The Independent Magazine, Saturday 21st 2009

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/first-person-i-help-women-escape-the-favelas-1648040.html

The Independent - Real life experience

After travelling to Salvador in Brazi for Look magazine (www.lookmagazine.co.uk), I also wrote a piece on the man responsible for setting up a women's co-operative to make handbags from recycled ring pulls for the charity, Bottletop (www.bottletop.org).
Luciano Rodrigues Dos Santos, is just 27 and was so poor when he was a child, he had to sell snacks on the beach to survive. The charity Street Angels changed his life and he's now helping to change the lives of others.
See the full feature when it comes out in a future issue of The Independent magazine (www.independent.co.uk).

Vegas Daze

Last week, I returned from a week long trip to the bright lights and madness that is Las Vegas. On Valentine's Day. There were more brides and limos than there were packs of playing cards, I swear.
It was a mad six days and a shock to see how much Vegas has changed since I was last there over 15 years ago. And it's still changing with new super shiny, high rise apartment blocks and hotels shooting up all over the place from the sumptuous Wynn Encore to THEHotel at Mandalay Bay. My feature about my time there will be hitting the stands in a glossy magazine shortly.

The Hollywood Body Gurus

What do Jennifer Lopez, Hugh Jackman, Bruce Willius, Penelope Cruz and Ben Affleck have in common? Gunnar Petersen, the personal trainer who seems to have half the Hollywood A list sewn up in his practise in Beverley Hills. I spoke with him, and a host of other top names in the celebrity fitness world for a piece due out in Marie Claire. Watch out for it.
As a qualified personal trainer myself, I rate Mr Petersen highly and will hopefully be winging my way out to LA to do a follow-up piece with various trainers on the ground. Watch this space!

Look magazine - Bottletop project

It's been a busy month for me, flying around the world on numerous different assignments. In January, I headed over to Salvador, in the north east of Brazil with the charity Bottletop. (www.bottletop.org).
Set up by Cameron Saul, son of the founder of Mulberry bags and now run with friend and former A&R music man, Oliver Wayman, the charity uses the medium of music and fashion to raise awareness and funding for local sex health education intitiatives in both Brazil and Africa.
I travelled there to report on a story for Look magazine (www.look.co.uk) on a group of women whose lives have been dramatically transformed through Bottletop. Look out for the feature in the March 17th issue.