The Happy Pod: Learning to play the guitar one handed

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the Apartment Bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

0:50I'm Alex Ritson and in this edition... Even if things seem almost impossible, we can do it. We can do anything we want. If it's something that important to you, just go. don't stop until you get somewhere you want to be. The man trying to get his music career back after a life-changing stroke. You can be beautiful and wear lipstick. I wear lipstick when I play rugby because I just feel like I don't have to sacrifice one or the other. Like, I can be a beast in the field but also feel beautiful and wear lipstick. The young female athlete trying to inspire the next generation to follow in her footsteps.

1:26Plus, we find out why dozens of people have been queuing outside a funeral home in China. And... I think when I went to bed, because I can remember I was up at half past two, talking, yacking away. So it should be getting on for three o 'clock before I went to bed. Meet the woman raving on her 105th birthday.

1:58We start with one man's remarkable journey back to doing what he loves. Tony Romain is a musician from Inverness in Scotland. At the age of 49, he suffered a stroke which left him unable to speak or walk. Two and a half years into his recovery, Tony has resumed his music career by teaching himself how to play the guitar with one arm. He wants to use his music as a way to raise awareness for other people on a similar journey. He spoke to the Happy Pod's Holly Gibbs. I mean, at first I couldn't move hardly at all. I mean, it seemed pretty obvious I wouldn't play guitar again. Now I can move a lot better, but my left arm's still, well, pretty much useless.

2:41But things have come on a lot, and I hope they continue to. How did you inspire yourself to relearn how to play the guitar and how to sing again? I never really think that I didn't think I would. if that makes sense just even when I was lying in the ICU I couldn't move I was still thinking about when I get better I'm going to do this I remember one of the people in the ICU one of the nurses saying it would take months or possibly years for me to recover enough to just get home and in my mind that just said things will get better so that was it I had no doubt at all that I wouldn't play music. I really just couldn't imagine life without it.

3:28That must have been incredibly difficult when you were told that you were going to have to relearn how to speak and walk again. Yes, it was. And I think at the time as well, because of the brain injury, my emotions were all over the place. And not even my emotions, just my reactions to things. I would start crying for no reason even when I wasn't sad or I would start laughing just at anything at all for no reason. Quite often quite inappropriate moments. But when I realised everything I had to do it was hard to think about but I wasn't going to let anything get in the way. How did you even begin to teach yourself how to play the guitar one-handed?

4:23First of all, I laid it on a bench in front of me, and I tried to use one hand to do it. That didn't work. But I just kept trying everything I could. Eventually, I've got it sat in my wheelchair, so it's supported by the armrests, and I'll basically use, obviously, just the one hand. I'll use a couple of fingers to press down on the strings, and the other two fingers I'll use to pluck or strum the strings. How did it feel to be sat with your guitar again playing music? It made me very sad but very happy at the same time. It was just things I couldn't do which I used to be able to do and then things I could do which I never thought I would be able to do at the same point.

5:11How has music helped your recovery? I think it's just given me a focus. I mean, apart from family, obviously. It's the one thing in life that I really love and I just can't imagine giving up. Even since your stroke, you've got on stage to perform. How was that, stepping back on the stage? What did that feel like? It felt really good. It was almost like feeling like myself again, if that makes sense. What have your family said about you teaching yourself how to use musical instruments again? Keep the noise down. No, they've been very supportive. Do you want to use music in future to inspire other people who have suffered a stroke to help them in their recovery?

5:57Definitely. Well, I want to raise awareness for stroke. I would love to help encourage other people to keep on going and show them what can be done. Don't give up. Even if things seem almost impossible, we can do it. We can do anything we want. If it's something that important to you, just go. Don't stop until you get somewhere you want to be. And even then, don't stop. Tony Romain speaking to Holly Gibbs. For many of the world's greatest athletes, success isn't just measured on the field. It's also about inspiring the next generation. and in recent months interest in women's rugby has soared thanks in large part to one player in particular.

6:45Olympic bronze medalist Ilona Ma has become a prominent figure on social media amassing more followers than anyone else in the sport. The US rugby star is now bringing her passion to the UK ahead of the Women's Rugby World Cup. Ella Bicknell reports. And here is Ilona Ma with a hooker and a fly half to beat. Oh, she's going to do it. It is quite simply marvellous. Thousands of fans packed out Bristol's Ashgate Stadium, a record crowd for the South West England team. That's because of a new addition to the squad, a social media sensation and the new unofficial ambassador for women's rugby, Ilona Ma.

