series is still helping lgbt people come to terms with themselves. so, we have seen so many generations of people growing up with your books when i'm travelling, i usually take and now with the tv series and now public transport. when i get to the this netflix series. what is that like to know you have impacted so city and visiting and i hear people getting ready for the past, the bus many people? will pull up and stop. i wait for it's thrilling. people say, you helped me realise most people to get off, grabbed my who i was and how to backpack, get out my stick. by by! claim my life, you know. how to live my own truth. that i can help people in that way is still thrilling and there are still plenty of people thank you. i follow the people, who need to hear it. tales of the city is backpack, get out my stick. by by! thank you. ifollow the people, i can hear them, so i know they are getting off. i'm looking for a phone available on netflix now. next year's early may bank holiday will be moved back by four days, to friday the 8th of may — shop. i will ask people, is there a shop. i will ask people, is there a shop nearby where i can buy a sim card, if! to coincide with the 75th shop nearby where i can buy a sim card, if i haven't got one. will you show me? thanks. anniversary of ve day. a weekend of events is being planned in england, wales and northern ireland to mark the end of the second world war in europe. scotland is yet to announce whether

excuse me, mate? could you help me it will make a similar change. now it's time for a look put my sim card in my phone? i use a at the weather with louise lear. website called couch surfing. i find local people on the website. they have profiles, i have a profile. i contact them. hello, this is tony. can you tell me how to get to your place, please? i'll take a taxi. rain across the country today, where do i need to tell him to go. accompanied by petty gusty winds. 0k. the strongest of the winds to the where do i need to tell him to go. ok. i'll see you in about half an south of the rain, heaviest of the hour. thanks! but i. rain moving its layout of the midlands into the north of england and across to the scottish borders. taxi? bright and breezy with a scattering where are you going? hello. of showers to the north—west of i go to gotera. scotla nd of showers to the north—west of scotland and northern ireland. for gotera? the rest of england and wales, south yeah, gotera, yeah. 200 birr. 200 -150? of that rain, if you scattered showers. it will not be a particular 0k, go on. warm out there, particularly for the middle part of gin. top temperatures i lost my dad when i was 15, 16. underneath the cloud and rain i lost my best friend when i was 16, setting a 12 or 13 degrees. highest

i don't really talk about. it was a big loss for me. values are maximum of 18 celsius. that's low pressure will move away it sent me off into alcoholism and sunday looks like a drier day for a good six to seven years. with a little more sunshine and just by the age of 2a i was aafew with a little more sunshine and just a a few scattered showers, again not almost an alcoholic. particularly warm. once i got my head out of the bottle, i could see that there was a different road to go down. hello this is bbc news. the headlines... michael gove — one of the frontrunners for the conservative leadership — i was hung up about being says he "deeply regrets" taking blind for a long time, cocaine in the past. especially as a teenager, early 20s. us president donald trump lifts the threat of tariffs on imports and then i suddenly realised the more people i met, from mexico after its government i realised they wanted to be promises to act over migrants, around me not because i was blind asylum seekers and border security. or different but because of who i was, my personality. health officials launch an investigation into the deaths driving along a straight road, a bit of wind. of three hospital patients in manchester and liverpool who ate still smell the car fumes, pre—packed sandwiches linked to an outbreak of listeria. they're everywhere. academy award winner olivia colman leads the names in the queen's birthday honours, alongside hundreds of campaigners and volunteers. and the fifa women's world cup

kicked—off last night, with hosts france easing to a dominant 4—0 win over south korea. hello, mr happy, it's tony. i think i'm at your street, at your place. i'm opposite a restaurant. i can smell the food, but i am not sure how to get to you. more news at the top of the hour. apparently i'm by the gates, someone‘s told me. hey—hey, tony! now it's time for the travel show. hello! guess who's here. mr happy. yeah, i'm glad, i'm glad to see you. good to meet you. how are you? my my name is tony and i am totally thank you very much for coming. you found it already. blind and severely dive in both welcome to addis, my place already. thank you. ears. now we're moving, ifeel they he's a really nice guy. very friendly, as his went in my hair. i have spent the name would say, happy. full of energy and was really happy to meet me, last 21 years visited so many i was really excited to meet him. take a step. yes, there you go. countries. every continent in the you have it all easy. welcome to your couchsurfing place. world, including antarctica. my mission is to visit every country in thank you. the world. i started of planning a your happy home. my space, thank you. take off the load. trip and decided i should start in this will be your sleeping spot.

