Eddy's Good News: Hollywood star crashes wedding party and a forty year long mystery solved!

Virgin Radio

14 Mar 2022, 10:06

Every day during his show on Virgin Radio, Eddy Temple-Morris brings you Good News stories from around the world, to help inject a bit of positivity into your day!!

Be sure to listen each day between 10am and 1pm (Monday - Friday) to hear Eddy's Good News stories (amongst the finest music of course), but if you miss any of them you can catch up on the transcripts of Eddy's most recent stories below:

Friday 25th March 2022

Fabulous news from a wedding party in Pittsburgh that got crashed by one of Hollywood’s biggest ever stars. 

Say hello to Grace Gwaltney, who was looking resplendent in white, surrounded by her bridesmaids for the wedding photo outside The Fairmont Hotel. When suddenly a face popped up beside her, a photo-bomber, who with a huge smile on his face, said “Hi, I’m Tom Hanks, I would love to get a photo with you,”.

The wedding photographer then witnessed the bride and all nine bridesmaids totally lose it.Tom has previous history photo bombing weddings, the same thing happened on the beach in Santa Monica California last October when he saw wedding photos happening.In each event, he made a day they’d never forget even more unforgettable! Have a look at the picture for yourself, everyone’s faces are practically exploding with joy!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Good news from Belgium and from Spain as a 17th century tapestry is reunited with its missing corner, ending a forty year long mystery!

Say hello to René Alphonse van der Berghe AKA ‘Erik The Belgian’, a notorious art thief who was responsible for the disappearance of millions of quids worth of fine art. Forty years ago we single handedly made off with six tapestries woven in the 1600s, one of which was thirteen by twenty feet! But ‘Erik The Belgian’ was a classic gentleman thief with a conscience and not just turned himself in, but then helped police investigators find much of the art that he’d liberated from their rightful owners, but frustratingly, one of these amazing tapestries came back minus one corner. The two foot by two foot square cherub remained missing and when Erik passed away, all hope of it every being returned was lost, by everyone but a Spanish investigator who simply asked The Belgian’s lawyer if they might have any leads, and they did! He tracked down the missing piece so the tapestry is all present and correct for the first time in four decades and the whole story is, well, part of life’s rich tapestry!

Via: goodnesnetwork.org

Thursday 24th March 2022

Heart warming news from here in the UK as a road is closed for springtime toad migration!

Say hello to the good people of Ham, near Richmond and to a 400 metre stretch of Church Road, that’s currently blocked off to cars and has volunteers patrolling it, looking to give safe passage to toads who need access to the ponds they breed in.

Richmond Council took the ecological step after careful consideration, the road isn’t a busy one and the only objectors would be people from out of town looking for a place to park. They didn’t want toads squished, or motorists distracted by amorous amphibians and causing accidents, so the road is closed, volunteers, or Toad Patrol, are there to make sure the warty walkers are OK and there’s even a sign that reads “Road closed for migrating toads” that’s causing much mirth with passers by, lots of whom are stopping for pictures. Doris, who’s from Ham put it best when she said “the toads live here don’t they, so it’s their right of way!?”.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Encouraging news from the USA in the search for a sustainable version of plastic and the discovery of a material that’s hard as bone or even aluminium.

What is - scientifically speaking - the toughest part of a tree? The Trunk? The far reaching roots? In actual fact it’s the walls of the cells within both those things. The amazing wall of a single cell of wood is made from cellulose, you could say that is the glue that holds nature together, the fibres that form the structure of all plants and algae. Within each fibre are perfect chains of nanocrystals called CNCs and these things, at a nano level, are tougher than Kevlar, that’s the stuff bulletproof vests are made of. Now a team of plastic pummelling professors at MIT have come up with a composite that’s made up of 90% of these organic plant based crystals and it’s stronger than bone and tougher than aluminium. If we can replace even a fraction of the plastic that's made from petro-chemicals then we’ll have a big win for the ocean and therefore for all of us.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Wednesday 23rd March 2022

Good news from down under and a new study that shows that there’s something that’s like a magic wand when it comes to your mental and physical health - a cookery course!

