Mehr Licht!
A “Rillington” is the quick and easy name for a Compact Fluorescent Lamp, also known as an Eco Light Bulb. In Tesco it’s called Energy Saving Sticks. Notice no mention of Light.
Rillingtons are perfect for people who don’t read and who don’t need lighting to see or do things by.
They are also packed with my favourite metal, mercury, which has magical properties but is also rather poisonous, so you can’t throw them away.
Rillingtons are sold in brightnesses ranging up to 15 watts, which means three of the brightest rillingtons can produce nearly as much illumination as an ordinary 35 watt lightbulb, if such a thing existed (which it doesn’t, because no-one can read by the light of a 35 watt bulb).
They have the benefit of taking five to ten minutes to reach peak light emission, during which time you can give up on your book and instead go looking for a rafter to sling your rope over.
Once fully alight, a rillington will bathe the few parts of the room its feeble beams can reach with a sickly reseda, like angel’s vomit.
Spend ten minutes in this light and even the arrival of John Reginald Christie would be greeted as a ray of sunshine.
Christie, for those who don’t know, was a serial killer in 1940s and 50s London. He lived in and operated from Rillington Place, a now-demolished cul-de-sac in North Kensington, and a more depressing and hopeless place I never wish to see. I cycled over there as a morbidly curious teenager and even in the weak sunshine it made you want to top yourself.
So Rillington passed into my vocabulary as the epitome of dinginess, depression and gloom. The film “10 Rillington Place” captures the despair of the place and the period to perfection.
Now we can all share in the misery induced by this awful, melancholic, forgotten period. Just replace all your lovely warm, bright lightbulbs with rillingtons and you too can sit alone with suicidal thoughts. Because you certainly won’t be able to read by them.
You can throw away your dimmer switches too, because you won’t be needing them. What’s the point in dimming the already dim? Oh, I forgot — rillingtons won’t work with dimmer switches anyway.
What if you decide that a future spent lurking in the gloaming without any reading matter isn’t quite the brave new world you’d planned, and you decide not to throw away your bright, non-poisonous, mercury-free lightbulbs?
Tough. They’ve been banned, and Rillingtons are now compulsory.
I’m with Goethe on this one.
Mehr Licht!
May 26th, 2009 at 18:04
hem! having looked through what is available to the bayonet fitting world, jayzuz, you’re right. What a carry on. Looks like you’re gonna have to get the screwdriver out, switch off the power and change your fittings to screw thread. Some people use the new energy saving bulbs to grow.. um.. tomatoes etc. So there must be one suitable for reading a book. However what a pain in the butt. You have my sympathies, one thing that annoys me is that this site only delivers to the UK.. the grass is always greener http://tinyurl.com/25paht
October 27th, 2009 at 14:18
I can’t believe that you really aren’t aware that energy saving bulbs come in all manner of outputs, colours and fittings. I’ve got them throughout my house- big 24W ones in the living room which are equivalent to the 150W conventional ones they replaced, and they give plenty of light for reading. I did try a 28W one but it was too bright for comfort. They are all bayonet fittings no problem to get hold of. My wife does knitting and huge detailed cross stiches by the light of a blue ‘daylight’ version in a miniature bayonet candle size bulb, and the downlighters in the kitchen have been replaced by little disc shaped 7w low energy bulbs. Its all there if you look! The mercury thing is exagerated as well -they have a tiny quantity of mercury in them, but there’s not a disposal issue. Apparently ‘the evidence shows that the mercury in lamps is less than would be released by a coal fired powe station to produce the energy required for an incandescant lamp.’
November 19th, 2009 at 18:38
OK Alan, I know they come in different wattages, but a bright unpleasant light is just as irritating to read by as a dim light. And have you seen what Engineering & Technology Magazine has to say about them?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8367933.stm
November 20th, 2009 at 16:02
Ok -the dropping of light output over time is probably true – and I’ve certainly replaced several already so the claim that they last 5 times longer than tradtional bulbs isn’t true either. An over bright light is as irritating as a dim one -yes, but you make your choice depending on what you want it for and you don’t believe what’s written on the box – I bought several different watatges until I found a comfortable one, and the dimmer ones got used in the garage.
I recall an old bulb that used to hang in the shared toilet of a flat I rented in London in the seventies – it was made of a very heavy obscured glass and had been there so long the bayonet pins had dropped off and it was held in by rust. The elderley downstairs tenants told me it was a wartime utility bulb obviously designed to last forever!
November 16th, 2010 at 23:00
light bulbs are good for lighting the home but stay away from incandescent lamps because they generate so much heat :,~