0k, just a mattress? yeah, it's a mattress. egypt's. i mostly even sleep here. 0k. i like to sleep on the floor. 0k, great. it is good, quite sweet. it is my 00:04:19,422 --> 2147483051:38:54,978 passion, the biggest challenge i can 2147483051:38:54,978 --> 4294966103:13:29,430 get. one of the main components about my travelling is food. eating food, talking about food, sometimes buying food and cooking. hello, i'd like to buy shiro, please. i was very fortunate that mr happy very kindly offered to cook for me some local ethiopian food. how much is that altogether? 70? i bought some shiro, and also a kilo of tomatoes and a kilo of chilli. people are lovely, very, very helpful, very kind. some people speak a little bit of english. i asked a guy to help me

to find shiro, and he took right me to the shop. and then the shopkeepers helped me buy the food. it was a lovely experience. sometimes it can be confusing, especially if there's a lot of people pushing each other, all shouting for the same thing. even when you can see, you don't quite know what you're buying. sometimes it is a bit more confusing but you just be patient and keep going, keep asking. most people will help you. what is shiro exactly? shiro is like a powder made of chickpeas. it is like one of the staple foods that we have here. so we call this dancing shiro time,

because the shiro kind of bubbles out and then dances. and you just cook it here, where the heat is coming from? yeah, where the heat, we have a charcoal here, so natural fire—making. do you want to have a try of that? give me your hand. you just put it here and then you can just put it to your mouth and taste it. nice. it's good, it's quite sweet. yeah, right? that is from that of tomato. i hope it tastes as good as it smells. of course, ready for it? lunch is here. what a nice smell, lunch! thank you very much. hungry? very hungry. great, so we have our shiro in the centre, which is like the focal element of the food. and then we have a couple of vegetables. do you like kale? yep. kale is like our green vegetable. then we have some tomatoes by the side, and some chilis.

mostly we take time to bless the food, in a way. we kind of give it a good vibration in a way so just take a few seconds to be just grateful and thankful for having this food. thank you very much. great. the other thing cultural in ethiopia as we eat together, is something called "gursha". gursha is basically feeding each other. it is like, i made a bit like a bite and then i just give that to you. beside the content of feeding a person, it is also a sign of respect and care. it's like a mother feeding a child so there's some care into it. it is a culture we do here. so, i'm going to give you one of that now. are you ready? this will be interesting. open your mouth and you have yourfirst gursha... wow. nice. this is incredible food. people, you have to come to ethiopia and eat this food. you like it?

it is delicious, it's tasty, it's a little spicy, it's a little...so rich. at least four or five different textures in this one dish i can taste on my tongue. now is your turn to give me a bite of that. see how you do the gursha. here it comes. you are like a pro. having this little ceremony, eating traditional ethiopian food with a lovely person, who i now consider my friend, is a wonderful experience. it's very humbling. to be able to share and exchange cultures is so wonderful. it is hard to describe, really. very emotional. i can't pick up a book and think, let's go to this place or let's go

to that place. so, i had to have the research, i had to have the knowledge beforehand and i have a very, very good memory so i plan my route before i travel. i don't know who i'm going to meet, i don't know what's going to happen and to me that is all an adventure, it is exciting. many people say i could not do that, i couldn't imagine it. but i've never really seen so me, i don't worry about it because i don't know. it is all the unknown and that is what i love and enjoy. trying to find people that i can hook up with online. i found this guy called mike, a local guy, who seemed really interesting, good fun. i says i was coming to addis, want to meet up? have a coffee or have a chat about ethiopian life and culture? tony? mike, hi, good to meet you. thanks for coming. welcome to ethiopia. have a seat. ijust really wanted to meet you and find out a bit more

