On Sun, 23 Dec 2012 09:12:47 +0000 (UTC),
(Andrew Gabriel) wrote:

In article ,
Frank Erskine writes:
Can you still get sets of fairy lights using either 12 or 20 MES
bulbs simply connected in series - none of this fancy flashing stuff,

Yes, but not MES - they are all push-fit filament lamps now.

unless you bought a "flashing bulb" which naturally flashed all the
bulbs in the string?

Haven't seen those for a while.

That takes me back to a Christmas a long time ago, Got a plastic kit
of a VC10. Cannot remember what make it was now. Some of the nav
lights had primitive plastic light guides that terminated by one of
those flashing bulbs. Like all most electrical toys in the 60's it
depended on plain old batteries and ate them rapidly.
Thinking back some of the things I had would probably work well now
with modern batteries and led lights.
A big disappointment was an amphibious car which looked a bit like a
range rover but couldn't have been because it predated them.
Bloody thing only ran about 30 mins on a set of batteries and couldn't
pull itself up a ramp out of the water.

G.Harman