Following the last round-up, I decided that it was time to re-populate the ceiling with some new bulbs, as we were down to five and it was getting a bit dark. This was on September 21st; I know this because I tweeted about it at the time:
As luck would have it, I had exactly seven incandescent bulbs left (all bog-standard 40W ones from B&Q), so I was able to exactly fill all the slots and briefly have the full complement of a dozen bulbs blazing down. Needless to say it didn't last.
By September 23rd we'd already lost one, number 4. By September 30th we'd lost number 5 as well, and by October 8th we'd also lost numbers 7, 10 and 12. We're HAEMORRHAGING FILAMENT HERE, PEOPLE.
There is a pattern to the way they've expired, though. The original batch expired in the following order: 2, 3, 10, 4, 5, 12, 7, 1, 11, 9. I replaced 2 and 3 with IKEA LED bulbs, thus effectively taking them out of the equation. The new ones have expired as follows: 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, i.e. the same 5 as last time (different order, admittedly). At this point the only bulbs to remain intact from the batch installed in April are numbers 6 and 8.
So at the weekend I'll install the 5 IKEA LED bulbs I've got in the cupboard (again, spookily, just the right number) and the whole cycle will begin again, although hopefully periodic exploding activity will be confined to the remaining bulbs which are not either long-life or LED, i.e. bulbs 1, 6, 9 and 11. Once these all buy the farm and are replaced with LEDs this particular topic will hopefully be replaced by a yearly bulletin saying NOTHING TO REPORT. We'll see.
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