On the first working day of the year, however, the highly influential Bank of England lowered its key lending rate from a century-high 7%.

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One of 250 volunteers taking part in a dry run two weeks before the first working day, teacher Sue Knight from Hillingdon, Middlesex, spoke of the problems.

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The Westminster government is publishing its first analysis paper on Monday - the same day the fiscal commission working group, which was set up by SNP leader Alex Salmond last March, publishes its economic proposals for an independent Scotland.

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Best first day was working for the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics.

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But the point here is that fiction captures complex human situations and senior executives would be the first to recognize parallels between the challenges that imaginary leaders are put through and what they do in a real working day.

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Then in 1656, Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens made the first working pendulum clock, accurate to an error of less than one minute per day.

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To extend the Bel-Air circuit to a larger group and possibly profit from it, a start-up called Prima Cinema is working with the studios to roll out a service that will make first-run studio films available the day they hit the big screen.

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When I started my first job out of college (actually, while I was still in college), the idea of working someplace every day for an entire year was a bit terrifying.

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