A glimmer man (sometimes rendered as "glimmerman") was a name unofficially, but universally, applied to inspectors who were employed by
coal gas manufacturers in Ireland to detect the use of gas in breach of rationing restrictioons during the Emergency (
ie. WW2) from March 1942 and in some places as late as 1947.
The term is now used as a metaphor for bureaucratic intrusion into
privacy.
"Rattled by the glimmer man, the boogie man, the holy man" -
lyric from "Faithful Departed" by
Phil Chevron.
"Gas could be used only on certain hours of the
day and hence the arrival of the Glimmer man."