In an unprecedented display of preparedness I have officially opened the Festive Season.
Having an enforced storage area in Bluespace means that I have the luxury of making a trip to somewhere other than the perilous heights of the attic to get all the carefully stored Christmas decorations. My storage space is in the middle of a purpose built depository in the middle of an Industrial Estate which was complete deserted today as it was a Bank Holiday. Deserted that is except for a lone slow cyclist who made me pause frustratingly just at the entrance to Bluespace.
As far as I could tell I was the only person in the place as I walked towards my little storage room. It is easy to get delusions of grandeur as you walk along the yellow door studded corridors as each corridor lights up before you as you enter it. One almost feels like giving a grandiloquent wave of the arms and saying ‘Fiat lux!’ as a new corner is turned – though you never know who might be coming round the corner as the same time as you, so silence is probably the best policy!
As I once had an allergic reaction to what was probably a dipped real Christmas tree, I have used the experience to justify having an artificial tree – though I have discovered that I also have an allergic reaction while trying to arrange the branches into something vaguely resembling a concept of the natural. I have, it must be admitted, been told that this is not an allergic reaction but merely lack of patience. Well, at least you don’t come out in an unsightly rash.
Setting up the Christmas tree was deceptively simple so I was prepared for the mare’s nest of interlocking (I use the word advisedly) wires of the various sets of lights that I have acquired.
As I had plenty of time and no distractions I determined to be reasonable and logical when it came to untwisting, unscrambling and disengaging the glittering mass which looked like a Disney cartoon version of the Sargasso Sea.
When that didn’t work I decided to limit my task by a system of elimination. I stopped trying to bring order to the self convoluting horror of the sets and settled only to disentangle those sets which were fully working. A single dark bulb and the whole set was discarded. When I say ‘discarded’ I do not of course mean that I threw it away. Oh no, that would be wasteful and make me merely part of the throw-away culture. So, the discarded sets were carefully left in their tangled state, put in a plastic bag and replaced in the ‘lights’ box. Where they will probably stay for the next twenty years; carefully tested every year to see if there is any change just as if light bulbs have a certain regenerative quality!
There is one great difference between lights from my youth and lights nowadays. The first set of ‘fairy’ lights we had as a family (or at least that I can remember) was a string of twelve multicoloured lights of a vaguely pear drop shape and they were linked in a circle. This meant that ‘one light out: all lights out’ so that you had to have a double faith when trying to find the blown bulb.
Sometimes it was just that one or more of the bulbs had unscrewed a little from their holders, so when darkness settled upon the tree the first line of attack was to tighten and trust to luck. That almost never worked, but like a British Men’s Champion at Wimbledon was always a fond hope.
The more common approach to restoring gaudy illumination is where faith came into the equation. You first needed to believe that you had one bulb which you ‘knew’ was OK. Using this working glass grail you had to go round the whole ring of lights replacing each in turn to find the dead one.
The second element of faith was believing that god would not be so cruel as to allow two bulbs to blow simultaneously.
One year tightening and replacing did not achieve the required result. The idea of replacing the lights did not even enter our heads: the lights were made by Pifco for goodness sake, with a picture of a threatening fairy of mature years on the box cover – they were the stuff of heirlooms and had to be made to work.
The answer lay in an old battery: one of those that I never see nowadays – a large thing with two (or was it one) flat flange of yellow metal poking out of the top. By placing the end of the bulb on one pit of metal and touching the flange on the screw part of the bulb it could be encouraged to emit a timid flickering gleam.
The bulbs were tested and the two (god can be cruel!) faulty bulbs were discarded with a certain amount of reluctance as these were two of the original bulbs whose colour was peeling off the glass and gave what we considered an interestingly sparkly effect to the lighting.
We then discovered that we did not have two replacements, and the corner shop (Mr Wilkins’) did not have any either.
An unlit tree is one thing; but a tree that cannot be lit is an abomination in the sight of the lord. I think that my little face must have spoken volumes as my dad disappeared in the Bonomini (don’t ask!) and returned with bulbs enough to light up the face of a doubting boy as well as the tree itself.
Having got the lights to work the next problem was always draping them around the tree, the circular construction of the set forcing you to lasso the tree to get the lights around it. This sometimes necessitated a flick of the wrist which, on one occasion, caused one bulb to hit the wall and explode.
The sets of lights I have are all modern. They are in a string. A string has an end so disentangling them has two fruitful approaches: the plug end and the ‘end’ end. This way means that when one approach becomes impossible you can retreat to the other end and work you way forwards and that end’s disentanglement usually means that when you start on the other end you . . . well, you get the idea. Keeps me sane anyway!
The other great difference is that new sets of lights have irreplaceable bulbs; not in terms of expense, it is merely that they are impossible to replace. They are therefore fully in step with the onward mark of consumerism: if one light doesn’t work then throw them all away.
I spurn such a shallow and dismissive approach and assure all shining lights on my tree that when their brilliance finally dims there is a black plastic bag in the light box waiting to receive them.
