The Happy Pod: Mountaintop matchmaking

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Speaker 10 This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service.

Speaker 10 I'm Jeannette Jolil and in this edition, Turning to Nature to Find Love.

Speaker 11 The person has come to the summit, so they most likely love nature and mountains. The first common point is established and it makes it easier to meet people and for things to work out.

Speaker 10 The mountain visitor book setting people up on dates. The couple providing low-cost accommodation for older women facing homelessness.

Speaker 12 I've always wanted to do something about the homeless but it's never been within our reach. And this one fell within our reach and we thought, well, let's just do it.

Speaker 10 An unusual touring theatre company based on a boat and how a reality dancing show First is inspiring people with Down syndrome.

Speaker 13 I am very excited because I am keen to raise the awareness to put a really positive message out about ability

Speaker 13 rather than disability.

Speaker 10 We start with some rather special little red books that are helping people find love in the mountains.

Speaker 10 The idea was started by hiker Thibault Moni two years ago after he found himself wishing during a climb in the Swiss Alps that he had someone to share the view with.

Speaker 10 So he decided to leave notebooks on a variety of peaks for people to write messages for potential future partners, an alternative to dating apps with the only algorithm being the ability to complete different climbs.

Speaker 10 The idea, nicknamed Mountain Tinder, has spread, with people as far away as Argentina saying they've started their own notebooks. Chantal Hartle has been finding out more.

Speaker 15 Cathy and Patrick set off on a hike from the foot of the Wanflu Mountain.

Speaker 15 It's a walk they've done many times together. Awaiting them at the summit is not only an incredible view, but a very special reminder of how their close bond began.

Speaker 15 This is where, nine months ago, Patrick discovered a message left by Cathy in a red leather-bound notebook. Soon after, they had their first date: a long scenic walk ending with a picnic.

Speaker 15 The pair take a break from their hike in a field surrounded by yellow flowers. They sit side by side, their arms linked, and reminisce about the unusual circumstances that brought them together.

Speaker 15 Both agree that this option suited them more than meeting a partner face to face. So, what did Cathy's message say that piqued Patrick's interest?

Speaker 15 Well, she might not give us the full account, but something about enjoying relaxed hikes and maybe going for a drink afterwards.

Speaker 15 The man who unwittingly created this match, Thibaut Monnie, calls the project the Tinder of the Mountains. He came up with the idea because he was tired of conventional dating apps.

Speaker 11 Choosing a person by swiping left or right on an image didn't appeal to me very much. I came up with this idea, which is very simple.

Speaker 11 The person has come to the summit, so they most likely love nature and mountains. The first common point is established.

Speaker 11 The first date date is usually in the mountains, and it makes it easier to meet people and for things to work out.

Speaker 15 Monnie flicks through a notebook full of messages. One person writes that they are passionate about mountains, skiing, and climbing.

Speaker 15 Another says they're looking for someone who likes sports, metal, and tattooed women.

Speaker 15 As for Monnie's own note that he left here two years ago, it reads, I climbed up here for the sunset, and next time there'll be two of us. His wish did come true, but not in the way he imagined.

Speaker 15 His partner reached out to him after seeing him on television, talking about his mountain dating project.

Speaker 10 Shantar Hartle reporting, and if you have an unusual story about finding love, we'd love to hear from you. Just send us a voice note or an email to globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

Speaker 10 A couple on the Australian island of Tasmania have taken tackling homelessness into their own hands.

Speaker 10 Richard and Jan Gould noticed older women struggling with housing insecurity, so they bought a former student boarding hall which they've now turned into low-cost housing for those at risk of losing their homes.

Speaker 10 Helena Burke has been finding out more.

Speaker 18 When Richard and Jan moved to Tasmania's largest city, Hobart, three years ago, they decided to open a short stay rental for women in need.

Speaker 18 The couple says the experience opened their eyes to how severe Australia's housing crisis has become.

Speaker 19 Over the last couple of years we found a number of women who are finding themselves homeless needing to be accommodated so we've brought them in as guests and they've stayed from either a week or some up to about four or five months and we're starting to realise that this is a very serious and very deep problem within the city.

Speaker 12 I think the first one was three days. She'd been sleeping in her car for six weeks.
She was in her 60s and she just wanted three days until she got into government housing.

Speaker 12 And we had another who had, because of a stroke, had lost her job and she didn't have enough money to move into anywhere in Hobart. We had three or four of them and it just got very sad.

Speaker 18 In June, Richard and Jan withdrew some money from their retirement fund to purchase a 10-bedroom, five-bathroom home in South Hobart.

