“With reality comes responsibility. Pretty well everyone feels some reservation about the Games – the money, the missiles, the McDonald’s. For me, the issue was Dow’s sponsorship of the stadium wrap. Dow are – to use a value-neutral word – connected to the terrible Bhopal disaster. Whatever the legal position, it was insensitive and tawdry to take their money. This isn’t the place or the day – given the gorgeous experience we’ve been through – to go into the details of why this seemed so very wrong. You can look it up.

Danny set a meeting with Sebastian Coe, who graciously fixed up for Amnesty to speak to Locog’s lawyers. But time was accelerating, and everyone was busy. Besides, something else was happening now: the volunteers.

Back in our studio, we had imagined flying bikes and rocketing chimneys. We never imagined the power of the volunteers. They were creative, courageous, convivial, generous. The press was full of stories of the greed and incompetence of our leaders, but our studio was full of people doing things brilliantly for nothing – for the hell of it, for London, for their country, for each other.”

— Frank Cottrell Boyce

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