A quick holiday snap before placing these lights in hibernation for another year.
Purchased in 1980 for £2.99, made in taiwan, used yearly, rare failures, push fit bulbs, carefullly packed away.
Sleep tight little ones ... ;-)
And BS Kitemarked as well.
Owain
In message , Adrian C writes
Winfield, eh?
Wasn't that Woolworth's
Yup. Back in the days that branding mean't longevity :-)
Do as I do and put a series diode in the plug. Failures will be even rarer as the bulbs will be underrun and look less bright (an advantage IMO). Also, my cortex can just about detect the 50hz flicker which gives them an added ethereal quality.
As Twelfth Night is the end of Christmas, we were discussing the Decoration Police knocking on the door: "Evening all. I have reason to believe you might still have a Christmas card upon your mantel."
Operating, of course, under the control of Stephen Fry in his Malvolio character.
On Saturday 05 January 2013 13:58 geoff wrote in uk.d-i-y:
Yes - ah brings back memories...
Also next year blue Christmas lights will be forbidden. Why are cars and lorries allowed to display blue lights? Has the world gone mad? Don't answer that!
What? What is the source of your information?
Ah! They'll all have to be yellow. And cross-gartered.
you aren't Maria
Stop that now
twelfth night's not until tomorrow
Have you any idea how much it costs to engineer a product to self- destruct just after the warranty expires?
These cheap makes can't afford it.
In message , Graham. writes
I still have a set of lights (12 x 20V, I believe) from around 1949. Quite a few have failed, and I've run out of spares (although you can still probably get them). It's been many years since they provided any Christmas lighting, and I recall that I had to short out some of the dead ones (silver paper in the sockets, and the dead bulb screwed in). I did try a series diode, but as I could notice the flicker, I resorted to running them off a variac transformer.
In message , Adrian C writes
It really is sad to see them disappear for another 49 weeks. Then the trouble is finding them.
With one of my older set of lights, I used to wind them up on the expired Radio Times (a special once-a-year purchase for the Christmas / New Year fortnight). Plus a final switch on before putting them to bed. When the time came to unwind them again, it's surprising how many times they failed to work (usually a loose bulb). [Who knows what they get up to when they're all packed away, and no one's looking!] When next Christmas came around, it was interesting to have a quick comparison of this year's and last year's Radio Times, and see how many of the TV programmes were exactly the same as the previous Christmas.
I believe it's only flashing blue lights that are forbidden.
Can I add that those 'modern' strings of all-white fairy lights - and even more so, the deep blue - look absolutely awful.
From Woolworths as well.
White is OK. Blue I don't like as my eyes just can't focus them. At leas= t white is a "christmas colour", blue isn't.
Yes it was. I gather that the single twisted wires on most of these is now no longer allowed. What I found at the time was that if you asdded two extra bulbs of the same type from an old set into the loop, you never ever had one blow.. Brian
I think Tefal have this technology in their toasters actually.
Brian
Have you noticed how wires and cables left alone can tangle themselves? I used to install and remove computers(the very old big ones)the cables were laid under false flooring, when laying them I took great efforts to do it neatly and tidy. Some years later when I came to remove them they were a tangled mess, unexplainable!
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