idée fixe

EU legislation has condemned the old fashioned, inefficient and heat-generating light bulb (German--Glühbirn, glowing-pear) in favor of the lower wattage, longer-lived variety. This is a good move which will reduce waste since light-bulbs are reputedly resistant to recycling--which is something I do not quite buy--and save consumers money on their utility bills, figured rather unexcitedly over the life-time of the light-bulb. This restriction, beyond promotion of a cost-saving measure and a sensible idea, could create a underground culture of after-market old fashioned light-bulbs to fit vintage and antique lamps. There must be surplus stock for decades-worth of lighting that are now barred from retail outlets but could span a grey-market. I do not want to buck the ecologically smart trend, but I like the idea of sneaking around to bypass newly-mandated contraband. It makes me think about those eternal, early incandescent bulbs that are still burning from Thomas Edison's time, the heydays of tinkering and experimentation. The designed obsolescence supposedly came later, once manufacturers realized that there was no money to be made in something that did not need to be replaced.