Danger Pay? Window cleaners ascend the front of a newly constructed building in central Beijing earlier this month.
The unnatural art of synthetic biology: In the exhibit's most direct reference to the science of synthetic biology, Belgian artist Tuur van Balen's work, Pigeon d'Or, attempts to make pigeons defecate window soap by feeding them bacteria engineered with biobricks from the Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Van Balen hopes to raise questions about proper usage of synthetic biology and challenge ideas about appropriate pest control by converting the birds considered urban vermin into flying window washers. The piece includes a windowsill attachment for feeding the pigeons and a device that can be mounted on parked cars to encourage the birds to defecate on the windshields. Video here.
The Pedal Power Warehouse is open for business. The business? Creating any bicycle machine the human mind can concoct. One is custom-made for a window washer. Many are trailers and three-wheelers. One is even a bicycle bus. But don't call the funky vehicles "weird." "Weird is stepping on small animals with high-heeled shoes. That's weird," said Mike Doerner, a volunteer sorting scrap steel from usable bicycle parts at the warehouse. The bicycles? "Need more of 'em." The Pedal Power Warehouse is the largest recent addition to MIST, the Missoula Institute for Sustainable Transportation. MIST operates Free Cycles, a community bicycle shop, on South First Street West. A stone's throw away, Pedal Power Warehouse is the latest venture of the nonprofit focused on active and green transportation. "We just kind of let people do their dreaming and help them," said Bob Giordano, executive director of MIST.
MIST has a dream of its own. The nonprofit is paying rent, and Giordano said it will launch a capital campaign called "Free Cycles Forever" at Saturday's event, with a $200,000 goal to eventually buy its own place. That way, more donation money can go to bicycles instead of rent. Free Cycles builds commuter bicycles for adults and children. The Pedal Power Warehouse will focus on more industrial uses. A window washer, for instance, wanted a bicycle that could haul the business around. So Joel Williams, who works at the warehouse and also operates The World of Bicycles, designed a bicycle outfitted to haul tall ladders, short ladders and window-cleaning supplies. The bike can take a beating, too. Williams hopped onto the back and jumped up and down as hard as he could to demonstrate its stability. The vehicle didn't rattle. "If it can take that, it can take anything," Williams said.
Six attacked by man in town centre: A man assaulted six people and robbed one in an early morning rampage in Luton town centre on Saturday. The incident began at about 5.20am when a man attempted to rob a 64-year-old man. Detectives say that when this attempt failed the man then walked down George Street towards Manchester Street, assaulting at least six other members of the public before robbing a window cleaner outside McDonald’s. A man has been arrested in connection with this incident and released on police bail, but police want any victims of the assault who have not spoken to officers to come forward.
Coal Company Ordered to Clean Neighborhood: Crews were out Thursday at homes in Boone County, pressure washing sidewalks, walkways and window sills covered in a thin layer of black rock dust. "It gets everywhere," said Verlin Burgess, who lives in the neighborhood. "The more you wash, the more you take off your siding." Patriot Coal, the company that owns the nearby Long Branch mine, was cited by the Department of Environmental Protection for "rock dust... drifting away from the mine site." A complaint document provided to neighbors confirms that rock dust "covered" nearby vehicles and homes. "Fans suck that coal dust and rock dust into our homes," said Burgess. Crews said they had used an estimated 9,000 gallons of water so far to clean about six homes.
It's likely San Francisco will be the nation's first city to restrict delivery of Yellow Pages business directories. The Board of Supervisors decided on a 10-1 first vote on Tuesday to ban unrequested home and business delivery of the hefty telephone directories. There will be a second reading and final vote next week. The idea is to protect the environment, fight neighborhood blight and help the economy. And advocates say the Internet makes the directories unnecessary. The Los Angeles Times says nearly 1.6 million Yellow Pages directories are dropped on San Francisco doorsteps each year. The city says they generate seven million pounds of paper waste and clog recycling equipment, leading to costly repairs.
TORONTO - Beating firearms charges seems like it should be a slam-dunk for aging biker Johnny Sombrero. But now the 76-year-old gun collector, whose real name is Henry Barnes, must also prove he is mentally stable enough to keep his 18 machine guns and dozens of other rare weapons locked up in his North York apartment. "He's fully compliant, he's done everything right," lawyer David Costa said Tuesday at 1000 Finch Ave. W. court, where his client was facing 18 careless storage charges in a potentially precedent-setting case. "If anything, this guy is the example for others to follow." Sombrero is the president and lone remaining founder of the Black Diamond Riders, one of the city's oldest motorcycle clubs, and he has no criminal record. In January 2010, Toronto Police stormed his apartment and allegedly roughed up the senior. He alleges they held him at gunpoint for five hours before seizing his collection and charging him for leaving the bolts inside his machine guns, even though the weapons were stored in lockers.