Say hello to The Institute For Nutrition Research in Western Australia who’ve just found that a seven week cooking course significantly improved the mental health, physical health, confidence and satisfaction with their life of all those who took part. The human race’s recent decline in physical and mental health is well documented and studied. Australians are looking at 67% being obese or overweight. Society’s obsession with work has led to an exponential rise in fatty and salty takeaway foods or ready-meals to save time. People have forgotten that it only takes 10 minutes to make most pasta dishes or a stir fry. A cooking course inspired people to cook at home more, resulting in a much more nutritious diet and because this is indelibly linked to our mental health, people reported a marked upturn in almost every aspect of their lives. 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Smooth sailing news from Sweden and the invention of a new electric pleasure boat that’s going to change the game on many levels and one of those is levitation!

Say hello to Candela, a fully electric hydrofoil speed boat that sleeps a family of four, has room for eight people on deck, and at 28 feet can do 20 knots. But it’s what it won’t do which is the most mind-blowing: because it’s a hydrofoil it won’t cause any wake, no motor noise, no fuel leaks and here’s the most unbelievable bit - no servicing and no maintenance!! For real! It’s been designed to give 3,000 hours of service free boating, which equates to a whole lifetime of recreational boat use. Because it’s a hydrofoil it uses 80% less energy than a standard boat and it’ll do a similar range but with none of the pollution or expensive fuel.They’re making 400 a year and the first 100 have already been pre-ordered. The cost? About the same, or in many cases lower than a similar sized petrol pleasure boat.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Tuesday 22nd March 2022

Inspiring news from here in the UK and a business graduate who’s quit his job to take people on adventures in Scotland’s beautiful highlands, in a New York school bus!

Say hello to Angus Luff, who’s 24, from Edinburgh and was a management consultant in Leicester when he saw a Netflix show called Expedition Happiness about a couple who traversed the USA in a refurbished school bus and he decided he wanted some of that action! So Angus packed in the job he’d only had for three months, bought an iconic yellow American school bus, kitted it out with a kitchen, chill out space, and room to sleep six people, then launched it as ‘The Bonnie Camper’, taking groups out across the Scottish Highlands, stopping off for hiking, climbing, kayaking, swimming in lakes and yes, even whiskey tours. Angus is a one man tour guide, driver, cook and cleaner and every night he sets up a tent outside to give residents full run of his glamping bus!

Via: youtube.com

If there’s one thing we need right now it’s good news from Ukraine and this week social media has been ablaze with pictures of the heart warming evidence of sisterhood between Polish and Ukrainian mums.

Thanks to a wave of thoughtfulness amongst Polish parents, when desperate refugees arrive in Poland by rail, babes in arms, they are greeted at first glance by strollers, loads of them, with toys in them. The sheer number of them is inspiring, say journalists and aid workers who’ve seen them, as are the handwritten notes that often accompany them, offering words of comfort and support from one parent to another.When they get beyond the strollers they find the stations and their outbuildings now makeshift warehouses for food, diapers and clothes donated by good people all over Europe and beyond those, they find people like that awesome ex Royal Marine who drove from Lyme Regis to the Ukrainian border with a van full of aid, then stayed there to be a free taxi for any family who needed him. Turns out he’s not the only one, there’s lots of similarly kind and thoughtful people who are ferrying refugees wherever they need to go.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 21st March 2022

Amazing news from Turkey who’ve launched Europe's first carbon negative bio-refinery that’ll produce the jet fuel of the future!

Say salaam alaikum to Bogazici University on the banks of the Black Sea and this incredible refinery that uses algae to make fuels and feedstocks and it’s carbon negative because algae eats CO2, and the CO2 it captures remains sequestered after it’s provcessed. It’s amazing stuff and much better and more efficient at swallowing CO2 than trees - all this let’s plant-a-tree stuff is good to see but it’d be a lot better to grow algae if you want to offset your carbon footprint. The fantastic project is a joint venture between the Turkish government and the EU to produce, among other things, a bio jet fuel that when mixed with between 5-10% of fossil fuel, can power a jet plane and here’s the thing: When I say “fuel of the future”, we’re talking about the very near future because the first flight to use this stuff will take off from Istanbul airport before the end of this year!

Via:goodnewsnetwork.org

Great news from down under as marine biologists discover a microbe that’s turned out to be a secret weapon against climate change.

