Do they really mean that?

[PeterC]

Seen in B&Q re. a luminaire: ...opaque lampshades. This was on the dome type, so nowhere for the light to go.

Saves buying lamps, I suppose.

Also on, er, Ambay-ish: high density MDF.

OK.

[Johny B Good]

I don't know what you mean by "dome type", presumably an opaque shade would completely block all light trasmission from the fitted lamp.

We have a completely opaque lamp shade for our kitchen pendant luminaire (an up/down adjustable Ikea one) which quite effectively directs the light downwards onto the kitchen table.

Not in our case. :-)

Presumably that's HDF then.

[Chris J Dixon]

Had one years ago with a rise & fall fitting over the dining table, which was "on trend" at the time. Made it feel like an operating table - we hated it.

Chris

[PeterC]

[Brian Gaff]

Many many moons ago in a diy electronics magazine, there was a project for a mood light shade. The idea as far as i recall, was a globe light that one could change the colour orf with retractable filters. Talk about heath robinson. In those days of courrse we all used ordinary light bulbs, and this contraption needed a void in the ceiling to move the cyliindrical filters around in. It had a black spot facing straight down.

I never built one, but health and safety seemed not to be a problem in the late 1950s! Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

Having survived WWII most adults had a pretty good idea of the many and various alternative ways to die, and be pretty wised up in the art of avoiding them.

It took years of Labour governments to make them scared enough of everything to get most Elfin Safety legislation passed.

[Johny B Good]

I must admit that it's not the best idea in lighting. In our case, the problem is it hangs too low (one of these days I might get around to shortening the flex to optimise the height adjustment range).

Ever since I replaced the 20W LES CFL with a 12W/810L LED 'equivilent'[1], the missus complains about its excess brightness and prefers to dine (and view the kitchen telly) with it switched off, relying on the 36W fluorescent tube fitting in the adjacent kitchen area alone for illumination.

Personally, I prefer the extra illumination to better see what I'm eating. Your 'operating table' analogy is somewhat apt in my case since I like trimming the excess fat from cuts of meat such as bacon and chops[2] so appreciate that extra illumination.

[1] What's often overlooked in these tungsten lamp references is that the common 60W 810L lamp reference now being used is actually the more efficient American 60W 120v 750 hour rated lamp rather than the UK/European 240/220 volt 1000 hour 75W equivilent.

I suspect the less efficent 240/220v 60W tungsten GLS lamp was the basis for the CFL efficiency comparisions 20 odd years ago hence the "60W" LED versions being noticably brighter than the similarly referenced "60W" CFLs of yore.

[2] This was a habit developed as a child that my father noted by telling me I'd make a very good surgeon every time he saw me cutting away fat from the meat. I thought this was rather an exageration of what I felt was a natural desire to eat only the tastiest and most 'nutritional' parts of a cut of meat (I could never understand the appeal of 'Fatty Foods' with 'normal' people).

I guess the privations of my parents' youth must have distorted their perception as to what constituted 'healthy eating' (as it must have for all of that generation). With that and the post war rationing food industries' abuse of commercial advertising, not a good combination for the nation's health (hence the "Obesity Epidemic" in today's UK population of food junkies).

[David]

It may be ironic if it is confirmed that their way of eating is healthier and it isn't fat which is the problem today.

There is a large body of evidence which suggests that eating fat doesn't make you fat - it can help you lose weight.

The sugars added to "low fat" foods to maintain the rich taste are far more harmful than the fat they replace.

There are also a lot of junk carbohydrates available very cheaply.

Google "Ancel Keyes" to find someone who faked statistical data to support a theory that "you are what you eat" i.e. fat makes you fat, cholesterol raises your cholesterol (and presumably pork turns you into a pig).

Theory now suggests that it is carbohydrate (including but not mainly sugar) which makes you fat - and you only have to look around the supermarket at the sweets, cakes, pies and bread lining the shelves to see that our diet is very carbohydrate heavy. Add in the rice (Asian) pizza and pasta (Mediterranean) and the good old burger (American) as well as the good old Brit sandwich (and chips) and our diet has loads of carbohydrate.

Give up carbs, eat more fat, you could end up amazingly skinny. It just isn't a lot of fun when you start, because of carbohydrate addiction.

Cheers

Dave R