7:29OK, thanks, guys. OK, I'm going to sign one more thing and then I've got to go take a million pictures. Honestly, it's so exciting. She is the biggest name in rugby at the moment. She's just really made it so much more exciting and accessible to younger people as well. She's really funny. She's really inspirational for young girls and stuff. Especially tall, broad-shoulder women like me who wanted someone like Ilona to look up to. We're just excited to support women's sports and support Ilona. We're so happy to be here. After a bronze medal-winning performance for Team USA at the Paris 2024 Olympics, the 28-year-old Sevens player has moved to the UK to elevate her 15-a-side game and she's bringing her 8 million social media followers with her.

8:11I'm so excited to join the Bristol Bears and play Premiership women's rugby with and against some of the best rugby players in the world. Just a question, is it going to be this cold the whole time? It's got a little chilly. It is. They see me through an app all the time. They see me that way and connected with me through social media. Yeah, so getting to see me play, getting to see me in person is like puts more of like a realness to it. Like I am a real person. That is who I am online. It's who I am in real life. And I'm so happy that they all came. We had so many people come out who've never watched a rugby game before.

8:40This was their first one. So I'm happy that this was a good game, a great day for it. Mar's performance on the field combined with her humorous behind-the-scenes videos made her one of the standout stars of last year's Olympics. She's since been a contestant on primetime American television show Dancing with the Stars. She's been featured in magazines like Forbes and Sports Illustrated and signed multiple brand deals.

9:09Her motto, Beast Beauty Brains, reflects her unapologetic approach to life. She wants women to be themselves, regularly jumping on TikTok to discuss body positivity and what it's like as a high-profile female athlete. I want to talk to you all today about imposter syndrome and why people automatically assume that successful women have it. I have cellulite everywhere. It is completely normal, completely natural. It does not take away from your athletic ability or how fast or how fit you are. We all have it. Speaking to the BBC, Ma says it's an honour to be a role model for young girls, if that's what's needed to make the sport grow.

9:44The thing is, athletes and women are so versatile. You can be beautiful and wear lipstick. I wear lipstick when I play rugby because I just feel like I don't have to sacrifice one or the other. I can be a beast in the field but also feel beautiful and wear lipstick. I also am smart. I have a nursing degree. I have a master's in business. I think for those girls out there, rugby is a really sport that allows you to express yourself in the fullest way possible. Ilona Ma's contract with the Bristol Bears might just be three months long, but she hopes to be back in England for this summer's Women's Rugby World Cup.

10:19I want to make that World Cup squad next year, and I want to put myself in the best, most deserving position to make it. And I think for rugby as a whole, this is just a shine light on this league as well, because this is a semi-professional league. Hopefully it becomes a professional league, so these girls can play rugby, can fill these stands more, and so little girls can dream of being a professional rugby player someday. Ella Bignall reporting. To south-west China now, where food lovers have been flocking to an unlikely destination. Queues of people have formed outside a small funeral home in Guizhou, some even posing as mourners just to try a popular noodle dish served in the funeral home's canteen.

10:59Our Asia-Pacific editor Celia Hatton told Oliver Conway more about this latest food craze. These noodles, I've got to say, they do look delicious. They're kind of these hand-pulled noodles made in the canteen, and they're served with pork. They're a little bit spicy. They're topped with peanuts. It's a bit of a local delicacy, but it just shows that Chinese food lovers will go to great lengths to find good food. So word began to spread that this little tiny cafeteria inside a funeral home complex was serving fantastic noodles. And people started pretending that they were attending funerals, pretending to be mourning the dead in order to go and try the noodles.

11:44And it was said that at one point the lineups outside the canteen were about two hours long. Some waited for two hours in order to pay about a dollar for a bowl of these fantastic noodles. Yeah, the pictures suggest the canteen is quite busy just seeing those people there crammed in. Can it cope? Well, they have said, they've had to make a concession, that they are willing for members of the public to come and try the noodles. In fact, the chef says he will give 50 free bowls of noodles away a day as long as those people, the noodle lovers, don't get in the way of the actual mourners, people actually attending funerals.

12:23So they've had to make some concessions. But I think they're seeing it as a huge compliment that people all over China are going to this one tiny location because the noodles are so good. And this is a big thing in China. You hear about some good food and you do anything to try and get there. That's right. I mean, Chinese people love really good food. So when word begins to spread and social media has just amplified this word begins to spread that one particular thing is really, really good. People almost enjoy the challenge of being able to track it down and to line up for huge amounts of time and to really kind of put in the time in order to score this.

