Johnny Depp Cleans Windows & Other News

Is Kent the Bogus Window Cleaner Capital? Elderly homeowners in the Bay have been warned to be on their guard against a bogus window cleaner. Reports of the conman have been released by the police in a bid to catch him after he tried to get money out of pensioners and the disabled.
Window cleaner Pete Gallacher of Aqua Clean said some of his customers had been targeted, too, and warned others to be wary. He said: "This is a despicable thing to do and causes a lot of distress. "And it gives genuine window cleaners a bad name and affects business at a time when we really need it.
"This isn't the first incident I've heard of and I'm sure it won't be the last. "I've had customers in South Road, Fitzgerald Avenue and even as far out as Reculver tell me they have refused to pay a man pretending he had cleaned their windows. "Someone out there obviously thinks they can make easy money by targeting vulnerable people and ripping them off." One of his customers, Emma Gill, said her disabled sister Sally was left distressed after she was targeted by a conman at her home in Sea Street, Herne Bay. She said: "My mum pays for her windows to be done but a man came round demanding £20 from her. I had locked her in the house when I went out but the man shouted through the letterbox. "My mum is sometimes late paying our window cleaner so my sister thought that might have been the case and ended up giving him the money. "She's usually spot on when it comes to things like this but she was quite ill at the time. "The incident left her in a bad way and pretty distressed. She just wants to forget about the whole thing now."
Civil engineer Yiannis Petridis of Reculver Road, Beltinge, was one of those who refused to part with his cash. He said: "I know who cleans my windows and it certainly wasn't this bloke. He wanted a tenner off me but I only pay my cleaner £8.
"As soon as I pointed that out he said he must have the wrong house and walked off." A leaflet was circulated this week warning homeowners to be vigilant of the short-haired bogus cleaner said to be in his 30s. Police Community Support Officer Mike Keam warned: "This man has even lied that he jumped over locked back gates to wash windows at the rear of people's houses. If he calls at your house you should close the door and call us straight away on 01227 762055."

Window cleaner Billy O'Neill is used to polishing panes on his rounds….but it was a round of a different kind which had the Heath and Reach man polishing silverware. Billy teamed up with building company boss Dan Herron to compete in Leighton Buzzard Golf Club's Rosebery Trophy. The duo mopped up the top prize as they took the scalp of the more experienced Mick Myatt and Fintan Donohue in the final. Billy (pictured far right) and Dan are pictured with immediate past captain Andrew Wright after collecting their trophy at a club presentation evening.

Knocked down Quinton lollipop lady out of hospital: BIRMINGHAM’S oldest lollipop lady is out of hospital and on the mend more than two months after she was knocked down helping children across the road. Maureen Floody, 74, was hit by a car in December outside Four Dwellings Primary School, in Quinton, and needed surgery to pin broken bones in her arms. She also broke her pelvis in two places which has left her unable to walk until recently. And even now she has to use a frame to help get around. Maureen is still undecided about whether to return to work as a lollipop lady when she is fully recovered. “I’ll have to make that decision when I’m better,” she added. Husband Jim, 77, who has been by Maureen’s side throughout the traumatic experience, said he is looking to go back to work as a window cleaner when she is better. “But I’m not going to do anything until she’s 100 per cent,” he said.” No charges have been brought against the elderly male driver of the car.

Homeless in Hounslow 2 - The 'ghosts' who walk the streets: Postmen see them daily as they walk their morning rounds. Window cleaners and shopkeepers wake them as they open up before the shoppers descend. Sikhs and Christians feed them breakfast and dinner. It seems the only people who cannot see Hounslow's rough sleepers are the councillors and officers at the Civic Centre because, officially, there are just three 'street homeless' in the entire borough.

Walker of the Texas Range: Skip Potts is homeless and unemployed. In the past he’s been an English teacher in Prague, a high-rise window washer and a lingerie salesman. For the next month or so, he’ll be walking across the Lone Star State in his quest to traverse the entire country in the name of improving education. He’s created a registered charity called People for Educational Equality and through this organization is attempting to raise money and awareness for his cause. "I started on September 1st, so I’ve already been going for about five and a half months. I haven’t been moving as fast as I could, but moving into the Southwest I expect to speed up a lot, because there’s not as much to stop for. I think I’ll finish in about three months which will make a grand total of eight and a half months." Where is Skip today? Skip has made it to Texas and will walk into Houston today.


Small businesses, squeezed for cash and unable to get loans, are turning to an ancient payment system: barter. As small businesses find it impossible to borrow money and customers are slower to pay bills, the barter economy is becoming a crucial way for many companies to find the cash they need to keep operating. "It's really of value to small businesses because it helps them to survive through the recession," says Carmen Bianchi, director of the Entrepreneurial Management Center Business Forum and adjunct professor of family business management at San Diego State University. Atlanta Refrigeration Service Co. worked out a deal with a local sandwich shop that was 90 days overdue on a $1,500 bill: The sandwich shop paid $500 and agreed to cater lunch to Atlanta Refrigeration's office five times over the next six months.
Bartering is "critical to us in this recession," says Dave Brautigan, chief operating officer of the Atlanta-based refrigeration company. "As more and more of our clients find themselves in positions where they cannot pay the bill in full, it becomes our responsibility to figure out how to get that money in." Although companies do bartering one on one, many deals are conducted via membership networks in barter companies, where technology and tracking software have modernized the centuries-old system. Typically, a small business sets up an account at a barter company, similar to a checking account at a bank, for a one-time fee. "Trade dollars" earned for services rendered are deposited into the account and can be spent on any product or service in the network. Companies regularly find others willing to barter via the barter site's online directory of services, email newsletters, referrals or by contacting a firm's account manager.
On top of the setup fee, both parties pay the barter company a transaction fee of about 5% to 6% on each deal. Also see Nubarter.

US environmental Group Earthjustice has filed a lawsuit in New York, in an attempt to force cleaning chemicals manufacturers to make public both the chemical contents of their products and the results of their research into the adverse effects the products may have on users. The lawsuit is based on a 1976 New York law designed to stop the use of phosphates in detergent and is likely to impact on both commercial/professional and consumer products. The Soap & Detergent Association, which represents the $30 billion US cleaning products market and whose members include the formulators of soaps, detergents, and general cleaning products used in household, commercial, industrial and institutional settings; companies that supply ingredients and finished packaging for these products; and oleochemical producers, is fighting the challenge. It says that it is unfounded, lacks legal standing and will promote fear rather than facts. It also says that it ignores efforts by the industry to offer more information than ever before about cleaning products and their ingredients.
The Association expressed disappointment that activist groups led by Earthjustice are using an arcane New York State regulation as a way to disparage cleaning product formulators whose products are used safely and effectively by millions of people every single day.
"The cleaning product industry is committed to providing more information than ever before on cleaning product ingredients," confirms Michelle Radecki, SDA's General Counsel. "We have already unveiled a voluntary programme that will provide more meaningful information on ingredients, in a more consistent, easy-to-understand format, that will help consumers make informed decisions about the products they use in and around their homes." The Consumer Product Ingredient Communication Initiative was unveiled in November 2008 by SDA, the Consumer Specialty Products Association and the Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association. This initiative provides different means to inform users about the ingredients in products: on the product label; on the manufacturers', distributors', or importers' website; through a toll-free telephone number; or through some other non-electronic means.


Is this who I think it is?...