Four professional singers interpret their journey on a London bus guerrilla-style to the surprise of passengers.
Filming and reporting by Josephine McDermott.
Author Archives: Josephine
BBC World: Shanghai showgirl’s story of sequins and censorship
If the strangeness of opening a burlesque club in China had not occurred to Amelia Kallman and Norman Gosney as a Buddhist cleansing ceremony took place in their future venue, it certainly did when they found themselves submitting Frank Sinatra lyrics to be vetted by the local cultural department.
Continue reading here.
BBC World: How can the death of an IS hostage be verified?
Croatia says it fears the worst for Tomislav Salopek after an Egyptian jihadist group affiliated to Islamic State (IS) claimed it had killed him. But how do authorities try to check such claims?
Continue reading here.
Jeremy Vine Show, BBC Radio 2: Dog-eating
Around 10,000 dogs are thought to have been slaughtered at an annual dog meat festival which has been taking place in China.
The Yulin festival has caused uproar amongst animal rights activists. An online campaign to ban the event has received more than four million signatures and support from the comedian Ricky Gervais.
Broadcast 23/06/15
Aside
My story on the Indonesian military’s requirement for recruits to be virgins has now received over 1 million page views.
BBC World: ‘Tampon tax’ around the world
This week, as unofficial international women taboos correspondent, I tackled the tax paid on sanitary products around the world, featuring fabulous Slovakian Diana Fabianova, director of The Moon Inside You:
Half the world’s population needs to use them for a week each month every month for about 30 years.
So why are sanitary products – used to absorb menstrual blood and therefore many would argue essential – taxed?
A campaign launched in a number of countries has had success in Australia where treasurer Joe Hockey has said he will ask state and territory governments to remove the tax on tampons and sanitary towels.
BBC World: Why does Indonesia demand that female military recruits are virgins?
Human rights activists want Indonesia to stop so-called virginity tests being used in the recruitment of female military recruits.
“Bonkers”, “primitive” and “unscientific” are words used to describe it by one of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) researchers who interviewed women who had been subjected to the test.
The World Health Organization has said: “There is no place for virginity testing; it has no scientific validity.”
HRW says the tests are also discriminatory and have no bearing on a woman’s ability to perform her job.
In Pictures: Strange places people fall asleep
A baggage handler in the US caused a plane to make a priority landing when he fell asleep in the cargo hold whilst loading.
But he’s by no means alone in ending up asleep in an unexpected spot.
BBC World: China’s last women to have their feet bound
Decades after foot-binding was outlawed in China, a British photographer has met some of the last women subjected to the practice.
It was with a sense of pride that Su Xi Rong revealed her feet to British photographer Jo Farrell.
Her feet, bound from the age of seven, were so small that she had been renowned for their beauty.
Continue reading here.
BBC London 94.9 Breakfast Show: Met corruption
With Paul Ross and Nikki Bedi.