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The Oil Road at the City Book Fair, Tues 13th November
Oct 24, 2012
PLEASE NOTE DATE/TIME CHANGE – NOW TUES 13TH NOV, 2.30pm We’re excited to have been invited to take part in the City Book Fair (“the biggest ever book fair for the financial markets”), where James Marriott will be presenting The Oil Road. Sandwiched in between sessions such as Second Generation Exotic Options and Fat Tails and Extreme Events...
The Oil Road at Woolfson and Tay, London, 1 November
Oct 22, 2012
Woolfson and Tay bookshop, cafe and gallery in Bermondsey will host a talk with Platform’s James Marriott and Emma Hughes on new book The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London. Tickets are free but book online here or call 020 7407 9316. Thursday 1st November 2012, 7pm Woolfson and Tay 13 Bermondsey Square...
Predator elites, BP and The Oil Road on BBC Newshour
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Oct 17, 2012
Mika Minio-Paluello discusses “The Oil Road – A Journey from the Caspian Sea to the City of London” on BBC Newshour from the BBC studio in Cairo. The conversation explores how BP is disrupting lives along the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and how predator elites in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey collude with the corporations to maximise profits....
Bust-up between Aliyev and BP reveals corporate profiteering as Azeri oil peaks
Blog post -
Oct 15, 2012
Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, gave a speech last week accusing oil company BP of “false promises” and “gross mistakes”. In a country where regime and corporation are closely intertwined – and almost symbiotic – what is going on behind the political theatre? Why the public outburst? Aliyev revealed that Azerbaijan had lost $8 billion in...
This is about oil sponsorship, not corporate sponsorship, of the arts
Blog post -
Oct 9, 2012
At the end of September, the merry band of Bard-based interventionists, the Reclaim Shakespeare Company struck again in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Shortly before the BP-sponsored performance of Twelfth Night was due to begin, three actors took to the stage to perform a short piece addressing the issue of the controversial sponsorship relationship, including lines such as: Alas,...
Bowing to a dead dictator: pipelines, personality cults and the US Ambassador
Blog post -
Oct 5, 2012
Azeri democracy activists were enraged when in September, the new US Ambassador to Baku bowed down in front of the memorial to the late dictator Heydar Aliyev, father of the current dictator Ilham Aliyev. The State Department initially tried to claim that Richard Morningstar had only laid a wreath of flowers at the memorial to...
Paul Mason discusses #TheOilRoad at the LRB Bookshop
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Oct 5, 2012
On 4 October 2012, Newsnight economics editor, Paul Mason, was supposed to join Platform to discuss The Oil Road: Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London at the LRB Bookshop. Unfortunately, Paul was called away at the last minute for filming, so he kindly made a pre-record of himself discussing some of...
Shell Classic International: A musical mask and a social licence
Blog post -
Oct 3, 2012
A guest post from musician Chris Garrard. Tonight, the new season of the Shell Classic International concert series will open at the Southbank. The first piece of this first concert is Benajmin Britten’s ‘plea for peace’, the Sinfonia da Requiem. The unpleasant irony is that Shell, the sponsor of these concerts, have now spent in...
As BP’s “Contract of the Century” comes of age, new book reveals untold story of corruption & power
Blog post -
Sep 20, 2012
Today, BP’s Baku mega-oil project – one of its largest in the world – comes of age, 18 years since the Contract of the Century was signed in September 1994. To mark the anniversary, Verso Books and Platform are releasing a new book detailing its hidden story of geo-political manipulation, imprisonment of critics and environmental...
MPs find government support for Arctic drilling ‘reckless’
Blog post -
Sep 20, 2012
The UK government’s support for Arctic Oil drilling was labelled ‘reckless’ today by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC). The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has been quietly supporting oil companies’ Arctic ambitions but this is the first time there has been public scrutiny of the department’s actions in relation to Arctic drilling. The Committee published...
Tales of Transition
Multimedia -
Sep 13, 2012
James Marriott talks about Platform’s new book The Oil Road in advance of the Transition Network Conference taking place at Battersea Arts Centre. James will be inspiring people with stories of his travels from the oil fields of the Caspian to the refineries and financial centres of Northern Europe. He will also consider how we...
Talking memes
Blog post -
Sep 7, 2012
How can we use images to tell the stories we want to tell – and avoid repeating the ones we don’t? Photo memes are fast becoming a viral hit. Quicker than 30 second videos, the combination of an image and a short piece of text is being used across social media to convey jokes or...
