On 19/10/2012 09:15, Dave Liquorice wrote:
On Thu, 18 Oct 2012 21:02:56 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Gabriel wrote:

I had to feed the boys by candlelight, and luckily we only need the
gas hob.

Good practice for the future if the predicted power shortages occur,
most youngsters would enjoy the novelty. A whole 3 hours ...

Of course these days many people don't know how to make their own
entertainment without some electronic gismo. I bet there is many a
household without any board games, books, packs of cards etc.

It's more a question of whether the households with said board games,
books, etc have also got some candles to see them by!

Talking of candles, I've got this stupid rechargeable lantern,
supposedly 1 million candles, or something. I rarely use it, but I
charged it up last week or so. It's rubbish, and it's the second one
I've had - the first one developed a fault, a broken wire inside, and
had to be returned.

This one doesn't keep a decent charge in the battery at all. We put four
candles on the table to eat dinner by, and I rested the lantern on its
base so that it could shine up and reflect off the ceiling to give some
distributed light. After about five minutes the lantern was not
contributing at all. It made no difference in the presence of four real
candles.

Absolute piece of junk. If you can't leave it in a cupboard, supposedly
fully charged, and make good use it in a power cut, what's the point?

Michael