On April 23rd 2012 - Shakespeare's birthday and the launch of the World Shakespeare Festival - a group of merry players known as the "Reclaim Shakespeare Company" took unexpectedly to the stage in Stratford-upon-Avon, just before a Royal Shakespeare Company performance of The Tempest. This piece of guerilla Shakespeare aimed to challenge the RSC over its decision to accept sponsorship from BP in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon drilling disaster and the oil company's decision to start extracting highly polluting and destructive tar sands in Canada.

Someone reminded me of this recently from around the time of the 2004 Torch Relay protests on the Millenium Bridge:

Which dodgy company most deserves the Greenwash Gold medal in 2012? Who is covering up the most environmental destruction and devastating the most communities while pretending to be a good corporate citizen by sponsoring the Olympic games?

Steam Roller on Sandy Lane Leyton Marshes: the machine of choice for the ODA

by Steve Rushton
American League Against War and Fascism poster: Poster calling for boycott of Hitler's 1936 GamesSponsors of the 2012 London Olympics profit from peoples’ deaths and destroying the planet, whilst creating a vastly unequal economic system; this smears the Olympic ethos of people coming together to celebrate sporting excellence. Desecrating the games integrity will be advertisements from companies that profit directly from and cause peoples’ death, not least BP, Dow and Rio Tinto. Nevertheless, David Cameron has come out in support of DOW’s sponsorship.[i] More broadly, it has been argued that elites within the system are attempting to suppress peoples’ rights to express their discontent against injustices in Britain and abroad.

5th April 2012

Re: The Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) recent works on Leyton Marshes, close to London’s Olympic enclosure.

Dear Mr Hone, CEO of the ODA

I am writing to you in response to your recent letter addressed to “Dear Resident” in which you attempt to persuade local people that the ODA’s plan to construct a building on Leyton Marshes (classified as Metropolitan Open Space) is justifiable.

Cooeee, Jacques Rogge! You're in town again with your IOC chums and SebCo and all for another of your inspection thingies, yeah? In advance of tomorrow's

Peaceful Non-cooperation Halts Work on Olympic Site


Members of the Occupy Movement have set up camp, on Porters Field, part of Leyton Marshes in East London, where against stiff local opposition planning planning permission was granted by Waltham Forest to construct a number of Olympic practice basketball courts.