Cleaning Windows

There's a Van Morrison song about cleaning windows. I like cleaning windows. I put it off but it's very satisfying and you have to stop it before you get obsessive about it and try for total transparency. That way lies madness. I once cleaned, fairly obsessively, 1cubic metre of the entrance to a gallery in Brussels for a week, and on the last night encouraged my students to graffiti the interior with the names of their heroes. I got them drunk first. It was a pretty cool piece now I think about it. One of my favourites (but the institution wasn't quite so impressed of course, they preferred a Danny Libeskind style big hole, which I thought was crap).
But now my window cleaning has just got one hell of a lot better. I bought a Kartcher. I'm not much one for gadgets but if you are somebody who likes cleaning windows this thing is pretty awesome. You vacuum your windows. All the dirty (very dirty, like black) residue water gets sucked up in to the damn thing, it is especially satisfying emptying black water out of this cleaning instrument and staring at your windows with satisfaction. It is also fun to vacuum your windows, you image your neighbour's dismay if they knew, as opposed to just heard, the process, and it takes a fraction of the time, so there's more of the afternoon left to read about other forms of madness in the LRB.