Eddy's Good News: A stolen Van Goph painting is returned and sea-weeding down under

Virgin Radio

21 Sep 2023, 09:03

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:

Thursday 20th September 2023

An early Vincent Van Gogh painting worth millions which was stolen from a museum in the Netherlands during lockdown has been anonymously returned to a man they’re calling the Indiana Jones of the art world.

Say hello to private art detective Arthur Brand, who’s Sherlock Holmes like skills have seen him track down over 200 works of art including two bronze horse sculptures commissioned by Hitler, and masterpieces by the likes of Picasso, Dali, and even artefacts such as 15th-century Persian poetry manuscripts by Rumi. 

The art thief who half-inched the early Van Gogh had his collar felt, was given a 9 million dollar fine and imprisoned but the painting was never recovered. It presumably just went from one dodgy dealer to the next, like a hot rock that nobody wanted to touch for fear of ending up behind bars with the thief. Presumably when it had passed through the hands of every nefarious art dealer or collector and nobody was prepared to buy it, fed up with the huge risk versus zero reward, one of them decided to contact Arthur and arrange a drop off, unmonitored by police. Arthur made the deal and can now add Van Gogh to the impressive list of artists he’s successfully sleuthed!

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org

Good news from Down Under where volunteers are weeding coral reefs and it’s having a remarkable effect.

Anyone with a garden knows that the things you plant thrive when you manage the weeds that inevitably grow in and around them. It turns out it’s the same for a coral reef. It’s perfectly natural to have their versions of garden weeds, macroalgae, and a healthy reef will normally keep this stuff in check, but reefs worldwide are far from healthy. Soaring temperatures and the acidification of the ocean have been devastating for the health and diversity of reefs, so in a program launched in Australia, volunteers are “sea-weeding” to give the reefs a helping hand. It turns out these ecosystems were overwhelmed and the simple act of helping them with weeding results in a staggering 600% improvement in coral regrowth and diversity.

It’s been so successful that similar programs are about to crop up in French Polynesia, Indonesia, and Singapore.

Via: goodnewsnetwork.org