I've had one of my lightbulb moments

"THE lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

Things today are not quite as bad as when the then British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, reportedly made the above comment to a friend in 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I.

But Europe is certainly responsible for the threat to some important lights in my life '” and I'm not alone in blasting yet another.

It's all to do with those ugly, low-energy light bulbs.

EU leaders, including Tony Blair, have ruled that the familiar, much-loved traditional light bulb should be phased out within the next three years and replaced with low-energy, fluorescent bulbs.

Affecting all of the European Union's 490 million citizens, the shocking switchover was ordered at a Brussels summit as part of an amibitious energy policy to fight climate change.

Like so many of the EU directives, however, do its originators care a damn about the negative impact it can have on the lives of us who live in the real world?

I dislike the new bulbs' shape, size, and the quality of the light they emit.

And it's the size factor which prompted my extra spend-out at Tesco.

You see, our lounge wall-light fittings can accommodate only a limited-size bulb.

The small, "candle" design is fine. Unless manufacturers provide a bulb for the space, my wall lights will go the way of gas lights!

So it was down to the "Every Little Helps" store to stock up with the right bulbs before there is a run on them.

The Tesco check-out chap looked at me, and said: "These'll be museum pieces soon."

That puts me in my place, I thought, but replied defiantly: "That's why I'm buying them. Other people will probably have the same idea before long."

Mind you, many others must already be half-way to that conclusion.

I am still working my way through a batch of long-life bulbs I bought a few years ago, and I'll be glad to see the end of them (one didn't even work, but I can't send it back because I've forgotten which mail order firm I bought it from!).

In addition, I don't like having to wait in semi-darkness while the wretched bulbs warm up, and I'm not that convinced about the cost-saving.

If a traditional bulb costs 20p and lasts 1,000 hours, while the energy-saving bulb costs 1.70 and lasts 5,000 hours, where does the cost-saving come in?

In addition, it costs more to make a low-energy bulb.

And I will need a lot more convincing that I'm "saving the planet" by using them, judging by the controversial (and big business-influenced?) propaganda that I've been exposed to so far.