Wednesday 25-10-2006

Isn’t technology wonderful, some times?
When the gennys go off at night, very late, Elayne and I read for a while by torch light (rather romantic don‘t you think?). We have several torches ranging from the big 4 x U2 battery type to the small 2 x AA battery type torch that costs about £8.50 in Halfords.
The other day the ‘big’ torch stopped working, so I replaced the batteries, at great expense, only to find that the bulb had blown. To prove the theory that the bulb had blown, and without any forethought or brain engagement at all, I took the bulb out of the small torch, placed it in the ‘big’ torch, where upon it glowed very brightly for a few seconds and blew as well. How did I manage to survive for twenty years in the electrical division of the papermaking industry without being found out? In five or six years time transformers across the entire world will be going down like nine pins through my electrical know how and expert advice.
Searching for a shop here that actually sells torch bulbs is a long job. Searching for a place that has anything other than 0.5 and 1.5 volt bulbs is an impossibility. I need one 4.5 volt and a 8.5 volt bulb. No way Jose, not on your Spanish life!!
We continue the search of course (me being a tight fisted Yorkshire man etc, etc)but by now I am thinking that it might be just as easy to buy, yet, another new torch or two with bulbs already in situ and add some batteries from my stock at home.
Anyway next to the Mercadona supermarket in Albox is a Chinese knick knack shop that sells allsorts of cheap and badly made items imported direct from China. The proprietors are Chinese so they shout Spanish at you as though you’d had the temerity to order two number 54’s despite the ‘out of stock sign’ on page twenty four of the Chinese restaurant menu.
Whilst I’m searching in this shop for a cost effective replacement torch, which are coming out at about €2.5 to €4, I spy some boxes that talk about ‘the everlasting torch’ that needs no batteries. O! yes have we heard this before or what? You get them home and they die within ten minutes.
Well these little torches looked quite well made and only cost €2.5 each. I bought two just in case they were any good at all and until we can find bulbs for the other serious torches.
Back at the van I unpack the torches, read the instructions (which are a very funny translation from Chinese to English) and switch on the torches. They generate their electricity by a loose magnet in the torch sliding up and down inside and past a coil. Tip the torch up a few times and it generates enough power to give off a light.
Surprise, surprise, they are actually very good. Outside in the dark they give off a blue light which is adequate. I keep leaving them on around the caravan to see how long the light stays on for, but as yet I have given up a long time before the torch has.
At this rate I should sell the big torches at a car boot sale and buy ten more of these everlasting ones. I could buy loads and export them to Halfords where they could sell for about £10 each.
Now where did I put my solar powered calculator?