Speaker 18 The building was formerly used by the University of Tasmania for student accommodation. The couple says the house will offer stable, low-cost housing for older women at risk of homelessness.

Speaker 12 We thought, this really is an issue, you know, it wasn't just a once-a.

Speaker 12 And I've always wanted to do something about the homeless, but it's never been within our reach. And this one fell within our reach.
And we thought, well, let's just do it.

Speaker 18 Homelessness campaigners say that private citizens shouldn't have to be the ones to take action and that governments should be doing more to increase affordable housing in Australia.

Speaker 18 But Richard and Jan say these women need help now, and their project has been welcomed with open arms by the local community.

Speaker 19 Some people are not quite sure what we're doing, but once they grasp the concept that we're actually doing this to create a safe space for these women, they come on board very quickly.

Speaker 19 We're setting up projects for the gardening that I've got an architect on board for the works that we've got to get done. Builders have come forward to talk to us.

Speaker 19 We're still in the early days of this, of course, but everyone who's seeing the project and understanding this project is just a community-based, but we're just giving it a kickoff with our financial support.

Speaker 18 They'll invite their first guests once the house is ready.

Speaker 12 It needs things like the path was deteriorated, so we've got to make it safe. We'd like another little bathroom and kitchen for our tenants upstairs, so we'd like to put that in before they came in.

Speaker 12 And it's very small tweaks that we need to do, and we've just got to get council approval to go ahead with it. And then we'll be right.

Speaker 12 We'll be opening the doors ready to rock and roll, hopefully, at the beginning of October or earlier if we can do it.

Speaker 18 The couple have named the building Blue Sky House, a symbol for what they hope it will come to represent.

Speaker 10 Helena Burke reporting. To Finland now and a group of actors who bring the joy of theatre to remote communities by touring on a boat.

Speaker 10 Members of the theatre company live on board and dock in towns and villages on the country's southwestern islands to perform. The boat has been afloat for 56 years.

Speaker 10 Emilia Janssen hopped on board to find out more.

Speaker 22 On a hot summer's day, I met up with the Chagos Theater as they were preparing to perform their play in Barasund.

Speaker 22 They travel around on their boat Emessele, and producer William Tigerstedt gave me a tour.

Speaker 23 She's from the 1930s, almost 20 meters long.

Speaker 23 She's a character. It has 16 beds.
A few of them are a bit short, so if you're over 180 centimeters, I wouldn't recommend. We have electricity on board, we have water, it's a tour bus in a way.

Speaker 6 So how did a theater company decide to set sail? Director Tom Reestrom also joins us for a chat.

Speaker 24 Schagotstadten was founded in 1969. It was started by a group of young actors and artsy people in the hippie times in Helsinki.

Speaker 24 There was this big social project of bringing out good theater to the more rural areas. They bought a boat and started this as young students.

Speaker 24 The first boat was owned by the theater and then they had shows in the boat. But we don't do that anymore.
Now we tour the archipelago and we visit communal houses.

Speaker 25 And the first boat was actually named by someone pretty famous.

Speaker 24 Was someone pretty famous? It was named by Tuve Jansson, the author Tuve Jansson, who also was generous enough to give a bit of her good movement money for the theater.

Speaker 25 What's the experience like actually spending a whole summer on a ship sailing around?

Speaker 23 It's ludicrous, but it's also so magical.

Speaker 23 There's something different in playing for the first of all in the communal buildings, but also the people in the archipelago are so different from the city people.

Speaker 23 They're much nicer and they just have a sense of everything will be figured out in a moment. If we come in and we're like, hey, we have a crisis, they're like, ah, it's gonna be fine.

Speaker 23 And it's also pretty touching to see that, oh, the locals are actually coming to see the show and the summer guests and the tourists who are with their sailboats.

Speaker 23 We're now in our living quarters. This is like the hangout area of the boat.
Every show from past, I don't know, maybe 20 years, has left like a relic of themselves.

Speaker 23 For example, there is a broken guitar and then there is a crocheted salmon. Then there's the motor that nobody...

Speaker 23 nobody almost understands, but it's an old motor that has a bit of fixing and repairing here and there. It has its problems.

Speaker 25 How do you not go crazy? Like you're literally living on top of each other.

Speaker 23 The situation is that you're in a tight space with a lot of people and your own personal space is nowhere to be seen. So you need to make it your own with headphones, with a book.

Speaker 23 You have to be ready to solve problems or be okay with the uncertain situation it's basically what an actor has to do all the time on stage

Speaker 10 and we'll find out about the latest play and how it's going down with audiences later in this episode People often ask what the secret is to living a long life.

