Tuesday 27 January 2009

Green, dismal and depressing






Well, I recycle, I freecycle, I compost, I hardly ever waste food, I have stopped buying clothes that I won't wear, I walk rather than drive, and I'm so saintly and earnest about it all that I revolt even myself (and many others when they hear that I save cat hair for birds-nest material in Spring), but the one thing that is unbearable is having to change to energy-saving lightbulbs.

My home, always cosily-lit despite varying stages of dilapidation and disorder, is gradually acquiring a bleak, chilly, unwelcoming and, well, unhomely look as these new monsters take over. Changing lampshades doesn't work that well, telling myself that we'll all get used to them doesn't help that much, and rearranging furniture so that some of the cold, stingy, mean-spirited light actually reaches me when I'm reading doesn't encourage settling down on a winter's evening with a good book. A 100-watt-equivalent went up in the hall today, and had to be removed once it had lumbered up to full strength, because the hall, already too
pinched and narrow, was not improved by being lit like a shed. A lower-watt bulb on the first landing is grimly reminiscent of the gaslight which I saw once as a child, in my Cumbrian grandma's neighbours' house, and which impressed me enormously and lastingly as both ghastly and frightening.

I haven't read details of all the health concerns about these lightbulbs that are beginning to emerge; that would be altogether too depressing. The Lovely Son calls them Suicide Bulbs, and on dark, damp afternoons such as today's, I can wholeheartedly agree.
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4 comments:

Gretel said...

I hate them with a passion. Everything you've written is true, and it is worse than useless for studio lighting, even with my (non-green) daylight bulb on, the main light is like working by candle light. And don't they contain mercury? You can see the scandal in the future as we all start dropping like flies...

mountainear said...

I dislike them too - one of the boxes the building inspector must tick on his final inspection is the 'energy saving bulb' box. When we converted our barn we had to have 15% I think. We put some of our percentage in the pantry - thinking out-of-sight-out-of-mind thoughts. It is a room which we dash in and out of - but they didn't stay there for long, they never lit up. There are places for moody and atmospheric and the pantry wasn't one of them.

I hope you will be happy with the letter C - it will encompass cats, cutlery and candle light if nothing else.

Cathy said...

Hello Rachel
They are no better down here either - awful things. Our supermarkets are removing the 'normal' ones from the shelves - so we can't stock pile if we wanted to lol
Love your cats
Take care
Cathy

rachel said...

Just found this: www.banthebulb.org/ with some useful information on what lightbulb might be less likely to drive you to cutting your own throat.

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