Last Saturday, The Sun newspaper ran an ambitious promotion in conjunction with Southern Electricity. The deal was that for every copy of the paper purchased on that day in certain stores, you were given 2 free low energy light bulbs. The goal, according to the paper, was to give away a total of 4.5 million lightbulbs, thus encouraging many more people to switch at least some of their bulbs and so save electricity and reduce CO2 emissions.

I thought this was a great idea, and so did the public apparently. At any rate, when I managed to get to Sainsburys at around midday on Saturday, there were no bulbs left, and the story was the same across the street at Woolworths, where there was a big sign saying ‘No more Sun lightbulbs’. I am yet to see any details on the success of the operation - nothing in the paper today, but I hope they did hit their target. If not, then they owe me 2 lightbulbs!

I didn’t encounter the same problem the week before, when Londoners were able to take one conventional lightbulb to any London B&Q and exchange it for two energy-saving lightbulbs. This time there were still enough when I turned up, but then the promotion lasted for 3 days and was sponsored by Ken Livingstone, so I suppose it couldn’t be allowed to fail.

Anyway, just in case this becomes a regular occurrence, I have decided to set up ‘bulbwatch’. Basically I will keep my eyes open for any opportunities to get free bulbs, and will publish them on this site. If we’re lucky, maybe we won’t have to buy any more bulbs at all!