was, and it got a lot of laughs. And from then it just blew up. So it was more just that she said I was rubbish, so I thought I'd gift it to her. I actually said I'd like her to hang it on the living room wall. She's, as of yet, refused to do that. Was that your only gift to her, this painting? It was, actually. So you put this painting online and then you get lots of requests from people for you to paint their pictures? Yeah, Basically, at the turn of the year, we decided that we'd put it on social media and just see if anybody else wanted one. I enjoy doing it, even though I'm not very good, so I wanted to carry on. There's only so many I could do for friends and family and it's just kind of blown up. Yeah, we've got, I think, 145 orders at the moment, going to about nine different countries, I think, at last count. Talk to me about the reaction you've had from these paintings, because you call them terrible yourself. That's not us calling them terrible. But you. You say that they are terrible paintings. People are just seeing the funny side of it, to be honest, Holly, it's creating a lot of laughter for us as a family, with me doing them, but also when people are receiving them, they're just so ridiculous that people are just really enjoying it for what it is. I knew that I wasn't very good at drawing, which is why we gave it the name Terrible art, But we didn't expect people to sort of buy into it as much as they are. But I think we're getting a lot of people sending us their reactions when they're opening them, which is just pure laughter and joy. And I think in January, which was quite a long month anyways, it always is. It brought a lot of laughter to a lot of people. And talk to me, Jamie, about the reaction from your family. What have they said about this? The kids think it's ridiculous, but I think none of us thought it was going to do as well as it did. So I did some for friends and family over Christmas and again, I think they just thought it was a bit of a gimmick. But I think everyone's just enjoying the comedy value of it. It's gone so far and wide and there's been so many good stories from it. So I think, yeah, everybody's enjoying it maybe a little bit nervous that they're all going to receive these for future presents, but at the moment it seems to be well received. Have you had any bad reactions from the customers that have bought one of your photos? The only concern is that I'm going to get better. If I'm perfectly honest, a few people have seen a couple of drawings and thought that I might be getting better, but yet everybody that follows the page or that has ordered one sees it for what it is, which is, like I say, light hearted fun. So, yeah, no bad reactions other than the concern that I might get better. Who's better at drawing, you or your children? Oh, the children, absolutely. I love the fact that he's worried that he's only going to get better. Jamie Lee Mateus speaking to Holly Gibbs in a story that proves that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Now, as I'm sure you know, here on the Happy Pod we like to cover the weird and wonderful stories from across the world. And our next one is no different. Max Hunty is a member of the British group Dream Boys. They put on dance performances which involve stripping. That's clothes stripping, not paint stripping. And this week, Max put on a show for an unlikely audience, the elderly residents of a care home. Now, Max, who used to work in a care home himself, replaced the resident's usual knitter natter session with a performance which was met with very high praise indeed. He's been speaking to the happy Pods. Harry, just because somebody is older doesn't automatically mean that their brains and sort of their intelligence should be questioned because it absolutely shouldn't. That was why I jumped at the chance doing the, the care home the other week. Well, there we go. So, so how did this come about? How did you combine these two parts of your life? You know, working as an activities manager in a care home and actually becoming the activity I have seen over the years from doing stage shows. Ladies screaming at the guys on stage. The funny thing is it's always the older ladies who end up having the best time because at the end of the night they are always the ones that come over to me and the lads and say that wasn't like what I expected. And one of the most lines that I hear is, I feel young again. You've helped me relive my youth and that is really special to us as performers. So when Dream Boys sort of mentioned the care home job, obviously with my background then I wanted to be the person to deliver that performance and take me through this performance at the care home. How did it go? First of all, When I walked out, I started interacting with them. The music was playing, but I start talking to them as well. Like for example, I said, oh, Betty, I'm sure we've met before and just little one liners like that, you know, that's what it's all about. It sounds lovely and it sounds like you've, in a way, because of your expertise, you've adapted it for them. You know what will make them smile and, and you've, you haven't just copy and pasted Dream Boys show. You've, you've, you've curated it, haven't you? Yeah. 100. I mean, me as a performer, I like to sort of change it up a little bit. I like to do things that people won't expect and it's all about building that rapport with the audience. Max, how does it you feel doing this work, stripping for this audience and, you know, seeing those smiling faces and, and hearing that feedback? For me, it's priceless. You've, you have just said, you've just used a word. You've just used the word stripper. Now personally, I don't class myself as a stripper. It's not like that at all. It's a performance. I'm a performer