#RIO: Outside the funeral of Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira

We decide to make our way to the large cemetery in Botafogo. I'm told Tom Jobim is buried there and I want to pay some musicianly respects.

As we step off the bus, we're met by BOPE special police lining the road, all the way up to a building at the top with a large gathering of people outside. We decide to take a look.

We had no idea but quickly realise that this is the funeral of Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira, whose death earlier this week was widely reported in the international press - a fact which became a story in itself for the Brazilian news.

The funeral scene seems to be an opportunity for protest as well as for contemplation and reflection. Chants spring up regularly, referring to the military police "pacification" of the favela and particularly directed at the Globo media conglomerate and their TV crew at the scene. The victim was a dancer for the network. The crowd seem pretty angry, it feels tense.

I decide fairly quickly that I'm not here to pay tribute to the dead man, nor do I want to be part of the media circus surrounding the funeral, so I make my way out to leave. As I do so, a group of motorbike-taxi drivers all rev their engines in unison.

According to Amnesty International, police in Brazil are responsible for an average of 2,000 deaths through shooting and violent incidents every year. As I wander away, I can't help thinking that the international interest in this story is primarily because of its timing, location and consequences: two months before the World Cup in an area very close to the tourist hub of Copacabana, which has seen some of the angry protest spilling out from the Pavao-Pavaozinho favela.

We make our way home via the vast cemetery. With cinematic pathetic fallacy it begins to rain. I realise I'll probably not find Tom Jobim's grave.

#RIO: Organised Chaos on Avenida Rio Branco

A broken traffic light stuck on red on one of Rio's busiest thoroughfares, a main artery through the city centre.

Traffic assistants wearing fluorescent coats and armed with high-pitched whistles try to keep things moving by whistling frantically and gesticulating in a highly animated fashion, essentially to encourage vehicles to speed up and go through a red light. 

This then has to be stopped, to enable traffic to flow the other way across the junction. I really enjoyed the counterpoint of different whistles from all across the large junction.