We have quite a few lamps dotted about the place and they each require their individual type of light bulb. As anyone knows who has anything to do with light bulbs, you can forget the nominal lifetime suggested on the packing because they are likely to blow at any time and for no apparently good reason.
Being the provident type, I have a plastic box containing at least two spares of every kind of light bulb that we use, plus batteries for torches and other devices. I like to boast that it’ll be a cold winter’s day before you catch me without a replacement for a blown bulb.
Well, suddenly, it’s a cold winter’s day. The bulb in Tigger’s desk lamp failed the other day. I pulled out my plastic box, selected a replacement and screwed it into the socket. (Yes, “screwed”, because surprisingly many of our lamps have screw fittings for their bulbs.) When we switched on the lamp, nothing. No light. The new bulb was apparently a dud. I tried the second spare and, happily, it worked.
As an aside, do you remember those long-gone days when you bought a light bulb which came in a packet with open ends and the shopkeeper inserted it into an electric socket to make sure – and prove to you – that it worked? I do, but these days bulbs come in closed boxes and nobody bothers to check them. Well, it seems that they should.
I placed the two dud bulbs on my desk intending to purchase new ones by some means or other. There was no hurry, I thought, because… well, how often does a bulb blow? Quite often, apparently, because yesterday evening, the bulb in Tigger’s lamp failed. Yes, again. I was caught with my electrical pants down, so to speak.
Near to us is a branch of Ryness, the electrical suppliers. In fact, it is on the corner with Baron Street and White Lion Street (see yesterday’s blog post) and in “normal times” I buy all my bulbs there. In passing yesterday, we had looked to see whether by any chance they were open for business. A notice on the door gave a phone number to call and stated “TRADE ONLY”. Not being “trade”, I had to think again.
This morning, I had my “light bulb moment” and searched for “Ryness” online. Yes, they do have a website and, yes, they do sell online, promising a delivery time of one to two working days. Fortunately, I always keep the spare bulbs in their boxes so I had the complete details of the bulbs I needed, including the product number.
I ordered three bulbs – one for immediate use and two spares. The annoying thing is that I have to pay £5.99 for delivery when their shop is just a few minutes’ walk away… But that no longer counts in these Days of the Pandemic. I suppose I should count myself lucky that it is even possible to order online and have goods delivered.
SilverTiger at home and abroad 
Blown light bulbs…hmmm. I, like you, always lay in a goodly stock of fungibles. Quite a few years ago I wrote on my own blog an entry called “Carelssly Thrown Together in China”. Unfortunately, almost all inexpensive, mid-priced non-trademarked items – lightbulbs. potato peelers, etc. etc. come from China these days. unfortunately, their low price correalates with low quality and, even more worryingly, high-carbon and highly polluting production chains.
For quite a while now I have been trying to buy more expensive, better quality items produced anywhere but China.
Frustratingly, it seems to me that we are awash in a sea of mediocrity in most areas of life. Consumer goods are yet another example of this lack of quality – Chinese products are, cheap, cheerless and deadly to the planet, Perhaps one of the re-sets that life will undergo post-lockdown is a shortening of supply lines and an end to this dictatorship of low-priced, even lower quality dross. I doubt it.
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Several people have expressed hopes – guarded in the case of the wisest – that the pandemic and lockdown will have taught us new ways of thinking and, in consequence, of behaving.
While there is no obstacle – apart from laziness – to new and more sympathetic relations between people, commerce is an entirely different matter. There, the dance is led by the big companies whose mantra is to buy cheap and sell dear, to the detriment of our wallets and, as you point out, of the health of the planet.
In this, I remain a pessimist though I would be most happy to be proved wrong.
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