unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

Amicus' newest member

Well, Amicus' membership has just risen by one. I'm a degenerate Labour person, so it's probably not a surprise, but if it shows, in some small way, a desire for better working practices, it's probably worth the subs. While I'm sure that I'll never have cause to use them, the advice and protection that unions offer is definitely worth the subs.

One of my schoolbooks had a copy of a membership certificate of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Millwrights, Smiths and Pattern Makers. That union would, in a rather convoluted manner, go on to make Amicus. While Amicus is a rather easier name that ASEMMSPM (and at the risk of making an idiot of myself because there's a greater significance that the one I assign), the latter did have a good slogan:

"Be United and Industrious".

xD.

Phillipines abolish death penalty

When the ICDP was convened in 1977, just sixteen countries had abolished the death penalty. That figure now stands at eighty-six.

It is a good thing that another country has found the answer to the question on the bumper sticker of a friend's car - 'Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?' Answer - revenge.

xD.

Poverty 'driving' benefit fraud

Or so says the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5084648.stm

xD.

Scroungers

DeadMenLeft points out the difference in scale between fraud in the NHS and tax avoidance...

http://deadmenleft.blogspot.com/2006/05/on-finding-real-scroungers.html

xD.

Goodbye, Farewell and Amen

I have finished my exams. After five years, I will be leaving LSE.

I went, briefly, to Crush last Friday, my exams having finished on Thursday. Something was different. I'd been the previous week because a friend was in town, and I ended up in Crush with people I'd known in my second year. It was fun to be with them, but I was very much aware - as were they - that they had left and I knew I was about to do the same. Reminiscing over past glories, dancing, talking, drinking. Just for a moment, remembering what it was to be carefree.

I may well go back to studying, possibly at LSE, in the future, but I know it will never be the same.

Goodbye, farwell and amen is the title of the last episode of M*A*S*H. I just looked at some pictures of the cast - people who, to me, are very much the characters of the series - and they look old and tired.

Here's to the last five years.

xD.