It started well as DLR passengers were entertained by an apparently BP-sponsored performance singing the praises of the company that manages to produce 4.4% more oil and gas per year and still remain committed to sustainability. The performance was scuppered though by an increasingly doubt-ridden singer who finally can't take anymore of the bullshit and tears off her shiny green skirt to reveal a second skirt covered in incriminating facts about the company's record.

Unfortunately, shortly after this mini-show, their guitar-led hymn to
greenwash was met with a series of stony-faced obstacles. First,the British Transport police kicked them off the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) platform at Customs House for 'unacceptable behaviour' (ie. singing and leafletting).

Then, on the advice of BP, ExCel security refused entry to the AGM one all-singing shareholder, who was admittedly sporting a frightwig exactly matching the green of BP's helios logo. (Did this in itself constitute enough evidence to justify overriding his legal right to attend the meeting? No, but perhaps the leaflet he was brandishing that itemised 8 reasons why BP is anything but clean and green, and the fact that London Rising Tide [LRT] is working towards the dismantlement of the entire oil industry, all added up to convince BP that illegal exclusion is a risk worth taking.) The shareholder likened BP's presence at ExCel to the DSEi
arms fair, held at the centre every two years, and which is attracting seriously negtative publicity for the fair's organiser, Reed Elsevier.

At the same time not far from this spot, a huge banner was hung from a car park as another gentle tap on the consciences of BP shareholders, it being in plain sight of those travelling down to the meeting on the DLR. Spoofing BP's Ultimate Diesel ad campaign, it read 'More climate chaos, less life on earth', and now resides in police custody, unlike its minders, fortunately.

Meanwhile, back at ExCel, the LRT troupe began singing a darker hommage to BP at the AGM's entrance, managing also to thrust leaflets into the hands of a swarm of BP logo-festooned temporary staff as they fluttered into the building muttering as one 'It's not our fault - we need the money!' However, they didn't reach the song's denouement, ('there might be an end, if we can stop BP and its friends'), as yet again the police rudely interrupted it in mid-flow. This time they wanted to move the troupe into a
specially-prepared 'protest pen', where it would be impossible to
distribute leaflets, be heard, or even be seen due to a pointless piece of advertising street furniture. So this gracious offer was refused, and the troupe kept on with the show where they stood until dragged off ExCel's private property by the police, passing several perplexed-looking BP meet-and greeters, and dumped on DLR property where they again started leafletting until again dragged off the station, this time in a touching collaboration between Metropolitan Petroleum and British Transport police.

This was a small incursion into BP's airbrushed, reputation-managed, dissent-free, soul dead airspace, which yet again highlighted the company's attitude to anything that threatens the brand image or the triple bottom line of 'profit, profit and profit'. The next incursion by LRT will be Art Not Oil 2006, an exhibition dedicated to using art to expose the dark heart of big oil, as well as being committed to severing the sponsorship link between oil companies and cultural institutions, and lastly hoping to inspire positive visions of a world beyond oil and profit. It opens at the 491 Gallery in London on June 10th and travels round the country for the rest of the year.
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Song: The Two Faces of BP (or does it have another title? To the tune of 'Love is All Around)

1st half (to praise BP):
You’ve seen them in Tate Britain and Royal Opera House shows
BP is all around us and so the planet glows
Their history may be oily but they’ve cleaned up their show
They even use the sun-god as their new logo

You know you love them, you always will
They built a windfarm in the Rotterdam hills
They’re funding solar, they’re making a stand
They explore for oil in 26 lands

2nd half (to bury BP):
They seem two-faced before me, as I look at what I’ve read
I kinda get to thinking of all the things they said
They said the planet mattered, while polluting land, air & seas
They said they care for people, but collude with paramilitaries

No they don’t love us, they never will
They just pour greenwash over each oil spill
There’s no beginning but there might be an end,
If we can stop BP and their friends