13:01And I think the added challenge of having to pretend to be mourning and to pretend to be attending a funeral was just what some people just couldn't even ignore. Celia Hatton. Fitness trends might come and go, but this latest one has raised some eyebrows. Codrobics is a form of exercise which involves copying the movement of animals by walking on all fours. It's also taken off as a social media trend in Russia. However, some senior politicians there have threatened to ban it. One Japanese man hopes to stop that and spread the benefits of the sport, as Edward Main reports. I think it's utterly ridiculous for any government to think of banning quadrobics, something that has so many benefits as a sport.

13:49That's Kenichi Ito from Japan. He's one of the fastest humans on four limbs. On y 'all mark! Ready? Go! Kenichi held the Guinness World Record from 2015 to 2022 after covering 100 metres in a remarkable 15.71 seconds. Kenichi lives in Tokyo where he's something of a celebrity. Now 42, he devotes much of his time to training and promoting quadrobics as a sport. With a wary physique and collar-length brown hair, he was dressed in a tracksuit. Despite the poor connection, Kenichi's passion for quadrobics shone through. So how did it all begin? I've always loved monkeys. When I went to the zoo and saw patas monkeys running, I was struck by how agile and fast they were.

14:42I wanted to be able to run just like them. When I got home, I started researching running on four limbs on the internet. It looked like nobody had thought of doing it competitively yet. I started training and researching because I wanted to turn it into a competitive sport. At the time, Kenichi was studying in the US. When people asked, hey dude, what are you doing? I told them that I wanted to be able to run quickly on all fours and was training for that. They'd encourage me once they learned that. Even police officers encouraged me after I explained to them what I was doing. However, when Kenichi moved back home, he received a very different reaction.

15:20There was a major cultural shift in the way I was perceived. People would report me to the police or they'd avoid me on the streets. In an effort to escape that hostility, Kenichi headed for the countryside. I went to go and stay with a friend who was a monk as he owned a hut in the mountains. I thought I'd be able to roam around freely on all fours, 24-7. However, this almost proved fatal when a hunter mistook Kenichi for a wild boar. One day when I was going about my business on all fours, I heard a loud rustling noise in the distance. And when I looked up, I could see the muzzle of a gun pointed at me.

16:00I sprang up and yelled, I'm human. Kenichi rejects claims by Russian officials that quadrobics has a negative effect on young people. And Kenichi has this message. Quadrobics is such a beautiful thing that shouldn't be stopped by any government. I want you to be able to keep doing the quadrobics that you love despite all this. We passed on Kenichi's message to Maria, the teenage quadrober from Moscow. I would answer thank you very much for your support and such words. I think this will be very important for many. I would like all quadrobbers to hear those words. In the last couple of months, the outcry about quadrobics appears to have quietened down a bit.

16:45A ban has yet to materialise. And you can hear more on this story from BBC Trending, wherever you get your podcasts from.

17:00Coming up in this podcast. All of a sudden, I'm 27 years old. I'm living the American dream. I'm living in a 10 ,000 square foot mansion, and I didn't like what I thought. The man who gave up his NFL career to become a farmer.

17:24If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

18:03In 2022, Canada became the first country to allow same-sex figure skaters to compete in pairs at national level. but two former Olympic champions are attempting to spark change globally in a sport bound by strict gender rules. All throughout last month, Madison Hubble from the US and Gabriela Papadakis of France performed as an all-female duo at a figure skating gala in Switzerland. Their aim was to inspire other governing bodies to allow same-sex couples to compete. Chantal Hartle has been finding out how this partnership came about. For many years, Madison Hubble and Gabriela Papadakis were rivals on the ice.

18:48But during their time as competitors, they also formed a friendship. After their retirement, the pair trained together in Canada and posted videos of them skating together online. Then, as Papadakis put it, one thing led to another and they ended up performing at an ice gala that took place in cities across Switzerland.

19:15One reviewer described the performance as a work of art full of softness and intimacy which breaks through the slick and polished surface of the sport. The two former Olympians acknowledged that the inclusion of same-sex couples in competitive skating would be a slow process. But Papadakis, who is bisexual, said she hoped their pairing would at least start a conversation. For young people, oftentimes they want to do international competitions, they want to go to Worlds, they want to go to the Olympics. So if it's not allowed, they're not necessarily interested yet to participate at the national level.

19:52And I think a lot of young people too, they're afraid of being judged. But I think for us, it's nice to use our status in the skating world to show that actually it's something that people enjoy. So having spent decades performing alongside men, does it feel any different to skate with a woman? For Hubble, not so much. It was really fun to skate with someone who's obviously a more fluid and soft style than my partner had been. But it didn't feel like I had the cognizant thought, I'm skating with a female so I must change for a female. It was just another person that I was learning to skate with.