Speaker 10 Well, according to Molly Silver, who's just celebrated her 107th birthday, she just somehow forgot to die.

Speaker 10 Molly, who lives in Cornwall in southwestern England, took her art at the age of 60 and still sells her paintings from her garage. And she's a very busy woman.

Speaker 10 She has five children, 13 grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren. Her daughter Penny says Molly keeps in touch with family and friends online every day.

Speaker 26 She gets up in the morning and she goes on the internet and looks at Facebook and writes emails and then she does painting.

Speaker 26 I think she's pretty amazing.

Speaker 26 I'm not certain I'm ever going to get to that stage.

Speaker 21 I think I'm not there now.

Speaker 10 Well, Molly has been giving Jake Wallace some advice on living a long and happy life.

Speaker 14 You're never on your own nowadays, are you? When I learned to drive, the first time when I left the school and

Speaker 14 drove home, I suddenly realized that was the only place I could be in in where I could be on my own. Nobody could call me.
No child could demand anything. So I loved driving from then on.

Speaker 14 That was a joy.

Speaker 28 A little bit of solitude. Do you think solitude and having time by yourself is important for, you know, for living a happy life?

Speaker 14 I do. I do.
I think you should be able to sit on one side and just forget everything and just let yourself be yourself for a little while.

Speaker 28 So what I'd like to know is

Speaker 28 what are your views on happiness and how to lead a meaningful and happy life?

Speaker 14 Well I think being yourself if you can. You don't have to pretend to be another person.

Speaker 14 I've always been happy.

Speaker 14 It's in my body to be happy. I don't have moments of grief, really sad grief,

Speaker 14 but you come through that.

Speaker 28 I think you're amazing, Molly.

Speaker 28 It's a classic question, but what's the secret to living a long life?

Speaker 14 People ask me, and I've no idea.

Speaker 21 It just happened.

Speaker 14 I thought my husband would last me out.

Speaker 27 I thought I'd go before him.

Speaker 21 But no,

Speaker 27 he went when he was 94 and I'm still

Speaker 14 jogging along. I don't know how I got to be that age.
It just happened year after year. They tell me I'm an old person.

Speaker 14 So I have to go along with that.

Speaker 28 Do you feel like an old person?

Speaker 27 No.

Speaker 14 Just frustrated because I can't do the things I used to do.

Speaker 27 But no, I don't feel like an old person.

Speaker 10 Molly Silver, who does sound amazing for 107 years old.

Speaker 10 Still to come in the happy pod?

Speaker 29 Always, it has to have a plastic liner. It looks like cardboard, but it's not in needs you can't recycle or you can compost it.

Speaker 10 Replacing the hidden plastic in food packaging with seaweed.

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Speaker 10 Since it began in the UK in 2004, strictly come dancing has spread around the world, with dozens of countries producing their own versions of the reality show, also known as Dancing with the Stars.

Speaker 10 For the uninitiated, celebrities are paired with professional dancers and learn a new dance style and routine every week, with the public choosing which couple to vote off each time.

Speaker 10 The shows have included stars who are deaf or blind or have prosthetic limbs.

Speaker 10 And now, the model, actor, and influencer Ellie Goldstein is set to become the first person with Down syndrome to take part in a regular series in the UK.

Speaker 32 So honoured and excited to be on a ballroom and

Speaker 32 I'm a dancer. I like Strictly.

Speaker 32 I can't wait to get on there. I think it'd be scared at first, but I'm going to get on a ballroom.
Like, I'm free and I could dance. Any dancing, I'm going to love so much.

Speaker 32 My best partner is Nikita, of course. I love him.

Speaker 1 You want Nikita?

Speaker 33 I'll watch him, please.

Speaker 3 I love him so much.

Speaker 10 Well, Becky Rich is a dancer and dance instructor who has Down syndrome and is part of a group called Dance Syndrome, an award-winning UK charity which uses dance to give people opportunities and joy.

Speaker 10 She told James Kumrasami her dad encouraged her to get into dancing in 2014.

Speaker 13 I didn't know what to expect. I'm nervous, but I'm not nervous now because it's been absolutely fantastic.
I've gone from strength to strength.

Speaker 13 I dance teach. We're getting to perform on bigger stages.

Speaker 13 I dance teach musical jazz.

Speaker 1 And we're talking to you, of course, as it's been announced that Ellie Goldstein is going to be on Strictly Come Dancing. What do you make of that? What did you think when you heard that?

Speaker 13 It's absolutely fantastic and really outstanding achievement for Ellie.

Speaker 13 I am very excited for her to be on a really big show because I am keen to raise the awareness to put a really positive message out that I believe in about ability

Speaker 13 rather than disability.

