OxBlog

Saturday, September 02, 2006

# Posted 8:18 PM by Patrick Belton  

LIGHTING WOES, TOO. A DIY Saturday here at OxBlog. Longtime readers of this blog will know, when this writer sings ‘I vow to thee, my country’, he thinks of three. Benevolent ties of residence, education and parentage cause him to feel some senses of gratitude, community and obligation to the United Kingdom, the Irish Republic and the United States which he generally does not hold to be in conflict. There is, however, one matter on which he believes American culture is superior, and ought be spread throughout the world, by force if need be. This matter is that of the light bulb.














Evil




To take a page from Ronald Reagan, there are two sorts of light-bulb regimes: good and evil; and a great deal of commentators obscure this fact. Good light-bulb regimes allow ordinary citizens the cherished freedom to turn their wrists and move on with their lives, choosing their own ends in life after, with maximum liberty in means they select in approaching nearer them.










An axis of evil



Evil light-bulb regimes use something dastardly called the bayonet mount, which in a number of countries is called the ‘B’ (for bastardry) base. This is a device, clever in its efficacy, iniquitous in its scope, for keeping the masses subject to hours of standing perched atop ladders, perilously reminded of their inefficacy before the State. It also keeps them off the street.

I am writing this, incidentally, in the dark. St John of the Cross, great defender that he was of the ‘E’ base system used in, among elsewhere, the United States, Japan and medieval Spain, referred to it as the dark night of the soul, in which the sensation of not-light bulb surmounts and becomes stronger than the sense of all those things that are.

Or perhaps it doesn’t really matter and I’m blowing this out of proportion. A thought, I suppose.

But it can be so fun to curse the dark.

(3) opinions -- Add your opinion

Comments:
Patrick:

I have lost count of the number of times a screw-in-bulb has broken while I am trying to unscrew it from the light fitting.

Compare that process to a simple push and twist process of the bayonet mount.
 
The bayonet fitting, carefully inspected, contains its own instructions for bulb removal. This is of particular help to that sex which has greater difficulty in knowing in which direction to turn a screw.
 
You have forgotten about the "BC" mount -- and don't forget the two different gauges of "Edison screw".
 
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