Why I hate window cleaners

It's nothing personal, and I do admire anyone who can combine two of the things I most hate: cleaning, and heights. (Our house is on four floors, and the window cleaners teeter on the summit of a long ladder, with spiky railings down below, just waiting like the jaws of hungry crocodiles). So as a rule, I don't hate them. But this morning, I hate ours.

Picture the scene.Actually, better not. Because I was stark naked in the shower, and this bit of ladder and a head appeared at the window. I kept very, very still, and waited for the head to go, hoping it hadn't notived  me (we have a flmsy blind which is rather see-through). When I went next door to the bedroom to dress, the head was there again. It was all too much. I'm still trying to recover (so, I suspect, is the window cleaner. But then I suppose for him, it'sall  part of the job).

Afterwards, I asked very nicely if next time, please could he and his band of colleagues  knock on the door when they arrive, to let us know they're there.

"No time," quoth he. No time, that is, to knock on all the doors. But he said he'd make an exception for us.

So watch this space (so long as that's all you watch).

What's your methodology?

I frequently get grammar-related bees in my bonnet, and this is my current one. Methodology. To all those pompous word-spinners who misuse words like this,  I would like to shout from the rooftops (and I'm very bad indeed when it comes to heights): "methodology" is not, repeat not, the same as "method". It is:

a. A body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in a discipline or engage in an inquiry; a set of working methods: the methodology of genetic studies; a pollmarred by faulty methodology.

b. The study or theoretical analysis of such working methods.

Okay? 

 When exactly did this ridiculous usage begin? I hear it on the radio, and read it, too. Only last week we had a form which wanted to know "what methodology of payment were we going to use". It's like the "glazing enhancement specialists*"  (yes. Really.) who clean our windows. Come on, guys. You're window cleaners. Stand up and be proud of yourselves. You don't need posh titles to show that you do a good job, and we don't need posh words to convey simple meanings. More and ever longer words are being used to express less and less. I love words, but I'm beginning to despair.

I shall now go and roast a chicken (I'm sure there's a posh expression for that, too).

*One of my sons refuses to believe this, but I have a piece of paper that proves it. Besides, I couldn't make it up. Really.

What is it about window cleaners?

Looking at my blog stats - as you do, when you really ought to be doing something else and there's a man fixing work surfaces in the kitchen - I noticed that my fifth most popular post is the one entitled "window cleaners" (the top one, by a long shot, is still "in love with a horse"; I can understand that).

So - what I want to know is: have I missed something? Is there something about window cleaners that everyone else (except me) knows? Is it a euphemism for something exciting/rude/naughty? Or are readers just looking for a window cleaner? In which case they'll be disappointed, because I'm not one.

If you are party to the window cleaner secret, please let me know. I promise I won't tell anyone.

Window cleaners

Now, I've nothing against window cleaners. They do an excellent job. I hate heights, and they need the money, so my relationship with them is a perfect symbiosis. But...

I wish they wouldn't just appear. They never knock on the door to announce their arrival, but suddenly there they are, at the window, looking in, (which I'm sure is against their code of conduct, just when (as this morning) I'm about to get in the shower. Ours is fearless* and friendly, and sports a nice woolly hat (rather than the tin one I'm sure he's supposed to wear), but there are some things I don't want him to seem.

That's all.

*Our house is on four floors, above spiky railings. I can't watch.

What's in a name?

Our window cleaner calls himself a "Glazing Enhancement Specialist", and this lofty title appears on all his invoices (okay, little pieces of paper he leaves if you're out). Don't you just love it?

So - what posh name would you give to your day job (if you have one)? And more to the point, what would be a more impressive name for a novelist/short story writer? (How about Imaginative Escritory* Operative?)

*There's probably no such word, but I like the sound of it.