Bitterjug’s blog

I mentioned, in a previous entry, that I have started keeping a box in my kitchen into which I throw things destined for recycling that might be useful for projects. Well even back then I had already started. I just hadn’t got a camera.This is my new lamp (crappy picture taken wit a webcam I’m afraid).

It’s made from a tin that had black olives in it (yum!)

…and the cork from wine bottle:

This is what happens when I turn it on:

The bulb is one of those old-school low-power ones that has to get warmed-up to the job of giving light. I found it in the kitchen in my appartment where it was a bit dim for locating midnight snacks.
After a few minutes it looks like this:

I first saw this kind of bulb years ago at De Montfort University, in the Queen’s Building; there was a lecture theatre which had several of them in large white globe shades. When I turned on the lights there was a slow sunrise in the room that lasted about ten minutes. I wanted one of those in my bedroom.

And now I have one. Thanks to a cheap timer-switch from Brico Depot, I get a personal indoor sunrise each morning between 6:00 and 6:10. Much nicer for waking up to than an alarm clock. The days are getting shorter up here but my new olive-lamp reminds me of my time in Kenya (about 50km south of the Equator) where the sun would reliably wake up at the same time each morning all year round.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 1:36 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.