I’m sorry to sound like a broken record but the evidence is there for anyone to see, that the sea is the key to getting us out of this horrific man made mess. Now say g’day to prorocentrum cf. balticum, not a catchy name, but this amazing stuff can catch a lot of CO2 and here’s how. This tiny microbe photosynthesises, capturing carbon, releasing oxygen, then it eats other tiny animals and then sinks, taking the carbon with it. Science clearly understands the roles of things like plankton, algae, seaweed and seagrass very well now and they’re all superplants at sequestration, but these microbes are only just being discovered and studied. This little beauties currently swallow about a tenth of a gigaton of CO2 each year, but if we could harness and expand their operation, then we have the potential for much more and given we have to remove 10 gigatons every year to meet our 2050 targets, this is really positive news. Good luck and godspeed all you marine geneae!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Friday 18th March 2022

Lovely news from here in the UK and the glorious Seychelles where turtle populations have been enjoying a beautiful bounce-back, in fact a 500% boom in numbers since a hunting ban was introduced.

While coral reefs may not be doing so well because of rising sea temperatures and acidification, the creatures that glide majestically over them are doing fantastically well, at least in the Seychelles, where gorgeous green turtle numbers have boomed. If you’re a diver or you’re into snorkelling like me then you’ll have spent time with these magnificent creatures and you’ll know how wonderfully calming their presence is. How heartwarming to know that thanks to our very own Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter’s Penryn Campus in Cornwall, we now know that turtle numbers in the ascendant and shown a long term year on year growth that’s seen numbers in some places increase by five times since the ban. Marine conservation is where we must focus our efforts now, the saviour of planet earth will be the sea, mark my words, we just need to take better care of it.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Great news from the USA and from under all our feet with the invention of a new type of drill that can harness the awesome geothermal power in the earth’s core.

Say hello to the boffins at MIT who have invented a laser drill that can bore twelve and a half miles into the earth’s core where the temperature of a drill bit would see 500 degrees!

Normal borehole bit temperature is traditionally around 200 degrees. It’s so hot in fact that water becomes “supercritical” (and that’s way beyond my boss’s default state of mind ;) It's a state where water is neither gas nor liquid and a power plant that uses this stuff can harness ten times more energy from every drop of water used. We are talking about an almost unlimited source of clean energy and the first “supercritical-geothermal” plant will come on stream in 2026 after tapping into an energy source so powerful that it represents twenty billion times the energy consumption of the entire world above it!

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Thursday 17th March 2022

Yesterday we were given bad news from Saudi Arabia, and when that happens I always love to provide balance, by sharing some good news, in fact pretty mind blowing news as Saudi scientists invent a way to conjure water out of thin air, use it to grow spinach in the desert and power the whole process with special solar panels.

Say salaam alaikum to the hydro boffins at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology who’ve come up with a system you can use in deserts or anywhere water is a challenge to get which combines a special hydro-gel with normal photo voltaic cells, to condense water pulled literally from thin air and used to grow vegetables, they successfully grew perfect spinach in June last year, when the desert was at its hottest and most inhospitable. With more and more of the planet becoming too hot to grow vegetables the normal way, brilliant ideas like this will help us science a sustainable future.

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Good news from here in the UK as a new survey reveals how we feel when we do something eco-friendly and it’s very good!

2,000 UK adults were polled as to how they feel when they do something that helps the planet and two thirds of us get a mood boost when we do something environmentally conscious.Half of us get a buzz when we remember to take our bags for life to the shops, or put food waste in compost bins. Same applies to washing out and recycling plastic but I have to relay something iterated by a UK recycling expert which is this: We have really efficient machines that wash out those tubs, so if you’re using hot water to wash them out before you put them in the recycling, you’re defeating the whole object and that’s a real problem. The survey was commissioned by Ecover who are launching a refilling station in an old petrol station site, where you can take bottles or tubs of any household products and use them again and again, and according to this survey, you’ll probably feel great at the same time.

Wednesday 16th March 2022

Together we’ve witnessed photo-voltaic cells, that’s solar panels to you and me, get more and more efficient, cheaper to produce, become thinner and thinner - I’ve even told you about transparent ones you can put in glass so the windows in a skyscraper can power the whole building. Now prepare to have your mind blown even further when I tell you about the next generation - and they’re made from not just rubbish but vegetable rubbish!

A genius Filipino inventor has discovered there are chemicals in vegetables that are so sensitive to UV light that when they’re used to make nextgen solar cells, they can turn that UV into electricity even when the sun isn’t shining on them. They work perfectly even on a cloudy day.Made from upcycled vegetable waste, the idea is so, literally brilliant, that the 29-year-old filipino inventor Carvey Ehren Maigue, has won the the 2020 Dyson Foundation Sustainability Award. And it doesn’t stop there because the technology makes it possible to produce cloth from this stuff so even your clothes can harvest electricity so you can charge your phone, with your jacket!