to, to hear the feedback that the ladies loved it. I'm changing perceptions and, and what really got us, and I'm sure this got to you as well, it's that time slots normally called a nat and a knitter, knitting and a nut or something. Yeah. This is so vastly different. Which, which I, which I'd like to say. I am gonna go to that knitting natter. I am gonna go to that. Yeah. Because I, I've created, I've made friends that day. Well, Max, this is what some of your new friends from the care home had to say about your performance, starting with the care home manager, Caroline. I've never seen a reaction like it from an event that we pulled off. The laughter, the giggle, the tears. I mean, just, they've loved every minute of it. It was a nice body, nice athletic and everything he did was lovely and even he's got everybody smiling and that's beautiful. Thanks. They're great, aren't they? Residents Ann and Betty reacting there to Max's show. And he was speaking to Harry Bly. Next we're meeting a man who's used his own experience as a child refugee to design robots that can help vulnerable children make sense of the world. Paolo Pajanian fled Iran with his older brother when he was 15, and after settling in Denmark, encountered Racism and struggled at school. But he went on to earn a degree and a PhD in robotics, got his dream job working on Mars rovers at NASA, and then founded a company that makes companion robots that are capable of understanding and expressing emotions, which help children with social and emotional problems. He told Mobin Azar his love of computers all started when he had to cancel a planned trip during the long school summer holiday, leaving him with $500 to spend. So I'm walking into central of the city and thinking about like, what do I do with this $500? And then I remember two of the smartest kids in my high school class were what you would call computer nerds. They were constantly talking to each other about computers. So then I thought, I said, you know what, I'm just gonna go buy a computer. And I saw in the window there was a computer that was slashed from 999 to $500. So I went in and bought that computer, I brought it home and that changed the trajectory of my life because that summer I stayed in my room and was coding like crazy. And that inspired me to seek an education, computer science, despite my parents guidance that was, you're going to become a doctor like most immigrants parents do, right? Doctor or lawyer. But I wanted to be a computer scientist. Paolo, when you speak about coding that summer, you kind of, you blushed a little bit. It's almost like you fell in love with coding. Oh, I did? You did. It was obsessive. It was obsessive. It was almost like an addiction. And that led you down a very particular path. And you were very, very good at it as well, weren't you? Yeah, but it was a bit of a tough time for me. I was, I had fallen behind in my schooling by four years. And then this computer gave me the motivations, inspired me to want to get a degree in computer science. So I went from doing really poorly in like second year of high school to the last year of high school. I was like top of the, not my class, but my entire school. That really is remarkable. You went to university, so you got a degree and then you went on to study and you got a PhD, didn't you? So I specialize in computer vision and robotics. So the science of processing or analyzing images or videos to understand what's going on in the world, to aid a robot to make decisions and perform tasks in the environment. You then got an extremely prestigious job. How did you begin working for NASA? That was my childhood dream job actually. So if you go back and look at pictures from when I was like 6, 7 years old. My theme of my birthday cake was always space. After a couple of years working on robots to explore distant planets, Paolo left NASA to pursue his passion, tech with a social purpose. He credits his experiences as a refugee as a driving force in his quest to succeed and help people. I would say the added advantage that people with my kind of background bring to the fold is that changing the world takes a lot of courage and a lot of grit. Fortunately or unfortunately, Historian has built grit in me, has taught me how to persevere against the odds, has told me to do the thing that looks impossible, and has taught me how to navigate uncertain waters. Entrepreneurship, invention, or creation of something new that has never been done before is really navigating uncertain waters. You don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow. Paula Pigianian and you can hear a longer interview with him on Outlook wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Coming up in the happy pod. It's emotionally extremely sort of turbulent really. I can't really describe it in any other terms. And when I came out, my wife was waiting outside and the only thing I could do was burst into tears. A long lost tomb in Egypt uncovered after centuries. Our next story is about a student in the United States who managed to attend her dream university for free. The average cost of a place at a college there is around $38,000 a year. But as Sierra Perosa told Andrew Peach, she managed to attend NYU without paying and helped others in a similar situation. I didn't even know if I was going to get into my dream school or not. Like, I was really nervous about it because my parents didn't go to college. So I applied to 43 colleges, which broke my school's like, record because I was like super nervous about it and I really wanted to go to a good school. And then I got into NYU and I was just, you know, so close yet so far when I got in and I was so excited and happy. But then I found out that they weren't giving me any aid. Aid at first. And like, as a low income first