Speaker 13 And it is her time to shine.

Speaker 13 But she really is absolutely fantastic. And we are cheering her on all the way.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well,

Speaker 1 no prizes for guessing who you're hoping will win. But tell me a bit more about you.
And what difference has it made to your life, dancing? How would you describe it?

Speaker 13 Dancing for me inspired me and definitely inspirational because the dancing, it makes you feel better. It makes you feel like you're in another world.
And

Speaker 13 to be proud of who we are and to be proud of it, absolutely.

Speaker 1 Well, look, Becky, I'm going to bring in someone who I'm sure is incredibly proud of you, your father, Simon.

Speaker 1 From your point of view, just tell us, I mean, clearly, Becky has absolutely thrived since she's been dancing. She said you were the one that first got her into it.

Speaker 1 Just tell us a bit about how that happened.

Speaker 20 Well, yeah, I mean, Becky's always been very confident, right?

Speaker 20 From day one, but certainly her involvement with dance syndrome really has sort of developed Becky and her own self-esteem and confidence, but also given her so many opportunities.

Speaker 1 Becky told us she does a lot of teaching. And I understand maybe she's done a bit of teaching to her dad as well.

Speaker 10 Is that right?

Speaker 20 Oh, yeah. Well, that was in lockdown, and we were, you know, very

Speaker 20 frightened, really, you know, because clearly we had to take great care of ourselves. But Becky came up with the idea of perhaps teaching me how to dance, which in itself is an enormous game.

Speaker 1 Is he any good? Is he any good, Becky?

Speaker 13 Absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 13 Really outstanding.

Speaker 7 I'm just passing her a £10 note.

Speaker 21 You know.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and Simon, obviously, Becky's done a lot for visibility through Dance Syndrome, but I wonder what you think of Ellie Goldstein being on Strictly.

Speaker 20 What difference do you think it's going to make? We're absolutely delighted, obviously.

Speaker 20 And I mean, it's significant that somebody that has Down syndrome, and I think her approach and her family's approach has been, so she's got Down syndrome. So, what?

Speaker 20 You know, there's lots of people that have all sorts of different things, but that doesn't really affect how you should approach your lives.

Speaker 20 And hopefully, this might open up some doors for greater opportunities for more people.

Speaker 10 That was Becky Rich and her very proud father, Simon, talking to James Kumbrasami. Seaweed is already used as food, fertilizer, and even fuel around the world.

Speaker 10 But you might be surprised to learn it's also being turned into a type of plastic for food and drink packaging.

Speaker 10 Unlike regular single-use plastics, which can stick around for centuries, it's biodegradable and can break down in just a few weeks. Zoe Gilber has been finding out more.

Speaker 5 Hello.

Speaker 5 How are you?

Speaker 15 Hi, yes, good, thanks.

Speaker 5 Rodrigo. Yes, Rodrigo.

Speaker 34 Rodrigo Garcia-Gonzalez is the co-founder and CEO of NOPPLA, which stands for Not Plastic, a company that has been pioneering the use of seaweed for sustainable bioplastic packaging.

Speaker 34 An architect by training, Rodrigo has always had a passion for cleaning up plastic waste and for years applied his efforts to making buildings out of old plastic bottles.

Speaker 29 But after a while, I realized that was a lot of effort for not too much impact.

Speaker 29 So I came back to the university, in this case to Imperial College and Royal College of Art, where I met Pierre, who is the other co-founder, who was a plastic engineer, to try to rethink how we can package things without using plastic.

Speaker 34 They began by honing in on one of the existing ways that seaweed already gets used in kitchens.

Speaker 29 This material had been used in the past for many different purposes and one of them is to make fake fruits or things like fake caviar or fake cherries or the fake pimento that is inside of the olives.

Speaker 34 Rodrigo and Pierre thought, what if we could do this not for cooking, but for packaging? In their student kitchen, they got to work making their first product, an edible water bottle called the O.

Speaker 29 So the first product, we call it O because the name that people give it when they see it for the first time, they make this sound of like ooh or oh or surprise.

Speaker 29 And basically, it looks like a little bubble where we can put water or any other type of liquid into a membrane made out of seaweed with the purpose that that membrane you can compost it, but as well if you want it, you can eat it.

Speaker 29 Do you want to try one by the way?

Speaker 30 Yes I would yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 29 So put it on your cheek it's going to explode like a cherry tomato.

Speaker 29 And then you can swallow the the membrane if you want.

Speaker 34 Wow. It's got a lemon in it or else.
Yeah.

Speaker 29 In this case it's kind of like flavor waters.

