The Happy Pod: The 'terrible' artist in high demand

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.

0:49I'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 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.

2:02But 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 north-west of England has gone viral with his. Jamie Lee Matthias 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 Pod's Holly Gibbs has been finding out.

2:38We'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 humour 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?

3:08She 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, yes. 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.

3:45I 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.

4:18I 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 anyway, as 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.

4:54It'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 yeah, everybody that follows the page or that has ordered one sees it for what it is, which is, like I say, light-hearted fun.

5:25So 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.

5:57That'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 residents' usual nitter-natter session with a performance which was met with very high praise indeed. He's been speaking to the Happy Pod's Harry Bly. 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 care home the other week. Well, there we go.

6:35So 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 what that wasn't like what I expected and you've you've had one of the the most lines that I hear is I feel young again you've helped me relive my youth and that is really special to was 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 say oh betty i'm sure we've met before and and just little one line is like that you know that that's what it's all about it sounds lovely and it sounds like you've in a way you 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 paste the dream boys show you've you've you've curated it haven't you yeah a hundred 100%.

8:15I 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 make you feel doing this work, stripping for this audience and, you know, seeing those smiling faces and hearing that feedback? For me, it's priceless. you've you have just said um you've just used the 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 slot's normally called a knitter knitting and a net or something and this is so vastly different which which i which i'd like to say i am gonna go to that uh knitter 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 they're great aren't they residents ann and betty reacting there to max's show and he was speaking to harry bligh 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.

10:14Paolo 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 Azhar 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 in the center of the city and thinking, what do I do with these$500?

10:55And 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 going to 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 do, right?

11:36Doctor 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 had fallen behind in my schooling by four years. And then this computer gave me the motivation to inspire 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.

12:12I 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 six, seven years old, my theme of my birthday cake was always space.

12:54After 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, the story 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 on certain waters.

13:37Entrepreneurship, invention or creation of something new that has never been done before, is really navigating on certain waters. You don't really know what's going to happen tomorrow. Paolo Pajanian. And you can hear a longer interview with him on Outlook, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

13:57Coming up in the Happy Pod. It's emotionally extremely sort of turbulent, really. I can't really describe it in any other terms. When I came out, my wife was waiting outside and anything I could do was burst into tears. A long-lost tomb in Egypt, uncovered after centuries.

14:23If 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.

15:00Our 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.

15:37And 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 at first. And like as a low income, first generation college student, well, high school student And at the time, I was just really worried. But I also knew that I had to 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 I was going to do it. And what happened was, after I negotiated my financial aid and started doing really well with scholarships, I started trying to help other students.

16:22So 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 multi-millions 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 their institution, right? And so these people who are high up in financial aid, I found their emails, like it's online.

16:57And then I 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 U.S. recently, which is if you're making$100 ,000 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 from 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 U.S.

17:37has such high prices for colleges. And so with 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 there 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 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.

18:18Cambodia, located near the equator, is known for its hot and humid tropical climate. But for the first time, it sent a 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 bobsled team. The 90s hit movie Cool Runnings won over audiences all around the world with its unlikely tale of an inexperienced Jamaican bobsled team competing in the Winter Olympics.

18:59It was based on a true story and now a similar tale has unfolded in last week's Asian Winter Games. Four 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 slope-style competition and mixing with the other competitors in the athletes' village.

19:46We'll 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 and a vow to return again and win by putting love into it. I would love to train about winter sport. Learn some more skill, more style. Learn some new tricks. Put everything that you can. We would love to try everything. Good luck, guys. That report was by Stephanie Prentice. This next story really has got historians all over the world excited.

20:32It's being called the biggest discovery for Egyptologists in 100 years, the first royal tomb to be uncovered since King Tutankhamen in 1922. This time, a joint British-Egyptian team of archaeologists has found the long-lost tomb of King Tutmosi II, the last undiscovered royal tomb of the 18th dynasty. Piers Litherland heads the British-Egyptian team in Luxor, and he spoke to Celia Hatton. We were working in an area called the Western Wadies, which is about two and a half kilometres 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.

21:11So 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 from flood debris, and B, the ceilings had all collapsed. And it was only after crawling through a 10-metre passageway that had a small sort of 40-centimetre gap at the top that we got into the burial chamber and realised 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.

21:58and blue painted ceilings with yellow stars are only found in king's tombs. But I mean 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. 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.

22:51We 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 mostly 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 find 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 most of the second is considerably earlier than Tutankhamen.

23:31But this would be only the second king's tomb to be found with all its major grave goods in place. They won't be as wonderful as Tutankhamen'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's Aquarium after a massive public outcry.

24:10But 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 de Merce 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.

24:51You 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 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.

25:16I'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 is 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 Sioux Tampa 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 ready to settle right in and meet some friends.

25:54So 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 lives 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.

26:26I mean, 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 Zoo Tampa because manatees are endangered. The zoo prioritises getting young manatees back out into the wild where hopefully they'll breed. For field of earths and 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.

27:05You 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 DeMose ending that report by Nicky Cardwell.

27:35And 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 at 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.