Category: London School of Journalism

Features and reviews I’ve written at London School of Journalism

ORPHAN SNAKE IN WEST LONDON

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Picture: Just chaos

A mysterious foreign man bought an anaconda snake in a local pet shop three months ago and never came back to collect it.

The meter-long yellow anaconda was bought in April for £250 in Aqua Rep the tropical pet shop in Harrow Road. According to the shop owner, the unknown man took it as a present for his wife and said he would come back to collect it as soon as possible – but the reptile is still in the shop.

“Usually we write down all the details of our customers, when they order this kinds of animals,” said Michelle, 23, shop assistant. “But he just came in one day and bought the first snake he saw in our expositors, so we don’t have a clue on how to contact him.”

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THE DESPERATE SEARCH FOR MISSING CHILDREN

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A blonde little girl with blue eyes is defencelessly looking at us from hundreds of walls: standing at the tube station, at the bus stop or just walking in the street without feeling sorry for her, is impossible. Every corner in town is plastered with posters of the book of Kate McCann, mother of Madeleine, the three years old who disappeared on May 2007 while she was on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal, and hasn’t been found yet. Despite the Portuguese police archiving her search three years ago, her parents has never stopped shouting their pain to the world.

Around 140.000 children go missing every year in the UK, including ‘runaway’, parental abductions and ‘stranger’ abductions – as happened to Madeleine. In 2009, 64% of the 356.000 incidents reported to the Home Office’s Missing People Bureau were under age. Although the majority of the disappearance is solved within the first 48 hours, there are still a lot of lonely children out there and a lot of families are fighting to bring them home.

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NEW ACTION FOR MISSING CHILDREN TO BE LAUNCHED

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A more focused service of support for police and families involved in the search of missing children will be launched next month, in a re-assessment of the roles from the government.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre is taking this new function, which was previously provided by The Missing People Bureau, a branch of the National Policing Improving Agency. The transfer will come into force on July 1st and the agency is already working to tailor a service entirely focused on under aged cases.

Picture: MyAngelG

“We want to improve what is already working by applying our experience with child exploitation to the search for missing children,” said Alex Nagel, head of Strategy, Policy and Governance of CEOP. “To make it more efficient, we need nationally integrated data for a better understanding of the problem and also partnerships with both the voluntary and private sectors.”

Mr Charlie Hedges, Support Officer of NPIA, said: “We’ve always worked together with CEOP.” Launched in 2006 to combat child sexual abuse and exploitation, CEOP works tracking and bringing offenders to account either directly or in partnership with local and international forces.

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MEAT OVERDOSE AT THE CHURRASCARIA IN WESTBOURNE GROVE

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Picture: Thomas R. Stegelmann

If you adore barbecue meat and boast about a resistant stomach, then go to Rodizio Rico, a traditional Brazilian churrascaria in Westbourne Grove, five minutes walk to Bayswater tube station.

Surely, you must be ready to eat a lot, and very quickly.

We went there without reservation at 8 on a Saturday evening and, luckily, there was a vacant table for three, right in front of the grill.

We sat in the main room, which looks bigger than it really is, because it’s airy and simply organized. On one side there were four lines of wood tables with paper placemats, while on the other part there were the cashier, a rich buffet and the grill. At the bottom of the room there were other tables and the kitchen. The bar and other seats were in a large room downstairs, next to the toilets and another kitchen.

As we ordered some Brazilian beer – we choose Brahma, which tasted very light and refreshing – a friendly waitress gave us a round card with different colours on each side. It worked as a traffic light: “Show the green side if you want food and turn it to the red if you want to stop,” she said, “and you can also have a break and start again a little later if you like.”

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ERIC CLAPTON AND STEVE WINWOOD AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL

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Hundreds of fans from all ages went wild with involving rock and blues, as Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood went on stage at the Royal Albert Hall last Wednesday.

After 9 nights of solo concerts at the Hall to present his 19th solo album – simply called ‘Clapton’ – Eric Clapton has reunited with former Blind Faith companion Steve Winwood for three special concerts. No doubts, it was an intriguing appointment for rock lovers’.

At 7 pm the line outside entrance number 6 was long and full of excited and well-dressed people, half of which were bringing chips and drinks to snack once they’d get inside. No business for ticket-sellers: everybody had already booked their place.

In such spectacular venue and after the success of the precedent shows, it wasn’t easy to keep up with the high expectations of the public. But that didn’t seem to be a problem.

The supporting band Andy Fairweather Low & The Low Riders prepared the audience with 45 minutes of humour and involving songs – including Amen Corner’s ‘If paradise is such as nice’ – and finally the two ‘big’ took the stage.

Black t-shirt with green necklace, red shoes and messy hair for Eric and white large shirt and jeans for the more sober Steve. “Love you Eric,” shouted a woman while the atmosphere went lower and the round light pointed the stage.

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