Speaker 34 When Rodrigo and Pierre posted a video of their edible water bottle online back in 2018, it went viral overnight.

Speaker 34 They got a lot of attention and funding and soon they were supplying their edible water bottles to marathons and other sporting events all over the world.

Speaker 34 But when COVID hit and events ground to a halt, they decided they wanted to tackle a bigger problem, takeaway packaging, specifically the invisible plastic that often lines takeaway boxes.

Speaker 29 When you have a takeaway packaging that it looks like cardboard, always it has to have a plastic liner, like a plastic film to protect the cardboard from the grease or the water.

Speaker 29 It's what happens as well on on coffee cups or other type of forms of packaging that it looks like cardboard, but it's not on the cyclone.

Speaker 34 And it means you can't recycle it.

Speaker 29 It means you can't recycle or you can compost it.

Speaker 34 They tweaked their existing methods so instead of making a bubble, they made a thin seaweed coating which could be applied to paper or cardboard, industrializing their methods to make it at scale.

Speaker 29 And then once we have that in the big scale, we are able to kind of like convert it into boxes of different shapes, different forms. Boxes for salads, boxes for burgers, boxes for rice.

Speaker 29 And now we are in this journey of trying to scale it up to have even more impact because in the world of packaging it's really linked with the amount of numbers that you can do.

Speaker 34 Rodrigo says that their seaweed packaging has replaced more than 21.5 million single-use plastics across Europe by working with some of the big takeaway delivery companies like Uber Eats as well as big catering companies across Europe.

Speaker 34 Their seaweed boxes can be found in office canteens, stadiums, and concert venues.

Speaker 29 Might not work for everything, so we're not claiming that we can replace all the plastic in the world in all the applications, but at least for short-term consumption and small volumes, we know it works.

Speaker 10 That was Rodrigo Garcia-Gonzalez ending that report by Zoe Gelber. And you can hear more ingenious uses for seaweed on People Fixing the World, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

Speaker 10 Earlier on in the programme, we met the theatre company preparing to perform on an island in rural Finland. So how did it go?

Speaker 10 Emilia Janssen was there with director Tom Reestrom who explained more about the play.

Speaker 24 It's a second part of a trilogy that is about this place called Lister, Lister Island, somewhere in the outer archipelago and the idea of the show is bringing up the local matters that is really urgent right now.

Speaker 24 So in the Finnish archipelago, we have these communal houses that has been an important part of the whole national identity and has been a really important part for the civil rights movement, the women's movement.

Speaker 24 But nowadays, people move out from these areas. There comes the question who takes care of it.

Speaker 6 During the break, people rush outside to enjoy the fresh air. The sun hasn't set.
It's summer in Finland after all. I managed to speak to Esti and Chris on why they're in the audience today.

Speaker 17 I think it's very funny and it touches on some interesting subjects as well. Here we have challenges here in the local community, so I can see some reflection of that in the play.

Speaker 17 I've spent every summer here in the archipelago since 1992. It's very different.
Pure nature, clean.

Speaker 17 We live on an island, so everything we do, we need to take a boat, take a boat to the local shop, take a boat to the theatre here, for example. So there's a lot of boat life and sea life.

Speaker 3 Have you been to the Senate company before?

Speaker 17 Yeah, Schegostiati, yeah, it's an established tradition. If we can get tickets, so it's normally fully booked out.

Speaker 33 I'm here because I have my classmates on this, so I wanted to come and see them.

Speaker 25 Are you planning on applying to be able to be part of this company in the summers to come?

Speaker 32 I think it would be nice.

Speaker 33 I've been touring before as well, so it's not like a new thing for me to tour around with a play.

Speaker 25 Maybe on a boat would be the new thing.

Speaker 33 The boat would be really a new thing. So I'm wondering how claustrophobic they get there.

Speaker 25 So how do you feel the performance went today?

Speaker 24 Yeah, it was nice.

Speaker 25 So you've been here as an actor on board and now you're here as the director. What are the most important things you've learned?

Speaker 24 I learned a lot from this theater and I think it's brought some kind of cultural politic identity for my whole career has come from this theater.

Speaker 10 That was director Tom Raestrom, ending that report by Emilia Janssen.

Speaker 10 And that's all from the Happy Pod for now. If you have a story you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you.
As ever, the address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk.

Speaker 10 And you can now watch some of our interviews on YouTube. Just search for the Happy Pod.
This edition was mixed by Graham White. The producers were Holly Gibbs, Harry Bly, and Rachel Balkley.

Speaker 10 The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Jeannette Jalil.
Until next time, goodbye.

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