Hugo Coelho’s journalism portfolio

Hugo Coelho & Deny Extremera
Published in London Out Loud
03.08

Jessica promised amazing girls for £5 and private dancers for £10. It sounded like the bargain of the night.

Her beauty made Soho look like paradise and lured us in.

She turned out to be the hook, and we were the perfect fish.

Market for debauchery

We were looking for a story. And Jessica was not the first to offer us forbidden “delights” that night. ‘Exotic’ girls (read from any ethnic background), marijuana, hashish and cocaine were all on offer. All we had to do was ask.

“Looking for girls? I have some just around the corner. They are clean, they don’t do the streets.” We heard these words over and over again.

We wanted to talk to a girl, but talk’s cheap and wasn’t on sale that night. What was being sold, however, was a show for £30, or “£35 for a blow job, £40 if you want positions.”

Open-minded…and unpredictable

So there we were, negotiating, terrified but intrigued by the temptation pretty, blonde Jessica offered.

Can we talk to a girl while she is dancing for us? “Yes,” she answered. Is it only £10? “Yes.” Can we ask you to dance for us? “Yes.”

Until this point, our evening had been very ordinary. Earlier, we had met up with Sergio and Arturo, who frequent Soho’s gay bars and clubs.

“Soho’s great! Specially because it’s not just a gay zone. Many straight people come here, especially girls who feel safe in gay bars,” Sergio said.

Ironically, a couple of Spanish tourists we spoke to later couldn’t get out of the place fast enough, once they realised they were in a gay bar.

Beware of clip joints

Getting back to Jessica and her promise of giving us a good time, we paid her £5 and were soon sitting in a dark little room. Another blonde kept us company while a beautiful brunette served us to rather tasteless beer.

Then we asked Jessica to deliver on her promise of a private dance. And that’s when things got ugly.

The blonde’s smile vanished and she demanded £35 more despite the bargain we had struck. She also asked for £200 for “further services”.

Our refusal to pay more money translated into a trip back to the reception where a grumpy Madame demanded that we pull out some more money and search our pockets and wallets, while a huge bouncer breathed down our necks.

We were lucky to get away only £20 poorer.

Our experience is not dissimilar to those experienced by other man trapped in ‘clip joints’.

A recent article in The Independent talked about “stories abound of men having their wallets emptied or being marched to cash machines by bouncers and forced to hand over £500 for a couple of soft drinks and a 20 minute chat with a scantily clad young hostess.”

Incidentally, last year, councils sent text messages to warn unsuspecting customers of Soho’s treacheries.

The message from Westminster City Council read: “£5 to get in, £500 to get out. Criminals operate some of the hostess bars in Soho. Don’t enter without knowing what you’ll get for your money.”

We got the message the hard way.

Hugo Coelho
Published in London Out Loud
03.08

The mystery surrounding the identity of the British graffiti artist is as intriguing as his work.

Banksy has a lot in common with a certain pointy-eared caped-crusaders. Like him, the graffiti artist strives to keep his identity a secret and like him, he wants to save the world.

This time round, the guerrilla artist has taken to campaigning for the anti-plastic bag lobby. Read the rest of this entry »

Hugo Coelho
Published in London Out Loud
03.08

Until she became famous, Tracey Emin slept with Billy Childish, Roberto Navikas, Carl Freedman, Frank Berbee, Marta Tanton, Tracy Horn, Lucey Baxter and many others.

“Some I’d had a shag with in bed or against a wall. Some I had just slept with, like my grandma”.

She then pasted the names of them all (and her two aborted children) on the inside walls of a tent and called her work Everyone I Slept With 1963-1995.

And the day it was first exhibited was the same day Britain was introduced to its most controversial contemporary artist. Read the rest of this entry »

Hugo Coelho
Published in London Out Loud
03/08

On the northern border of London’s famous Bangla Town, a silver-black eagle carved into the wall of an abandoned brewery keeps a watch on all who enter.

And in the gallery inside, student photographer Jessica Charleston watches patrons admire her picture of a man’s shadow captured in the moonlight.

The photograph is the focal point of the show – Charleston’s first public exhibition – at the Loading Bay in Brick Lane, the hottest venue for contemporary art in East London.

“It is inevitable”, she says of the area that is just half a mile away from Liverpool Street’s skyscrapers. “This place is fast becoming the place for London’s artists’ to exhibit their work.” Read the rest of this entry »

Before heading to the house of Sherlock Holmes you must verify your detective skills. For this is a place surrounded by mystery.

The 221 b Baker Street may well be the world’s most famous address but to get there is a challenge.

More than counting the doors up to the 221b, the visitor must go further south, to the nº239.

There is the house where the fictional detective of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories lived and shared the halves with Dr Watson.

From the outside the Georgian Town boarding house guarded by a large serious looking bobby may not seem tempting but going inside is worth it just to feel the spell. Read the rest of this entry »

Sherlock Holmes, the detective to whom crime has no secrets, is Britain’s greatest mystery these days.

For the last 150 years, everyone considered Mr Holmes to be the most famous detective at least in the world of fiction, certainly.

Now, a survey has shown that for more than half of the Britons, the detective of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories is real. Read the rest of this entry »

Money managers have found a way to milk even the most noble of causes – the Green movement – for hard, cold cash.
A case in point is the Green Exchange, a joint venture between the New York Mercantile Exchange, the world’s largest commodity futures market and brokerage firm Evolution Markets.

Trading in the first carbon derivative contracts began on March 17, a move many analysts say is an indication of just how important carbon trading has become in a few short years. In fact there is a perceived increase in competition among financial players.

The setting up of the Green Exchange is one of the boldest steps the US has taken to enter the carbon-trading league, and move is expected to lead to an explosion of activity in the market. Read the rest of this entry »