Crashing Shell's Party

[Robert Cotter <rcotter@mindspring.com>]

  Just an FYI from today's Guardian.
  
   Guardian 2:P5
            What a Shell party this is - Green activist Gibby Zobel
  crashes a slick do
  
  The ringmaster is in red robes. `My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, the
  Ambassador of Chile.' I look at Jane, she looks at me. We are standing
  behind
  the ambassador on the 23rd floor of a plush building, waiting to be
  announced
  into the room.
  
  I stifle a giggle. I am an activist from the free protest newsletter
  Schnews,
  and a friend and I are gatecrashing a humdinger of a Christmas office
  party -
  that of one of the world's biggest multinationals, Shell. The ringmaster
  clears his throat: `Jane and George Makepeace.' Here we go. `Lovely to
  see
  you,' says a Santa-like figure, hand outstretched.
  
  Mr Mark Moody-Stuart has extraordinary white bushy eyebrows and white
  hair.
  He is group managing director of Royal Dutch Shell. The top man. Judy,
  his
  wife, says, `And what do you do?' I explain that I am, ahem, a
  researcher
  into global free-trade agreements, specialising in the Multilateral
  Agreement
  on Investment. She cocks her head: `Are you for or against?' Me: `For,
  naturally.' Her: `So is the company, but shhhhhh,' she winks. `Anyway,
  do go
  and enjoy yourselves!' We are in. Champagne? Lovely. Ninety per cent of
  the
  servants are young and black, 90% of the guests are old and white. Two
  young
  men approach, a Russian and an Argentine. Says the Russian, after small
  talk:
  `Apart from being MI5, what do you do?' Rumbled already, or a common
  Shell
  joke? He regales us with the tale of the Queen coming into this room
  last
  month to celebrate Shell's 100th birthday. We wing it.
  
  Jane's getting on famously with the famous, and I hang back with a
  pinstripe,
  catching a fag in the corner. `Surprising lack of politicians,' he notes
  disappointedly.
  
  I feel faintly ridiculous in my borrowed tuxedo, but it helps to blend
  in.
  I'm trying to dig up reactions to the Kyoto Climate Change Summit which
  ended
  in the early hours. Most reply that they are happy, but I'm struck by
  the
  ignorance. Most did not know it had even finished.
  
  Now the party is really kicking. Trays of king prawns and caviar are
  passed
  around. You can smell the oil riches. In the lucky pinball that is a
  high-powered cocktail party, we spin into Mr Eric W. Nickson, head of
  international media relations. Tough year, Eric? `Yah, it's been tough.'
  His
  background is chemicals in Kenya (he pronounces it in the old colonial
  style
  Keenya).
  
  Eric's been to Nigeria five times in two years. His Nigeria is one of
  beauty,
  Shell's involvement that of the friendly Big Brother: `There's a saying
  that
  the Nigerian government is like God: God is everywhere but you don't see
  him.
  
  But we see Shell because our operations are on about half of the Niger
  Delta,
  producing 80,000 barrels a day. We've become a company supplying
  infrastructure.' We get him on to Ken Saro-Wiwa (`It was shocking. I
  couldn't
  believe it'). Then talk turns to genetically modified eucalyptus. Murder
  and
  payments to the military are hardly cocktail conversation.
  
  I go to the toilet to change over the tape in my recorder, and on return
  walk
  past a familiar figure. Bloody hell, it's Michael Howard. There's a
  moment
  when Shell's chairman and the former home secretary shake hands directly
  in
  front of me. Do I knock their heads together? The champagne is flowing,
  but
  the do is nearly over. We stride confidently over to Mr Moody-Stuart to
  say
  our goodbyes. `Oh, I'm terribly sorry,' says Jane, spilling bubbly
  accidentally down the chairman's leg. `No, no, it's nothing', says the
  MD. We
  dance out the revolving door of the Shell Tower.