about ethiopia and what is going on in addis. likewise, i really wanted to meet you, when we contacted. we recently had change in government so it was not an election but by popular demand a new government has come up to power. it is a new government, a young leader, a kind of visionary. the people's man. the first time most people would have heard about ethiopia would have been 1985, the band aid and live aid, the famine. but there is more than that, what's more to ethiopia? that image stayed in people's minds and shuttered everything else. when the famine was over and we were back to safe times, nobody was reporting on that. like, if you take the farming side, ethiopia

is the fifth—largest country in the world with the number of livestock. it is not as depicted. ok, mike, where are we going? now we are going to the headquarters of the african union. so there, we are going to see a statue, a new statute that was just inaugurated and it is a statue of haile selassie, our last emperor. i've heard of him. if you do this, you are getting a nice picture, and if you turn the camera sideways, because it's... vertical, yeah. tony, you're a nice photographer. thanks. yeah. awesome. yeah, yeah. you have a talent for pictures. yeah, just shoot and point, hopefully something comes out.

how important is haile selassie to ethiopian people? for some, he was a hero, for others he was a villain. because whenever you occupy a throne, those are the things, the two balls you juggle. he tried to modernise the country. so he did work a lot on education, that was one of his main interests. my grandfather was a big fan of him. he said, he used to come to their school, randomly, just to check on what the students were being fed. every time he would come, he would bring them grapes, apples, oranges. and how was he viewed by young ethiopian people today? haile selassie is immortalised, he is iconic. if you bring your hand, and interlace it here, and you do this... yeah, yeah. it goes back to unity. yeah, yeah, of course.

so, we are heading into north addis. we are going to see an art gallery, an art gallery for blind and visually impaired people. i'm assuming some kind of tactile art exhibition. different textures to make a picture or pictures. that's what i'm assuming. we'll find out when we get there. thank you. the entrance? hi, tony. welcome. hi. welcome to my studio. thank you, i'm really

looking forward to it. let me show you one of the art pieces. wow. so, we're touching a piece of art. these are people, who are laughing. this is their mouths. 0k. this is their nose. this is their eyes. these are like buttons, are they? yes. so, it is a face. you can see their hands, they are screaming, happy, expressing themselves. do you like it? it's really good, it's really interesting. it really gives a blind person a better understanding of expression of people. it's amazing. it's really inspiring.

so many times you go to art galleries with your friends, and you, sort of, feel excluded. touching this made me feel included. a christian cross. actually art i can appreciate. i felt equal. it was really nice, really positive. i feel just like anyone else looking at art. radio: ethiopia's number one station for news, music and entertainment? that's us, 105.3 afro fm!

driving through addis one afternoon, got a bit hungry, so got a taxi to stop at a food stall on the street. i went in and talked to the guy there. i was talking to him and telling him my story, i travel around the world and i'm blind. we're about to go live on aire. are you ready? he said, do you want to come on my breakfast show? i said, yeah, that would be cool. talk to the people, share my story, maybe inspire a few people. good morning, good morning, good morning, ladies and gentlemen. how're you doing? it's the best breakfast in town, your voice of motivation and inspiration every single day. i'm sitting here with an amazing person, tony giles is here in the studio. he is a blind person, but also partially deaf, but he has managed to travel to 138 countries around the world. good morning, everyone. the question i have for you right now, i'm sure a lot of our listeners are wondering as well, what are the main challenges you face doing this project you've been doing?

one of the most difficult ones is getting money out of atm machines, cash machines. i have to find somebody i can trust. i have to check them out, listen to their story, how they're sounding, figure out that i can trust them and go to the cash machine with them. they help me to read the screen, i can press the buttons and put my information in, and once i get the money, i have to ask them, what denomination are these? i can't read a menu in a restaurant, so i have to have an idea of the national dish of each country i visit. in ethiopia it's quite easy, injera. probably one of the other biggest challenges for me is crossing borders. i have to hand my passport over to someone, and i don't know where that passport goes, and i have to hope it's going to get back to me. what keeps you going, when you are faced with challenges? how do you keep your chin up? when i get tired and i think i can't do it anymore, i think about my best friend. he died when i was young. he had a serious disability, and he couldn't move most of his body.