How green is that! (Rhetorical)
Having an enforced storage area in Bluespace means that I have the luxury of making a trip to somewhere other than the perilous heights of the attic to get all the carefully stored Christmas decorations. My storage space is in the middle of a purpose built depository in the middle of an Industrial Estate which was complete deserted today as it was a Bank Holiday. Deserted that is except for a lone slow cyclist who made me pause frustratingly just at the entrance to Bluespace.
As far as I could tell I was the only person in the place as I walked towards my little storage room. It is easy to get delusions of grandeur as you walk along the yellow door studded corridors as each corridor lights up before you as you enter it. One almost feels like giving a grandiloquent wave of the arms and saying ‘Fiat lux!’ as a new corner is turned – though you never know who might be coming round the corner as the same time as you, so silence is probably the best policy!
As I once had an allergic reaction to what was probably a dipped real Christmas tree, I have used the experience to justify having an artificial tree – though I have discovered that I also have an allergic reaction while trying to arrange the branches into something vaguely resembling a concept of the natural. I have, it must be admitted, been told that this is not an allergic reaction but merely lack of patience. Well, at least you don’t come out in an unsightly rash.
Setting up the Christmas tree was deceptively simple so I was prepared for the mare’s nest of interlocking (I use the word advisedly) wires of the various sets of lights that I have acquired.
As I had plenty of time and no distractions I determined to be reasonable and logical when it came to untwisting, unscrambling and disengaging the glittering mass which looked like a Disney cartoon version of the Sargasso Sea.
When that didn’t work I decided to limit my task by a system of elimination. I stopped trying to bring order to the self convoluting horror of the sets and settled only to disentangle those sets which were fully working. A single dark bulb and the whole set was discarded. When I say ‘discarded’ I do not of course mean that I threw it away. Oh no, that would be wasteful and make me merely part of the throw-away culture. So, the discarded sets were carefully left in their tangled state, put in a plastic bag and replaced in the ‘lights’ box. Where they will probably stay for the next twenty years; carefully tested every year to see if there is any change just as if light bulbs have a certain regenerative quality!
There is one great difference between lights from my youth and lights nowadays. The first set of ‘fairy’ lights we had as a family (or at least that I can remember) was a string of twelve multicoloured lights of a vaguely pear drop shape and they were linked in a circle. This meant that ‘one light out: all lights out’ so that you had to have a double faith when trying to find the blown bulb.
Sometimes it was just that one or more of the bulbs had unscrewed a little from their holders, so when darkness settled upon the tree the first line of attack was to tighten and trust to luck. That almost never worked, but like a British Men’s Champion at Wimbledon was always a fond hope.
The more common approach to restoring gaudy illumination is where faith came into the equation. You first needed to believe that you had one bulb which you ‘knew’ was OK. Using this working glass grail you had to go round the whole ring of lights replacing each in turn to find the dead one.
The second element of faith was believing that god would not be so cruel as to allow two bulbs to blow simultaneously.
One year tightening and replacing did not achieve the required result. The idea of replacing the lights did not even enter our heads: the lights were made by Pifco for goodness sake, with a picture of a threatening fairy of mature years on the box cover – they were the stuff of heirlooms and had to be made to work.
The answer lay in an old battery: one of those that I never see nowadays – a large thing with two (or was it one) flat flange of yellow metal poking out of the top. By placing the end of the bulb on one pit of metal and touching the flange on the screw part of the bulb it could be encouraged to emit a timid flickering gleam.
The bulbs were tested and the two (god can be cruel!) faulty bulbs were discarded with a certain amount of reluctance as these were two of the original bulbs whose colour was peeling off the glass and gave what we considered an interestingly sparkly effect to the lighting.
We then discovered that we did not have two replacements, and the corner shop (Mr Wilkins’) did not have any either.
An unlit tree is one thing; but a tree that cannot be lit is an abomination in the sight of the lord. I think that my little face must have spoken volumes as my dad disappeared in the Bonomini (don’t ask!) and returned with bulbs enough to light up the face of a doubting boy as well as the tree itself.
Having got the lights to work the next problem was always draping them around the tree, the circular construction of the set forcing you to lasso the tree to get the lights around it. This sometimes necessitated a flick of the wrist which, on one occasion, caused one bulb to hit the wall and explode.
The sets of lights I have are all modern. They are in a string. A string has an end so disentangling them has two fruitful approaches: the plug end and the ‘end’ end. This way means that when one approach becomes impossible you can retreat to the other end and work you way forwards and that end’s disentanglement usually means that when you start on the other end you . . . well, you get the idea. Keeps me sane anyway!
The other great difference is that new sets of lights have irreplaceable bulbs; not in terms of expense, it is merely that they are impossible to replace. They are therefore fully in step with the onward mark of consumerism: if one light doesn’t work then throw them all away.
I spurn such a shallow and dismissive approach and assure all shining lights on my tree that when their brilliance finally dims there is a black plastic bag in the light box waiting to receive them.
How green is that! (Rhetorical)
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