20:31For the former champions, this wasn't just about modernising the world of figure skating. They also want to inspire more women and girls to pursue the sport competitively. Skating has been most of my life and it's a big love of mine. And sharing it with somebody else that I'm close with and care about was a big motivator. And I see a lot of young women who want to pursue ice dance in a certain way. And there's not that many young boys or men who are competing. so I thought it would be nice to actually have a visual reference of what it could look like for two women or two men to skate together on the ice.

21:08Hubble and Papadakis hope their skating tour in Switzerland was the first of many projects together. In a recent blog post, Papadakis wrote that figure skating is at its best when it celebrates grace, strength and harmony. It is time, she says, to redefine what those words mean and who gets to embody them. Chantal Hartle reporting For many, a career as a professional sports star is what dreams are made of Jason Brown chose to play football in high school as a way to get a college scholarship and having done just that, he made it to the NFL becoming the best paid player in the position but despite his success at the age of 29 he walked away from the sport to become a farmer in North Carolina where he gives away tons of food every year Jason spoke to Katie Smith.

22:00It is a beautiful farm, a gorgeous thousand acre farm. And here in North Carolina, more sweet potatoes grown here than anywhere else. So that is one of our staple crops. Most of our food that we have grown, harvested and donated, which to date is more than two million pounds of food, about one point million pounds of that have been sweet potatoes. I can hear the passion in your voice when you talk and you talk like someone who has done this their entire life. But I wonder if you could take us back to the moment where your career is going really well. You're in the NFL. For a lot of people, you are living the dream.

22:40Where was that moment where you saw, actually, for me, I'm not sure I am living the dream. I was inspired by my older brother, Lunsford Bernard Brown II. second. He was slain in service over in Iraq. I wish that I could say that so much of my passion and being so tough came from a happy place. Actually, all of my passion came from a really dark place of not wanting to let my older brother down, like no matter what it took. All of a sudden, I'm 27 years old. I'm living the American dream. I'm living in a 10 ,000 square foot mansion. And I didn't like what I saw because in reflection, Lunsford lived a life of service and giving back.

23:28And I was living a life of fortune, fame, and selfishness, a lot of materialistic things. And it hit me to my core. I knew that I had to give back. And I always told myself, I'm never going to forget about where I come from. And you have to keep a certain level of humility and a certain level of humanity and that compassion for your fellow man. You say that you don't want to forget where you come from, but actually you didn't come from a farm, did you? So where did the farm come into this? That was my grandfather. He was a large farmer here in North Carolina. I was inspired by stories that my father would tell me about my grandfather, about how giving he was.

24:17Every Christmas, He gave every single one of his family members and friends a 50-pound sack of beans, a gallon of molasses, and a salt-cured ham or a shoulder. That's an awesome gift. If you're a family that's struggling and going through food insecurity, that's the type of gift that can help you to make it throughout another month or so. And all while growing up, I saw the miracles of agriculture, even just on fruit trees. I would even make fun with my mother when I would ask her for some money. And she said, hey, son, why are you asking me for money? What do you think? Money grows on trees? I said, well, no, it doesn't.

24:58But food grows on trees. There's something of value that grows on trees. That's why one of the first things that we planted here at First Fruits Farm was as many perennial fruit and nut trees as we possibly could. And my son, JW, who was four years old at the time, he said, hey, dad, when are we going to be able to harvest and eat some of these fresh nuts? I said, what I'm doing right now, you and your children are going to benefit from these trees more so than I ever will. I said, but you have to learn right now what it means to invest in our future, what it means to sow a seed, to plant a tree, but yet it's going to be beneficial and help to feed our families for generations to come.

25:46You know, look at all of your unique gifts and how you can give back in a unique way. There's something that you can do to build a legacy. Jason Brown speaking to Kate Smith and you can hear the full interview on Sports Hour wherever you get your BBC podcasts. If you were lucky enough to make it to 105, how would you celebrate? One woman from Derbyshire in central England put on a rave with the help of her care home. Harry Bly has the story. A DJ, rave lighting, UV paint and glow sticks. It's the sort of birthday celebration you'd have if you're a teenager. You might think. This party, however, was for Hilda Jackson, who was turning 105 years old.

26:39Hilda is the oldest resident at Holbrook Hall Residential Home, which hosted the event. Bit of dancing, a bit of raving, you know, whatever. So why a rave? The staff at her care home who organised the rave say Hilda has always been a big fan of dancing and living life to the fullest. Well I've been like it all my life. I can't be a person that just sits there and not says anything. I like to join in everything that's going off especially here where I am. I speak to everybody that comes in and they just look at me and I think some of them think I'm not all right. And here's how it went. The reason we are all here this evening, can we make some noise for the birthday girl on her 105th birthday?