Costa argues his client's firearms were all locked, or double-locked, in steel cabinets similar to what many gun owners use, with the added security of steel bars in the front. The cabinets are stored in a locked bedroom in Sombrero's 10th-floor apartment, he pointed out in his final submission. And he insists bolts can be kept in a machine gun if it is in such a locker. A gun expert for the defence has testified that Sombrero met or exceeded the requirements of safe storage laws. But the Crown maintains the lockers do not meet the criteria of Canada's gun laws, which state such weapons must be locked in a vault, safe, or secure room. The size of Sombrero's locks, thickness of the lockers and security of the bedroom have been questioned by the Crown, who has also pointed out window washers could access the locked room on the 10th floor.
A window cleaner has denied assaulting his partner and resisting arrest. Christopher Rogers, 33, of Devon Road, Hebburn, pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and obstructing a police officer at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court. Keith Laidlaw, prosecuting, said that on Saturday, Rogers is alleged to have grabbed his girlfriend by the arm, before punching her hand. It is also alleged that Rogers was asked to leave the property. However, he returned and police were recalled. It is alleged Rogers pushed an officer. He denies both charges, and will return to court for a pre-trial review on July 22.
Eurovision - Most Offensive Portion of the Night: Moldovan Window-Washer: Before each act performs, there's a little bit of filler about the country going onstage. Only, this year, host country Germany decided that it would be a good idea to use these segments to showcase how emigrants from elsewhere in Europe are supporting its economy and culture. Russia contributed a prima ballerina to the great country of Deutschland, the Danes compete against them in sailing, and Lithuania generously teaches German children how to ski. But the only Moldovan they managed to find was a window washer. This is like the US hosting the (sadly fictional) Amerivision Song Contest and showcasing a field of migrant workers picking vegetables in our clip on Mexico. Worse still, the Moldovan feature and performance was immediately followed by the German segment, which highlighted the emcees getting glammed up for the night. I imagine that back in the dressing rooms, Moldovan window-washers were polishing mirrors with old toothbrushes. Any Americans reading this - see what we have to put up with once a year!
Rentokil counts cost of suspended Libya rat contract - Rentokil Initial has taken a £4.8m hit from the suspension of a rat-catching contract in strife-torn Libya, the company revealed. The one-off provision was announced with its first quarter results, which showed a 10.1% drop in adjusted pre-tax profits to £27.4m. The company said sales in its pest control division were down 2.6% at £132.8m in the three months to March 31 after its deal with Libya's government to tackle a dangerous rodent infestation in the capital Tripoli was put on hold. Rentokil said group revenues in the first quarter edged up 0.7% to £609.7m as declines in pest control and City Link were offset by a stronger performance at Initial Facilities Services, which provides work ranging from window cleaning to waste management.
'Dont call time on pub' - A campaign is under way to save a former pub from demolition. The Harvest Home in Winchester Road, Whitchurch, closed down last August while under the ownership of Admiral Taverns. Since then the windows have been boarded up. But in the last few weeks an 8ft-high wooden fence has been erected around the site. “Then there are all the people who lose jobs, from window cleaners, to food suppliers. A local pub brings an average of £80,000 of wealth to a community.”
Hi-tech window cleaner and ballroom dancer learn to love new Dales home: The winners of a reality TV show have moved into a £300,000 cottage in Grassington. Sarah Freeman finds out if they are adapting to village life. When asked how quickly news travels in Grassington, the locals don’t hesitate. “Fast,” is the reply. “Faster than the internet.” They’re not wrong. By the time Vicky Allan and Andy Johnson had packed up their belongings from their parents’ homes in Surrey and driven up the M1, they were already a few weeks behind the rumours. The young couple were recently crowned winners of the Channel 4 reality show Love Thy Neighbour, but when they finally got their hands on the keys to their prize – a £300,000 cottage in the heart of the village – word had already spread.
What Grassington wanted was Andy, who said he would bring with him from Surrey “the future of window cleaning” and Vicky, who aside from working on a beauty counter in a department store is also a trained Latin and ballroom dancer. Like Grassington itself, the choice of a young, white couple was a conservative one, but as Vicky and Andy begin their new life, a few hundred miles away from their friends and families they’re not about to argue. The couple’s journey from the anonymous suburbs to the cobbled streets of Grassington began when Andy spotted an advertisement in a newspaper looking for contestants for a new reality TV show. At the time he was setting up his own window cleaning business.
