In article ,
John writes:
About a year ago I thought we should try and be energy efficient so I
replaced (as the incandescent ones died) the 8 candle bulbs in the
living room with low energy ones (half from B&Q and half from Screwfix -
but named brands).

Now one is very slow to get up to full brightness (about 2 minutes) and
the others do not seem as bright.

Is that a common experience?

Yes.
People are used to filament lamps dying at end of life.
CFL's often don't actually die, but carry on operating
way past end of life, poorly. A year is bit disappointing
for a CFL, depending how much they're used of course.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]