bulb survival

greetings

well, it's more or less time to do the usual, somewhat annual, celebration of my one particular lightbulb. this is a story which started here, and has now reached its sixth (6th) year, look you see. for those keen to see more of the history, i think other links can be found here. for some inexplicable reason the original has had quite a lot of reads or "hits" but i suspect this is down to people looking for the energy company of similar, as in same, name. 

rather famously i was warned, initially, not to use this bulb. no good, surely, could come from willingly sending potentially dangerous electricity into a one (1) pound purchase off of Poundland. back when, of course, they actually sold things for £1. this bulb, i was warned, would fairly obviously and relatively instantly set fire to any dwelling i used it in, taking me with it. one would think the latter part of that would be reason enough to encourage me to do so, but no matter. 

avid, regular followers of the plight of my bulb might be a bit surprised to see the above. that's my somewhat shiny new bedside lamp, as it happens. indeed a tragedy befell the old lamp, which i shall get to momentarily. 

provenance and similar matters (or concerns) appear to be of interest to some. with that in mind, i went and purchased this brand new bedside lamp for my place of exile off of Boyes. the cost was £8 flat, which is kind of agreeable. my previous one cost somewhere south of that, but times, the world and the economy have changed somewhat since then. not all for the better. 

just what happened to my original bedside lamp? it got busted. quite sad about it really, as it was clearly fragile but had survived a change in life and place of living. but, as you can see in the greater good and glory of Commodore 64 mode (which nicely hides any lack of dusting) above, it is no more. 

exactly what happened to it? a perfect storm of misfortune. i was going to reach into my nearby (and only) wardrobe to retrieve an item, i believe a new towel, when my right arm drifted downwards, connecting with the shade on the lamp. this was apparently with more force than i was aware of possessing, for it hammered the shade down into the ceramic base, shattering it like so many of my dreams, hopes and aspirations have been shattered before it. oh, well. 

by chance, illustrated in the above for you, the bulb itself somehow survived this severe trauma. so all i really needed was a new lamp, which i went off and got. except, of course, for the fact that the bulb has been somewhat disappointing these last six (6) years, with whatever aesthetic value it held on a whim purchase back then long since being forgotten in the face of just how little light it gives off. 

for some reason some of you may wish for a bit of "animated gif" business of the broken lamp, just before it was disposed of as (relatively) responsibly as i could. if that's you, then behold and of course enjoy the bit just below this. 

speaking of responsible disposal, the wrapping (or packaging) what my new lamp came in. obviously it was so that some was required to keep it safe and as damage free as possible. to this end. there was a sturdy, easy to recycle (or throw away) chunk of cardboard protecting the business end. but, also, a good deal of plastic and cellophane wrapping. 

how much of them latter two? well, have a look. the scale does not lie. 

no, yes, you are seeing that right (if you are looking), an entire 16 (sixteen) grams of plastic and cellophane i weighed off of it. quite a bit of that, to be fair, would be the protective cap thing on the plug, and no i did not weight that separately. this seems quite a lot. 

whereas i am not entirely sure, and have no facts or evidence (as usual) to substantiate it, i am quietly confident that, if disposed of in an irresponsible way (which of course i would never do), it could cause the death of at least 7 or maybe eight dolphins, or similar sized forms of aquatic life. obviously here i might be tempted to go on a rant and ask how is it my fault that supposedly clever dolphins have remained stupid enough to keep eating the stuff, but let me not upset anyone. 

my choice of this lamp wasn't entirely financially based, but yes, it was the cheapest. actually i rather liked the predominantly wood one they had for a price £4 north of this one, but i hadn't done any measurements or similar, and to my mind it looked like it would be a trifle too large. for the same price that i paid for this one they had a similar but different model. the navy blue shade on that was, to be honest, more appealing than the grey here, but i just didn't like the gold base on it. here the grey shade is off set by a sensible silver base. let it not be said i am a complete (or totes) fashion disaster. 

one more look at the bulb both in its new home and in action? and further a view of it not in the greater good and glory of Commodore 64 mode? sure. 

right, well, there you go for another year. a challenge, i suppose, is seeing if moi, the bulb and the lamp all manage to survive to do this around the same time next year. maybe. who knows, it could all be happening in another time, another place. 

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!