Old Federal Building renovation aims to preserve history, but serve into the future: Eisler, the Ferris State University president, recently lead a tour of the building that is undergoing a $31 million historic renovation he said will highlight its past and make it an important part of the school and the city far into the future. The building, 148 Ionia Ave. NE, is poised to become a 91,000-square-foot addition to the Kendall College of Art and Design after previous lives as a court house, post office, government office building, the Grand Rapids Art Museum and ArtPrize's “Hub” since its 1911 dedication. Windows will be updated and sealed, but Zawacki said the weight and chain systems in each will be cleaned and preserved, even though they'll be unseen behind walls. Remaining in view, however, are brass hooks attached to exterior window frames, designed to allow window-washers to attach safety belts and lean back as they polished panes.
Georgia and Alabama Cooperate in Aid of Tornado Victims - Supplies and support from the Atlanta, Columbus, Ga and Auburn, Al areas came to work sites in Gardendale, Fultondale, Tarrant, and Warrior last weekend. Two big rigs brought in supplies: food, roofing tools, tarps, hygiene kits, cleaning kits, and water from the Bishop’s Storehouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Tucker with more coming in from Salt Lake City, Utah. Just after the trucks arrived, volunteers came from some of Georgia’s little towns; Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Tucker, Smyrna, Chamblee, Decatur, Doraville, Columbus, and Stone Mountain. Travis Hogland, from Pinson Church of Christ, was also at Don Bennett’s home cutting a large tree off the roof with a chainsaw. He walked down the uprooted tree with a ton of grass and ground still attached to it, roots in the air, the tree top lying on the house. Resting and downing a half liter of water, he said he’d been out of work for three weeks as a high-rise window washer so he might as well help other people.
Citizens asked to refrain from unnecessary watering: Citizens of Breckenridge are asked to not give in to the pressure of outdoor watering due to an equipment malfunction at the city of Breckenridge’s water plant. The plant suffered a major failure of one of the two clarifiers on April 29. The clarifier that is out of use has been in service for 37 years, running 24 hours a day. According to Breckenridge City Manager Brad Newton, the unit’s gear drive assembly that drives the large paddles in the bottom of the unit malfunctioned. Curtailment - Ban the Use of water for vehicle washing, window washing, outside watering (lawn shrubs, faucet dripping, garden, etc.).
Australia - Maintenance and cleaning services firm Spotless Group Ltd has received a $657 million takeover offer from a private equity firm. Spotless said on Monday it does not intent to take any action in relation to the indicative, non-binding and conditional proposal. The offer from the unnamed private equity firm was to buy all of Spotless' shares via a scheme of arrangement, at a price of $2.50 per share. Spotless shares last traded at $1.955. "The Spotless directors have reviewed the proposal in detail and believe that it does not reflect the fundamental value of the company in the context of a change of control," Spotless said in a statement.
The Practitioner: Left in the lurch - who's making the coffee? It is holiday season in the office and also student study leave season. Throw in a couple of bank holidays and a couple of sick days and there is virtually nobody in the office except the cleaner and a couple of clients! A downfall of having trainees is that, when exam time comes around, you are left with a skeleton staff and no-one to crunch out VAT returns, analyse the ‘bag of crap' from John the Window Cleaner, or make the all-important six cups of coffee a day. As a partner, I am obviously inclined to motivate the remaining staff to work that bit harder, perhaps take some work home, and maybe even convince some to work weekends! There is more chance of John the Window Cleaner declaring all his income to be honest with you.
I miss the days of moaning about the bags of crap from John the window cleaner, Jane the mobile hair dresser and Paul the plasterer (those bags smelled too), with such anomolies as the obviously altered hand-written petrol receipts (100 £5 receipts which all had a 1 added before the 5 in the same black biro - even when they were written in blue) and knowing that the Scoobie that John was running around in cost more to run than the profits he was making, which was meant to support him, his wife and 4 kids! How I miss those days now!
Accused ‘terribly sorry’ over fatal scrambler spill: A window cleaner accused of causing the death by dangerous driving of a schoolboy who fell off a scrambler motorbike told police he was “terribly sorry” for what happened, a court has heard. Andrew Paul Morrow has also decided to wait until after 12-year-old Daniel Mooney is buried before making a bail application, his lawyer said. Daniel died after falling from the bike he was riding pillion at Mountcoole Park, north Belfast, on Sunday. He was not wearing a helmet. Morrow, a 32-year-old window cleaner from Ardoyne Road, Belfast, faces a total of seven charges in connection with the fatal crash. As well as causing death by dangerous driving, he is accused of driving a scrambler while disqualified, without insurance and while unfit through drink or drugs. He is further charged with failing to stop, failing to remain and failing to report an accident.
