The Happy Pod: Beers, braids and bonding
Global News Podcast
BBC
4.3 • 8.3K Ratings
🗓️ 21 March 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We meet the men on a mission to help fellow Dads connect with their daughters, through a movement called 'pints and ponytails'. It's a chance to learn how to do a range of girls' hairstyles, over a couple of beers. But organisers say they leave with more than just salon skills - as the shared experience encourages men to open up about other parenting challenges.
Also: an unexpected solution that could help in the fight againt both plastic pollution and Parkinson's disease.
Rhinos return to a national park in Uganda for the first time in more than forty years. It's hoped they'll help establish a thriving population -- improving the ecosystem, creating jobs and attracting tourists.
Plus - aging well: Researchers found that around a third of people over the age of 65 saw improvements in their physical and mental abilities.
And how a holiday souvenir from Morocco turned out to be a previously unknown type of rock.
Our weekly collection of inspiring, uplifting and happy news from around the world.
Presenter: Holly Gibbs. Music composed by Iona Hampson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:06.0 | This is the Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:15.0 | I'm Holly Gibbs and in this edition, |
| 0:17.5 | it gives Dad a real opportunity to spend an extra five, ten minutes with their daughters. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm not saying every single day. And in doing so, we're hoping that the conversations that they |
| 0:28.0 | have along the way, they might not remember the braiding, but they'll remember the conversations. |
| 0:32.4 | The dad's behind the viral sensation, pints and ponytails. How new research has found a way to convert |
| 0:40.0 | a common plastic into a drug for Parkinson's disease. When you think about plastic, people tend to |
| 0:45.8 | think of it as this, you know, waste or end-of-life material that doesn't have any value or any |
| 0:51.8 | sort of potential for further use, but plastic waste is just carbon. |
| 0:56.0 | Plus the return of rhinos to Uganda. |
| 0:59.0 | It's a great day. It's a great season for Uganda. |
| 1:04.0 | The communities are very excited to see that this species is coming back |
| 1:08.0 | 43 years down the road. |
| 1:09.0 | And why getting old is actually good for you. |
| 1:18.9 | We start with a Dad's Night Out with a twist. |
| 1:22.6 | Welcome to Pints and Ponytails. |
| 1:26.2 | That's Pints and Ponytails, a meeting of dads at the pub learning how to do hair on mannequins. |
| 1:32.7 | The sessions, however, are much more than just buns and braids. |
| 1:37.2 | The whole thing was the brainchild of Matthew Lewis Carter and Lawrence Price, |
| 1:41.2 | who both experienced mental health struggles in the early days of becoming a dad |
| 1:45.6 | and decided to set up their own podcast and host events such as Pints and Ponytails. |
... |
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