WECOME TO THE LONDON OLYMPICS CARE OF UNION CARBIDE, PREVIOUS SPONSORS OF THE BHOPAL DISASTER.

I see that some people are upset that Olympic relay torches are being sold on e-bay, for, it seems, considerable sums of money.[1] I think I’m shocked that they’re shocked; the Olympics now a multi million pound branding exercise in corporate promotion, of everything from Coca Cola to McDonalds,[2] with a range of dubious corporations such as Dow Chemical, Rio Tinto and BP all seeking to clean up their image on the back of Usain Bolt and Rebecca Adlington

In a particularly grotesque development, nigh on impossible to satirise, ATOS an organisation whose role is to hustle sick and disabled people back to work, is sponsoring the Paralympics! Perhaps the makers of Agent Orange should sponsor Paralympic synchronised swimming?

Whilst for ordinary Londoners the Olympics feels like an event imposed upon the hapless city; tenants are evicted to provide a sky high rent dividend for landlords out of Olympic visitors, tube and bus services will be severely disrupted whilst special lanes will be created for nonentities and unsavoury dictators to sweep past the gawking oiks. Londoners who actually have tickets are a small minority; most will watch the whole event on TV as if it were taking place yet again in Beijing whilst picking up a major slice of the tab for holding the event.  


[1] I wonder how many people are aware that the Olympic torch is a Nazi invention for the 1936 Olympic games!
[2] Apparently a small café in the southwest had leaflets describing their Olympic breakfasts confiscated as they breached ‘branding regulations.’

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