generation college student, well, high school student at the time, I was just really worried. But I also knew that I had to like, fight as much as I could. Education systems are different in every country to explain in the US we're talking about tens of thousands of dollars here. Oh yeah, NYU is $80,000 a year. So I just had no idea how, how I was going to do it. And what happened was, is after I negotiated like my financial aid and started doing like really well with scholarships. I started trying to help, like, other students. So I made, like, an account online, and now I've helped, like, thousands of students also do the same thing. And just explain to us where the scholarship money comes from for the financial aid negotiation. I'm negotiating with people who work high up in financial aid at nyu. So NYU has this big endowment. I think it's like multimillions or billions of dollars. And they get to decide, you know, where this money goes, right? Research grants, students to be able to help them to go to, to go to their right. And so these people who are high up in financial aid, I found their emails like it's online. And then I, you know, emailed them saying, here's my situation, here's why I can't pay for nyu. And also NYU just came out with the NYU promise, which also a couple of other universities have done in the US recently, which is if you're making a hundred thousand dollars or less, they'll give you free tuition. So you still have to pay for room and board and things like that. When it comes to scholarships, though, some of the scholarships I did get from nyu, just like applying, they would look at my grades, they would look at my resume, and they would give me, like, scholarships based on that. But when it came to scholarships outside of nyu, these are from private organizations that have, you know, understood that the US has such high prices for colleges. And so with the, the money they've gotten from donors, also money that they've gotten from grants from the government, they have created these scholarship opportunities that they let students apply for. Do you think you appreciate the place you've got more because of how hard you had to work to get it? Yeah, I do. But I also have this belief that college should be free in the US and that's why I created this platform to help students go to college for free, because it's. It's genuinely my dream to help other students. Sierra Perosa was speaking to Andrew Peach. Now, here's a story that sounds like the plot of a Hollywood movie. Cambodia, located near the equator, is known for its hot and humid tropical climate. But for the first time, it sent a delicate delegation of snowboarders, yes, snowboarders to the Asian Winter Games in China. The four men made their debut at the Yabuli ski resort. Not only that, but it was their first time in a freezing climate, as Stephanie Prentice has been finding out. Some people say you know them. Can't believe Jamaica, we have a bobsleigh team. The 90s hit movie, Cool Runnings won over audiences all around the world with its its unlikely tale of an inexperienced Jamaican bobsled team competing in the Winter Olympics. It was based on a true story. And now a similar tale has unfolded in last week's Asian Winter Games. 4 Men from Cambodia headed to frosty northern China to compete with athletes from 34 countries and regions across Asia after recently learning to snowboard and with very little experience of cold weather. It's like minus 20, 22, so it's a little bit different. Oh, no, completely different. After mastering the art of strapping their bindings into the board, they were seen weaving confidently, if slowly, down the slopes as part of the men's slopestyle competition and mixing with the other competitors in the athlete's village. We just go there to share the connection with other people from the outside country. I just feel happy that I have the opportunity to come here. Just like the team in cool runnings, they didn't take home any medals, but also, just like them, they left with happy memories in a vow to return again and win by putting love into it. I would love to train about winter Swirl. Learn some more skill. More skill, more style. Learn some new trick. Put everything that you can. We would love to. Everything. Yeah. Good luck, guys. That report was by Stephanie Prentice. This next story really has got historians all over the world excited. It's being called the biggest discovery for Egyptologists in a hundred years. The first royal tomb to be uncovered since king Tutankhamun's in 1922. This time, a joint British Egyptian team of archaeologists has found the long lost tomb of King Thutmose II, the last undiscovered royal tomb of the 18th Dynasty. Piers Llewelland heads the British Egyptian team in Luxor and he spoke to Celia Hatton. We were working in an area called the Western Wardies, which is about two and a half kilometers west of the Valley of the Kings at the opposite end of the mountain. And it's an area that's associated with royal women. So when we found this tomb, we expected it would be the tomb of a royal woman. And it was unexpectedly large. It had a large staircase and a very large descending corridor. But it took us a very long time to get through all that because A, it was blocked with flood debris and B, the ceilings had all collapsed. And it was only after crawling through a 10 meter passageway that had a small sort of 40 centimeter gap at the top that we got into the burial chamber and realized that the burial chamber had the remains of decoration on it. No woman's tomb of the 18th Dynasty is decorated. And not only that, part of the ceiling was still intact, a blue painted ceiling with yellow stars on it. And blue painted ceilings with yellow stars are only found in kings tombs. But I mean the, the emotion of