i always think of him, he inspired me. i've got it easy compared to what he has. just keep going, yeah. ladies and gentlemen, here you have it. the one and only tony giles here in the studio. it was such an amazing, inspirational story. yeah, i have dark days. not so many now. one of the main reasons i started travelling was escapism, escapism from my emotions. i can do things physically, that's easy. i run away from my emotions. i couldn't deal with relationships for a long time. because i thought an everyday relationship would end the same way as my relationship with my friend, i thought. people would go away. i thought that's what would happen with a relationship. and for a long time, it did. i realised that there's more to life. i could stop grieving.

i still occasionally gets dark days. but the way you overcome them, the way i overcome them, is, i think, when i get up tomorrow, i think, what's the next challenge? i know people love me. so that's enough. some people might say i'm on the extreme edge of travel, and the extreme edge of disabled people. i do worry sometimes, when i'm giving talks, doing interviews, am i going to put people off? am i going to make people think, wow, that's incredible, that's so out there, i couldn't do that, i couldn't possibly. i wonder if in a weird way, maybe i discourage people. i guess ijust thought i'd have to tell it and let people take

from it what they will. without people, i wouldn't be able to travel. i think it's a two—way thing. people help me, and i'm given something back. i show them there's an alternative way. they say, how do you travel, how can you see? why have you come to my country, you're blind. i tell them, well, i come to eat the food and meet the people and hear the music and walk on the terrain up and down the mountains. i can feel it all through my skin and my feet and that's how i see a country. the terrain around the churches on the outside is up there with some of the toughest places and terrain i have visited. i just want to be normal. it's just so frustrating.

got to be strong all the time. it's the only way i can travel, the only way i can cope. a pretty soggy start to our saturday morning and i suspect you'll be able to put the hosepipes away, the sun is here to stay through much of next week. the reason for the rain is this area of low—pressure to the southern flank of that we had some unusually gusty winds. dusting in

excess of 50 to 60 miles an hour across channel coasts. the rain continues to push its way steadily north and the east. we will see an improvement in the midlands as the rain moves into southern scotland. behind it is a case of sunny spells and scattered showers. some of the showers could be quite sharp, hopefully they will be hit and mess. to the north and west some sunshine into scotland and a few scattered showers through northern ireland. wendy for all of us and underneath the cloud and rain will be disappointingly cool. top temperatures of around 13 degrees in the rain and highest values of 18 further south. moving out of saturday evening that area of low pressure pushes off and behind we will see skies clear and wins for light. temperatures for many include single figures. a chillier start to oui’ single figures. a chillier start to our sunday morning, but a dry one.

hopefully, some sunshine around early on and many of us will keep some sunshine for the second tab of the weekend. more frequent showers in scotland and northern ireland. one or two spells of sharp showers pushing their way in from the south—west. highest values of 12 to 19 degrees. moving out of sunday into monday, more wet weather forecast. you will need to keep abreast of the forecast because that front the system is going to be an issue from monday to tuesday. the exact location of that rain is still subject to change. somewhere to weather across much of eastern england, further north and west it isa england, further north and west it is a case of sunny spells and scattered showers. temperatures struggling for this time of year, 12 to 17 degrees. by the end of tuesday it could feel cold spell as they north swings round to a north—easterly direction. that it. take care.

this is bbc news. i'm shaun ley. the headlines at eleven. michael gove, one of the front runners for the conservative leadership, says he deeply regrets his past use of cocaine. us president donald trump lifts the threat of tariffs on imports from mexico after its government promises to act over migrants, asylum seekers and border security. health officials launch an investigation into the deaths of three hospital patients in manchester and liverpool who ate pre—packed sandwiches linked to an outbreak of listeria. the queen has arrived at the annual trooping the colour parade to mark her majesty's official birthday. the fifa women's world cup kicked off last night,

with hosts france easing to a dominant 4—0 win over south korea. a new law to protect service animals comes into force today, nicknamed finn's law after a police dog who was stabbed.