16 April 2012

BRIGHT SPARKS

Is it just me or do you need a PhD to buy a lightbulb these days?

I had recently looked in my garage cupboard where I keep the spare lightbulbs to discover I was right out of bayonet fitting/common-or-garden lightbulbs to replace the one in the hall ceiling light that had just died. When I subsequently did my supermarket shop, I browsed the shelves for a replacement. Now this was an ordinary supermarket, not a specialist shop, and yet there were so many to chose from, my eyes started to glaze over. Another (significantly younger woman) was on all fours combing the bottom shelf for signs of bulbs that looked remotely like she needed and we both ended up becoming lifetime buddies in our unity against the plethora of choice. Having discarded the options of spot bulbs, candle bulbs, halogen bulbs, with even further variations of bayonet fittings, screw fittings and small screw fittings, I was then faced with even more choices of environmentally-correct ones that promise to give out as much light as required without flogging the poor little dears to death and without running up an electricity bill that would make Greece's debt look tame. However my experience of these super-dooper eco-lightbulbs with vast claims to save the planet are that they take about half an hour to warm up, by which time I have given up and gone to bed! Or tripped over the cat in the gloom.

I finally found something that looked like a pig-normal lightbulb and had a bayonet fitting, but it showed two wattage amounts of 43 or 55 and I was looking for a 60W bulb. Hell, when was buying a lightbulb so complicated?

11 comments:

Working Mum said...

Don't get me started on light bulbs! Ordinary light bulbs were outlawed by Europe a few months ago - people stocked up in advance!! You basically have to buy low energy ones now which is no good for my lamps which work on touch or movement sensors. Aargh!

AGuidingLife said...

I can't see by the light of teh new bulbs. I have 10 spots in my kitchen ceiling and I still have to put a torch on to thread a needle. I have a cupboard full of bulbs that seem ugly or unsuitable and I also have the dimmer, touch switch, sensor nightmare. I am lost in a sea of bulbs and my lights all have unmatched uglies that I can't see by. May as well be using a bloody candle....ahhhh I was ranting there wasn't I! sorry!

the veg artist said...

While I am waiting for the first case of "pensioner died because the light provided by her energy-saving bulb was too dim when she first entered the kitchen and tripped over the cat", I am rejoicing in the fact that my dear husband insisted that we stock up on the old-fashioned, probably soon to be illegal, sort.
How old/young were these EU dictators when they came up with this? Save the planet? Yes, but not at the expense of lives!!!

Furtheron said...

I think paint is following similar route - I bought the new eco friendly water washable gloss not to be used on bare wood from B&Q - utter rubbish! It is barely gloss, satin at best, in the end Mrs F said she likes it but frankly it is rubbish.

I bought some energy saving bulbs for the dining room where the computer sits, my son came home from uni one day he is on there as dusk falls - he reaches up and clicks the switch... the air was blue for the next 10 mins as he waited for them to warm up.. they are the worst we ever got frankly, my brother thought we'd fitted a dimmer switch at one point!

Flowerpot said...

I had the same problem the other day Addy so it isnt just you!

Strawberry Jam Anne said...

It is a nightmre isn't it. My dear mum disliked the new light bulbs and refused to use even the free ones she received. She found a company that were selling the old type and ordered a couple of boxes. As she is now in a retirement home, we have inherited them, so we are sorted for a good while!

hyfibutt said...

I stumbled across your blog and just spent the past three days reading about my life.

Thank you.

Nota Bene said...

Too much choice is not a good thing...

Anonymous said...

I can so relate to this post! I have so many lights in this house and several chandeliers that take 6, 8 and 12 candle bulbs, yet it's really hard these days to find the right bulbs! I got all excited the other day when I visited our agricultural merchants and they were stocking 100W bulbs - we use them in the sheds so you can imagine my joy when I saw them on the shelves!!!

I've put this post on my Blog Posts of the Week page!

CJ x

Ellen said...

Yes, these days I can often be found wandering around with a 'dead' lightbulb in my handbag until I am lucky enough to find a matching one. Seems to be getting harder and harder.

-blessed holy socks, the non-perishable-zealot said...

Yeah. I know. While totally different, totally the same. Alcoholism + head injury = same thing. God bless you.