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Awkward Squad
An awkward squad is a group of individuals, normally within an existing organisation or structure, who resist or obstruct change, either through incompetence or by deliberate association. Origin It is commonly accepted that shortly before his death in 1796 Robert Burns uttered the words "Don't let the awkward squad fire over me". At this time the phrase was in use in military slang for a group of recruits who seemed incapable of understanding discipline or not yet sufficiently trained or disciplined to properly carry out their duties. Literary use John Clare, an English peasant poet, wrote with his own spelling and no punctuation. He complained in the 1820s to his editors that people could understand him, and he refused to use "that awkward squad of colon, semi-colon, comma, and full stop", according to the display in the John Clare Cottage, in Helpston. In Canto 7, stanza 52 of Byron's ''Don Juan'', the Russian general Suvorov (or "Suwarrow" as Byron anglicizes it) is described ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CONANT(1898) P291 Awkward Squad - Fenian Raid, 1865
Conant is a pictish surname, and means mighty. It may refer to: * Adam Conant, fictional character * Charles "Carlos" Conant Maldonado (1842–1907), Mexican businessman, colonel, and politician * Charles Conant (1861–1915), American economist * David Stoughton Conant (1949–2018), American botanist * Deborah Henson-Conant (born 1953), American harpist * Douglas Conant, American businessman * Frances Augusta Hemingway Conant (1842-1903), American journalist, editor, businesswoman * Frederic Conant (1892–1974), American yacht racer * Gordon Conant (1885–1953), Canadian politician * James Bryant Conant (1893–1978), American chemist and President of Harvard University * James F. Conant (born 1958), American philosopher * Jennet Conant, American journalist and author * John Conant (1608–1694), English clergyman and university vice-chancellor * Kenneth John Conant (1894-1984), American architectural historian * Levi Conant (1857–1916), American mathematician * Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Our Mutual Friend
''Our Mutual Friend'', written in 1864–1865, is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens and is one of his most sophisticated works, combining savage satire with social analysis. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, quoting the book's character Bella Wilfer, "money, money, money, and what money can make of life". Most reviewers in the 1860s continued to praise Dickens's skill as a writer in general, but did not review this novel in detail. Some found the plot both too complex and not well laid out. ''The Times'' of London found the first few chapters did not draw the reader into the characters. In the 20th century, however, reviewers began to find much to approve in the later novels of Dickens, including ''Our Mutual Friend''. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, some reviewers suggested that Dickens was, in fact, experimenting with structure, and that the characters considered somewhat flat and not recognized by the contemporary reviewers were me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Simon Peyton Jones
Simon Peyton Jones (born 18 January 1958) is a British computer scientist who researches the implementation and applications of functional programming languages, particularly lazy functional programming. Education Peyton Jones graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge with a BSc in Electrical Sciences in 1979 and went on to complete the Cambridge Diploma in Computer Science in 1980. He never did a PhD. Career and research Peyton Jones worked in industry for two years before serving as a lecturer at University College London and, from 1990 to 1998, as a professor at the University of Glasgow. From 1998 to 2021 he worked as a researcher at Microsoft Research in Cambridge, England. Since 2021 he has worked at Epic Games as an engineering fellow. He is a major contributor to the design of the Haskell programming language, and a lead developer of the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC). He is also co-creator of the programming language, designed for intermediate program represent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prime Minister Of The United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern prime ministers hold office by virtue of their ability to command the confidence of the House of Commons, they sit as members of Parliament. The office of prime minister is not established by any statute or constitutional document, but exists only by long-established convention, whereby the reigning monarch appoints as prime minister the person most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons; this individual is typically the leader of the political party or coalition of parties that holds the largest number of seats in that chamber. The prime minister is ''ex officio'' also First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and the minister responsible for national security. Indeed, certain privileges, such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tony Woodley, Baron Woodley
Anthony Woodley, Baron Woodley (born 2 January 1948) is a British trade unionist who was the Joint- General Secretary of Unite, a union formed through the merger of Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union, from 2007 to 2011. Despite stepping down as Joint-General Secretary, he remained as the Head of Organising for Unite until December 2013 and is still a consultant to the union. He was previously the General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers union (T&G) from 2004 to 2007. He was created a Labour life peer in November 2020 with the title Baron Woodley, ''of Wallasey in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral'', after initially declining the peerage. Early life Born in Wallasey, Cheshire (now Merseyside), he was educated at a secondary modern school on the Wirral. At the age of 15, he was taken on by the Ocean Steam Ship Company, working as a steward for four years. In 1967, he started working for Vauxhall Motors at Ellesmere Port, where he first joined the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mark Serwotka