getting into these things is just one of extraordinary sort of bewilderment because when you come across something that you're not expecting to find, it's emotionally extremely sort of turbulent really. I can't really describe it in any other terms. And when I came out, my wife was waiting outside and the only thing I could do was burst into tears. We then started to clear all the flood debris, expecting to find underneath it the crushed remains of a burial. And in fact, the tomb turned out to be completely empty, not because it had been robbed, but because it had been deliberately emptied. We then worked out that the tomb had been flooded. It had been built underneath a waterfall and it had filled with water at some stage within about six years of the burial. We now know that the burial was taken out through a subsidiary corridor and moved somewhere else. And it was only gradually, as we sifted through all the material, tons and tons and tons of broken limestone, that we discovered these small fragments of alabaster which named took most of the second. And these are fragments of alabaster vessels which were probably broken when the tomb was being moved. And thank goodness they did actually break one or two things because that's how we found out whose tomb it was. How big a deal would it be if you got access to that second tomb? One has to bear in mind that Tutmosi II is considerably earlier than Tutankhamun. But this would be only the second king's tomb to be found with all its major grade goods in place. They won't be as wonderful as Tutankhamun's, I don't think, but all the same, the contribution to the knowledge of what kings were buried with would be absolutely enormous. Piers Litherland speaking to Celia Hatton. Now we're going to return to a story that we covered just over a year ago. You might remember Romeo, nicknamed the loneliest manatee in the world after footage of him living alone in a tiny crumbling pool in Florida went viral. He was rescued from Miami Seaquarium after a massive public outcry. But the question you might still be asking is, did he live happily ever after? Nicky Cardwell has been to find out. A quick recap. Romeo is the oldest manatee in captivity in the world at £2,000. He's also the biggest. He used to share his tank with Juliet, the mother of his babies. But they were separated. After decades of companionship, he ended up alone in a small, crumbling tank and might have died there. Had Philip Demers from the pressure group Urgent Seas not drawn the world's attention with a social media post, he was moved to Zoo Tampa, who immediately invited Phil to come and see Romeo in his new home with his new friends. You know, he was getting groomed by some young, rambunctious teenage boys in the tank, and he was loving it. The interactions were great, but it was very heartwarming for us to see that. Just to see him, you know, really just lighting up around a sort of a renewed family of his own. That was a year ago, but how is he doing now? I went to Zoo Tampa to see for myself. I'm standing at the edge of the pool and I'm looking at what is frankly a massive pile of manatees. There's about 10 of them all on top of one another. Some are cuddling each other with their fins. And I think that that is Romeo at the bottom. He's much bigger than everyone else, so he's quite easy to spot. He really seems to be enjoying his new life. But what do the experts think? Molly Lippincott heads the team at Sutampa, responsible for Romeo's care. Once we got him here, honestly, within that first day, we were able to introduce him to several new friends that we had in our pools. He seemed like he already was, like, ready to settle right in and meet some friends. So within the first day or so, we were able to get him out to our front pools. I mean, he's a pretty large animal, so we wanted to make sure that we gave him friends and space and given his age and that he lived at a facility for generally most of his life, we've been pleasantly surprised by his adaptability because he's quite an old gentleman, isn't he? How long do manatees live for? You know, they live into their 60s. So the longer that Romeo lives, that's kind of telling us how long they can live. We don't know his exact age, but we believe it's about 68 years old. So he's doing really well. I mean, can. Considering we believe he's 68 years old, his body condition and everything looks really good. So I think it's a happy ending for him. Obviously, we've grown to know and love him here and wish that he has many happy years to come. Romeo will, for the time being, stay at Sioux Tampa. Because manatees are endangered, the zoo prioritises getting young manatees back out into the wild where hopefully they'll breed. For Fielder Merse at open seas, this is still a win. He says the moment he saw Romeo at Zoo Tampa, he knew they'd done the right thing. This was elation that, you know, no currency can buy, no lottery win can replicate. You know, to just see the contrast in his environment from isolation in a place with little to no hope of even people knowing of his existence, to now, the interaction alone with other manatees. You saw the stress just shedding off of Romeo and that was. Well, we became addicted to that feeling and we're pursuing it more and more and more. Phil Demers sending that report by Nicky Cardwell. And that's all from the Happy Pod for now. Thank you so much for your company. And remember, if there's a story that you've heard which you think might lift the hearts of listeners around the world, we'd love you to tell us about it. As ever, you can get in touch via this address. It's globalpodcast@BBC.co.uk this edition was mixed by Jack Wilfan. The producers were Holly Gibbs and Harry Bly. The editor is Karen Martin and I'm Alan Smith. Until next time, it's bye for now.