ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
A community elder from Betoota Heights has once again ignored several decades of energy efficiency advice in favour of what he calls “just being able to bloody see.”
Len Hargrave, a 67-year-old retired tech teacher, was spotted at the East Betoota Mitre 10 this morning grabbing a basketful of 100W incandescent light bulbs, insisting loudly to the teenage cashier that “the government can jam their leftie LEDs.”
Hargrave, who avoids Bunnings on principle because they’re “owned by cunts” who “rip off farmers and everyone else,” says he makes a point of shopping local. That includes supporting the hardware shop where “they don’t try to tell you what wattage you’re legally allowed to use in your own bloody house.”
“I don’t like dim,” he told The Advocate.
“I don’t want lamps. Lamps are for poofs. I want to walk into a room, hold me hand up to the light and see me bones [sic].”
Neighbours say Len’s house glows like a mid-size stadium, like Ballymore or Concord, and that walking past his house of an evening, it looks like Len is “living in a collapsing star.”
“It’s like a White Dwarf in there,” said one local.
“His lounge room throws shadows on the hills two suburbs over. You can’t drive past without your pupils constricting. We can tell when he goes home from the club because we get a brown out while the grid sorts itself out.”
While incandescent bulbs were phased out of most Australian shelves over a decade ago, Mitre 10 staff say Len buys them in bulk whenever there’s a rumour they’ll be pulled from supply again.
“He’s stockpiling them like they’re smokes in prison,” said one young floor worker.
“Swears by ’em. Doesn’t care if they cost more to run. Says it’s worth it to not feel like he’s living in a bloody candlelit vegan café.”
Hargrave says he’ll keep buying them until they’re all gone, when that day comes, he does not know.
More to come.