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Inspiring news from all over the world and an update about the non profit organisation who take seniors out for rides on tricycles with little sofas on them!

Years ago I told you about a volunteer organisation which started in Copenhagen, and I remember saying how it should and would spread, and it has! Say hello to Cycling Without Age, powered by volunteers who take elderly people out on special open rickshaw bikes with a comfortable seat on the front that sits two people. There are now 2,700 chapters worldwide using the lions share of 4,000 of the so-called trishaws. Closer to home, The Scottish government chartered its service in 2017. Today it’s available for free in almost every corner of Scotland. 27 local authorities are involved in bringing smiles to the faces of pensioners, and have already provided rides to over 43,500 Scots—thanks to thousands of volunteer peddlers. To see the smiles of pure joy on the faces of just two of them, just look at this picture :)

Via goodnewsnetwork.org

Tuesday 15th March 2022

Good news from the streets of South London as a phantom crochet artist has been yarn-bombing postboxes with beautiful and heart warming hand made toppers.

In what probably started off as a lockdown hobby and random act of kindness, the streets of Southwark are coming alive with crochet on postbox after postbox, from dogs to owls, smiley faces to rainbows, there’s even a row of ducks on the postbox at the end of my street!

They each have a tag that says “A postbox topper for all to enjoy and see. Please don’t take me away just leave me be. Instead tag me on Instagram with a selfie”. The postal service are leaving them alone, even my horrible, sweary postie that literally throws parcels at his customers has left the ones on his patch. Hopefully they’ve cheered him up a bit. Have a look for yourself, it’s so brilliant and I hope it inspires others to do something similar. We want a world where the only bombs dropped are colourful yarn that make people smile every day.

Via: Instagram

Inspiring news from the USA and the huge success of a scheme to dispatch mental health services instead of police.

In the wake of the George Floyd catastrophe and the ensuing Black Lives Matter (Too) traction around the world, the city of Denver has launched a service called STAR (Support Team Assisted Response. Until STAR, whenever anyone called 911, even for a ‘low risk’ event like homelessness, or drunkenness, or a genuine mental health crisis, they’d get someone from the most notoriously trigger happy police force in the world show up with very little in the way of training to deal with a situation where words and not bullets might be needed. 

The new teams responded to over 10,000 calls last year. They’ve helped suicidal people and schizophrenics, given help with food and water, even clothes for the homeless and connected them all to organisations who can take care of them or give them shelter. They’ve minimised unnecessary arrests, which has saved a lot of money, so it’s been judged such a huge success that the 15 volunteers and six vans have just been told they’re getting a $1.4 million grant to expand the operation. And this will inspire other cities that a friendly ear, a shoulder to cry on, some good advice is better for everyone than a gun in their face or a knee on their neck.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Monday 14th March 2022

Heart warming news form here in the UK and a millionaire who donated his life savings to plant 100,000 daffodils and they’ve now started to bloom!

Say hello to beautiful Sidmouth in Devon, adopted home of Canadian banker, Keith Owen, who was originally born in nearby Totnes,. When he was diagnosed with terminal cancer Keith decided to create the most beautiful legacy to be enjoyed by everyone in the place he loved and called home for the last part of his life. He donated his life savings, three million dollars, to a local voluntary conservation group, with a brief to “support local projects, which made use of voluntary labour, and in particular to sustain the ambience and way of life, recognised in Sidmouth and its surroundings.”So now if you walk up Peak Hill right now, your jaw will drop as your eyes are greeted by a riot of yellow, as 100,000 dafs have taken bloom. And there are snowdrops, crocuses and more daffs in fifty different sites, so that every year, people will remember what this kind man did for them :)

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

At a time when all we get is bad news, here’s some balance for you, heart warming news from Ukraine as people all over the world take to Air Bnb to book stays in Ukraine, just to give support to their fellow humans in need.

Thanks to a brilliant idea, a campaign on social media, and to Air Bnb who’ve waived all the fees for this, people have been booking stays all over Ukraine, with no actual plans to ever check in or re-schedule. In just two days last week over 2 million dollars of bookings for 61,000 nights went to Ukrainian hosts. Volodymyr Bondarenko who’s from the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, received ten bookings for his spare room in just one day. “It’s very supportive at the moment ” said the 36 year old. The story doesn’t end there because Air Bnb are offering temporary housing in neighbouring countries for over 100,000 people who’ve had to flee their homes, the whole community is coming together, hosts are offering their rooms free, it’s humbling how many people are being moved into action. 

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org