Morrow spoke only to confirm he understood the alleged offences before Belfast Magistrates Court. A detective sergeant said he could connect the accused with all of the charges. When charged with the most serious offence, Morrow replied to the court: “I'm terribly sorry for what has happened.” Defence solicitor Dennis Boyd added that throughout intensive police interviews on Tuesday his client continued to express his remorse. The lawyer also confirmed that Morrow had decided to defer making an application for bail. He said: “This tragic young man is being buried tomorrow. The defendant is very keen not to cause the family any further distress or anxiety.” Morrow was then remanded in custody to appear again via video-link tomorrow.
William King, 69, was pronounced dead at his home in The Street, Upper Sheringham, on April 12 last year. Fire investigation officer James Belcher told a Norwich inquest there were two possible causes of the fire in which he died - a discarded cigarette or clothes catching fire on top of a storage heater. He said the first possibility was unlikely as Mr King was not a careless smoker and emptied his ashtrays regularly and there were no burn marks found on the carpet. The second possibility was also quite rare but he said the company that made the heater had identified one serious incident when it had happened before with the same type of appliance. The inquest was told that Mr Boardman was alerted by a neighbour concerned about Mr King’s welfare on April 12, as he had noticed that the windows of his semi-detached cottage were blackened out. They phoned the police and the ambulance service who forced entry into Mr King’s house and found him dead inside. A post mortem examination was carried out and the cause of death was given as carbon monoxide poisoning due to smoke inhalation as a result of a fire. A contributory factor was alcohol intoxication as Mr King had consumed a substantial amount of alcohol. Mr King, who was a retired window cleaner, was born in Belfast. The inquest heard that his wife was aware of his death and had attended the funeral, but she was unable to attend.
Green, Ohio — Window Genie, a professional window cleaning franchise in Akron and the City of Green have partnered to host the first annual 3 Wishes Weekend Red Carpet Ride Movie Night, a family fun extravaganza of games, crafts, food and entertainment at Boettler Park in Green on May 20 from 5 to 10 p.m. Proceeds from concession sales benefit Make-A-Wish Foundation® of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana which grants special wishes to terminally ill children. A special movie feature of “Aladdin” will be shown at dusk on a 24’ inflatable screen. While admission is free, contributions will be accepted. Window Genie and the City of Green hope to raise $15,000; the average cost of granting a child’s wish costs several thousand dollars. “For the past year, we have been fortunate to forge a national partnership with the Make-A-Wish Foundation,” said Dave Manderine, president of Window Genie. “It's an organization that we believe strongly in because of the wonderful things that they do for children. We are encouraging the local community to support this cause by joining us for 3 Wishes Weekend. We are extremely grateful to the City of Green, Your Events Source and NEO Amusement for sponsoring in this extraordinary event.”
"As Good As Gold...berg" requires the students to create a device that performs a very simple function in an unnecessarily complex way. Such a device is known as a Rube Goldberg machine. Walker's device is a window washer that starts with a bowling ball falling on a bottle of water and ends with a fan switching on to dry the window. "The hardest thing is getting the fan to turn on," member Tanner Roberts said. Tanner, 9, is the mad inventor in Walker's skit. His window-washing device didn't always work during the practice run last week, but he and the other students managed to ad-lib their way through the skit. Walker's Odyssey of the Mind coordinator, Jean Shivers, was impressed with their improvisation skills. "When things weren't working, the ad-libbing was hilarious," she told the students. "That was brilliant." Students aren't allowed to receive help from their coaches as they develop their solutions. But coaches help students stay on task.
Mikhail Fridman (Ex window cleaner). Net worth: $15.1 billion, which puts him 43rd on Forbes billionaires list and makes him the seventh wealthiest person in Russia. Fridman, who was born in the Ukraine, is one of three controlling shareholders of the Alfa Group which he shares with German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev, two friends he met at the Moscow Institute of Steel & Alloys. Fridman is chairman of the Alfa Group.
He first jobs included window washing, running a discotheque and scalping Moscow theater tickets, according to PBS. He and his friends started a courier delivery service after then-president Mikhail Gorbachev passed economic reforms that relaxed restrictions and encouraged private business. He set up Alfa Foto, a photo cooperative and then Alfa-Eco, a commodities trading company. Later, they started Alfa-Bank, now one of the largest private banks in Russia. One of his partners, Peter Aven, who is a shareholder of Alfa Bank, was Russia’s minister of foreign economic affairs. Fridman was considered one of the “Big Seven,” a group of oligarchs who financed the 1996 re-election of President Boris Yelstin. In return, he and the others received control of state assets worth billions.
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