Mike Jackson – författare

General Sir Mike Jackson's illustrious career in the British Army has spanned almost 45 years and all that time he has shown loyalty, courage and commitment to the British army whilst also being an undeniable media attraction.A man of substance where foreign policy is concerned, he has served in theatres from the Artic to the jungle but is perhaps best known for his role in charge of the British troops to end ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, for assembling the British ground component of the coalition that toppled the Taliban, for equipping and organising the army we dispatched to defeat in Iraq and for re-organising the British army with aplomb. His drive, enthusiasm and dominating personality were always popular with his soldiers and drove him right to the top of his profession. He may have been a general but he never stopped caring about the men and women in his charge, despite the politics.Soldier: The Autobiography exhibits all the qualities for which Jackson is admired; his professionalism, his honesty, his directness, his exuberance and his sense of humour. Most of all it gives a vivid sense of what modern soldiering entails.

The British National Conference on Databases (BNCOD) was established in 1980 as a forum for research into the theory and practice of databases. The original conference in the series took place at the University of Aberdeen. To be precise, this conference was in fact entitled ICOD which stood for International Conference on Databases. It was the intention, when the series began, that an ICOD would take place every two years, whilst a BNCOD would run in the years in between. As the record shows ICOD was only held in 1980 and 1983. The more junior conference has managed to acquire a lifetime much longer than that of its senior relative! If truth wereknown,however,BNCOD has,overthe years,growninto ICOD and although the conference is still titled “British National,” it is, in fact, an international conference that takes place on a yearly basis. Proof of this can be obtained simply by looking at the table of contents of these proceeding which clearlyshowthatthe majorityofpaperspresentedatthis year’sconferencecame from contributors whose a?liations are outside the UK. Despitetherangeofpapersono?er,BNCODstillretainsitsuniquelyBritish ?avor. The Programme Committee is drawn from UK academics and the c- ference is always held at a British university (or in earlier years a polytechnic!).