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20 November 2009 / Ian Smith
Issue: 7394 / Categories: Features , Employment
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A fine century!

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Ian Smith notches up a century at the coalface

As time flies by and the appointment with the gentleman with the scythe from the roof of Lord’s cricket ground comes closer, certain things creep up on you to point this out unbidden. This year your author has taken early retirement from his university chair (as I pointed out to my colleagues, it was, to adapt a well known politician’s excuse, to spend more time with my money).

However, another memento mori has just struck, because this is in fact my 100th “Briefing” column for the NLJ. Man and boy I have toiled at this particular coalface (well, since August 1999), the staff on the journal having taken pity and considered me one of the deserving poor and worthy of the beneficence of the LexisNexis charitable scheme for the relief of aged and impoverished legal scribblers found wandering aimlessly in Chancery Lane.

The one constant in all of this time has been that I have never been short of material for an employment law column,

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