[BITList] More on Pirates - If you look for it.

[HUGH]

John,

I concede Flashman, though only in his post-Rugby reincarnation.. At Rugby 
he was, deep down, a bit of a wimp.

I used the word "concede" there, and I am reminded of using it in another 
time and another place.  The union organisation for Kincaid's staff ran on 
democratic lines, ie, when it came up your turn you served on the office 
committee, and ditto for chair of it.  The chair was also the secretary, 
which saved much discussion.  Half of the committee retired each year, and 
this guaranteed an absolute absence of continuity, but we reckoned that was 
life. Anyway, after talks with the personnel director about some matter or 
other, I was instructed by the committee to write to him and accept what he 
had said about the matter. That was the kind of pinko communist militancy 
that sank the Clyde, but we didn't know it at the time.  So I wrote to him, 
saying we conceded the points.  He issued an angry summons and, having 
nothing better to do, I went down to his office the better to hear what 
annoyed him.  It turned out I was in no position to concede things to him, 
or so he would have me believe.  I looked at this prat, sitting behind his 
neurotically tidy desk (it contained a spotless blotter, two pencils 
precisely lined up, and a family photo), told him to go bugger himself, and 
left.  He retaliated by trying to gatecrash a union meeting accompanied by a 
man we'd never seen before - both claiming to be union members. They were 
summarily ejected.  To our great delight, not long after that he was 
arrested on his way down south for assaulting a policeman.  Fate is 
sometimes kind.

Hugh.