Mark Henryk Serwotka (; born 26 April 1963) is General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the largest trade union representing British civil servants. He was President of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) for 2019. Early life Serwotka was adopted by a Polish-born father and a Welsh mother and brought up in Aberdare. Career In 1979, aged sixteen, he joined the Civil Service as a benefits clerk, joining the union on his first day. He became a union representative in 1980 and a personal case officer in 1995. In the 2000 election for General Secretary, he faced two rivals: Hugh Lanning of the Membership First faction and the incumbent Barry Reamsbottom of the National Moderate Group. However, Reamsbottom did not secure the fifty branch nominations needed to appear on the ballot paper. Serwotka then beat Lanning with 41,000 to 33,000 votes. Following Serwotka's election, Reamsbottom refused to step down when his term of office expired, citing what he claim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Crow
Robert Crow (13 June 196111 March 2014) was an English trade union leader who served as the General Secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) from 2002 until his death in 2014. He was also a member of the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC). A self-described "communist/socialist", he was a leading figure in the No to EU – Yes to Democracy campaign. Crow joined London Transport in 1977 and soon became involved in trade unionism. He was regarded as part of the Awkward Squad, a loose grouping of left-wing union leaders who came to power in a series of electoral victories beginning in 2002.According to Oliver Morgan in ''The Observer'', 17 February 2002: "Crow's is the demeanour of a growing number of radical leaders in their forties who see little point in being nicely turned out and moderate merely to keep in power a party that ignores the interests of their members". After he became leader, the RMT's membership increased from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that has been described as an alliance of Social democracy, social democrats, Democratic socialism, democratic socialists and trade unionists. The Labour Party sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. In all general elections since 1922 United Kingdom general election, 1922, Labour has been either the governing party or the Her Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition (United Kingdom), Official Opposition. There have been six Labour List of prime ministers of the United Kingdom, prime ministers and thirteen Labour Cabinet of the United Kingdom, ministries. The party holds the annual Labour Party Conference, at which party policy is formulated. The party was founded in 1900, having grown out of the Labour movement, trade union movement and History of the socialist movement in the United Kingdom, socialist List of political parties in the United Kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many List of islands of the United Kingdom, smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares Republic of Ireland–United Kingdom border, a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is , with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people. The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trade Union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (such as holiday, health care, and retirement), improving working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting the integrity of their trade through the increased bargaining power wielded by solidarity among workers. Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called ''union dues''. The delegate staff of the trade union representation in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members in democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norman Cameron (poet)
Norman Cameron (1905–1953) was a Scottish poet, distantly related to Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay. Between the two world wars, Cameron associated on Majorca with Robert Graves and Laura Riding. Later, as a part-time Fitzrovian, he was a colleague of Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Grigson, Ruthven Todd, Len Lye, John Aldridge RA, Alan Hodge and many others. He worked as a copywriter at J. Walter Thompson (being responsible for one classic campaign, ''Horlicks for night starvation'') and at Ogilvy, Benson & Mather. Life Born in Bombay, Cameron was the eldest of four children of a Presbyterian minister (chaplain of the Bombay Presidency) who died prematurely in 1913. Subsequently, he and his siblings returned with their mother to live in Edinburgh. For his education he went to Alton Burn Preparatory School in Nairn and Fettes College in Edinburgh, where, at only 11 years old, he was the youngest boy ever to be admitted to the main school. There he came under the influence of, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era.. His works enjoyed unprecedented popularity during his lifetime and, by the 20th century, critics and scholars had recognised him as a literary genius. His novels and short stories are widely read today. Born in Portsmouth, Dickens left school at the age of 12 to work in a boot-blacking factory when his father was incarcerated in a debtors' prison. After three years he returned to school, before he began his literary career as a journalist. Dickens edited a weekly journal for 20 years, wrote 15 novels, five novellas, hundreds of short stories and non-fiction articles, lectured and performed readings extensively, was an indefatigable letter writer, and campaigned vigorously for children's rights, for education, and for other social re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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