The charge of the light bulb brigade

Do you know how much I have come to loath the humble light bulb?

Once upon a time, it was really simple. A bulb blew and all you had to do was to decide how bright you wanted the replacement to be - how simple is that. Oh you could choose from "pearl" - those bulbs with the frosted glass that gave a softer light, or "clear" for a brighter, harsher light. Then you could choose a colour if you wanted to - I used to use those red bulbs for electric fires when I was a teenager - living in my own red-light zone, my bedroom used to look like a brothel - not that I realised when I was 13, it was just different and cool.

Now, if a bulb blows, one needs a university degree to ascertain the fitting type, fitting type, bulb type, the application that it is used for, how much one wants to spend, how green one wants to be etc....

We have moved on from the simple bayonet fitting that worked so well for so many years, now we have screw threaded bulbs - with different sizes of screw threads. Sometimes they work loose and stop working - all that is needed is a simple screwing back in but it's all too easy just to assume that they have died and have to be replaced.

Then you have the choice between incandescent bulbs and the newer low energy fluorescent bulbs. These are far more efficient, they sip electricity compared to an incandescent (which positively gulp their power down). The typical 60 watt incandescent being replaced by a 9 or 11 watt fluorescent - using something like 1/6th of the energy and lasting a squillion times longer (or so they say)

Of course, it's never quite that simple. The cheaper fluorescents take a little time to develop their full brightness -coming on candle like and allowing full brightness to develop over time. These cheaper ones can also have a greenish (how appropriate) colour cast - not normally noticed by the human eye such is its adaptability.

The more expensive ones come to full brightness a lot quicker (although neither are happy when used with a dimmer switch) and tend not to suffer from such a colour cast.

However, cheap or expensive, all fluorescents contain mercury - which is incredibly toxic. So, when they fail they have to be disposed of in an environmentally friendly manner - you can't just throw them in your bin, the recycling police will refuse to take your waste away and will call down such an infestation of pox that you'll wish you have never discovered the joys of the electric light and stayed with candles.

And woe betide you if one breaks. You have to call a full decontamination squad who will arrive in their chemical warfare suits and breath through filters that make them all sound like Darth Vader. You'll be treated as a pariah for polluting the community, pilloried by your neighbours and eventually be forced to move out of the neighbourhood - all because you broke a low energy fluorescent bulb - probably out of frustration because you threw it to the floor having failed to get the right brightness / fitting combination.

Then there's the bulbs for the kitchen appliances, the oven, the microwave, the cooker hood / extractor - even the vacuum cleaner.

Then there's halogen bulbs for those dinky little ceiling lights (not very environmentally friendly at all), I've just seen a halogen lower energy bulb in a "standard" enclosure. This was designed to replace "normal" bulbs (if such a thing exists), give out more light than the older incandescent bulbs so use less energy (although not as little energy as the fluorescent bulbs) and are priced between an incandescent and a fluorescent energy saver.

It does not matter how much you spend and how many spare bulbs you have, you will never have the right one to replace the one that's just blown and thrown the loo in to darkness just when you really cannot wait any longer......