In message , Trevor Wilson
writes
"Graz" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:51:44 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:
In message , N_Cook
writes
My response to someone's query in a UK national newspaper
http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqu...,-1880,00.html
probably a load of balloney but it was the only published reply
When the festivities are over, our 30 year old set of 40 small lights
gets carefully wound onto a copy of the Christmas edition of the Radio
Times from around 1980. They are then put away carefully.
The following Christmas, before unwinding them, I always plug them in
first to test them. And guess what? They NEVER work until I check the
tightness of all 40 of them - and it IS always number 40 which is the
slack one. Only then do I unwind them, and put them up. Finally, I spend
a few minutes nostalgically looking at the old Radio Times, and realise
that most of the performers are now dead.
However, this year, I couldn't find them. I've obviously put them away
too carefully. So I treated myself to a new set. These are high-tech,
with 8 programmable modes of flashing. Christmas will never be the same.
And there's no way the new ones will last 30 years.
**Indeed. They will last longer. MUCH longer. Most sane people buy LED
Christmas lights. These have an almost indefinite life, better colour
rendition (particularly blue) and consume far less energy. My most recently
purchased set (unfortunately purchased at the post-Christmas sale, last
year - I will be checking any future purchases immediately) had the last
four green ones out. Some genius in China had installed one of the LEDs
'round the wrong way. A quick fix and the lights will last longer than I
will. I have absolute confidence that the lights will last many hundreds of
years. Incandescent Christmas lights are so last century.
I'm sure that you are correct. LEDs are less likely to fail, The problem
is that their introduction seems to have coincided with a different
'fashion' in the colours of the lights. Instead of having a good variety
of red, green, blue. orange. purple, white etc, a lot of the new sets of
lights are all one colour (usually garish blue or white). They have made
up for the lack of colours by having providing a lot of programmable
modes for making the lights flash (most of them in a most un-Christmassy
manor).
I have always loved Christmas lights. Although I was barely more than a
toddler, I can still remember arriving with my mother by bus in the
centre of Newcastle upon Tyne, and finding lots of Christmas lights
festooning the trees. It was the first time that they had been allowed
after WW2.
--
Ian