to just want to buy a flipping light bulb

[SlightlyJaded]

... that isn't Vintage or Retro with visible elements. Or LED or halogen or colour changing or mood enhancing or neon or any other such new fangled cleverness.

I went to homebase today to replace some lightbulbs for side lamps in our living room. In old money, they were 40W bayonet bulbs and historically the only choice i had to make was clear or cloudy glass.

Now... NOW I don't even understand what the new money equivalent of that is, and I couldn't find one fucking bulb that wasn't any of the new fangled newness of above. Or didn't have some new wattage, sorry 'lumens' number that I didn't understand.

I left with a good old Farrow and Ball paintchart instead

Well you don't need to know the wattage if you are using old light shades. The new led ones are much lower in energy use. All sub 15W so they'll be safe for all old light fittings. What you'll find is the new light shades are only LED safe. Many of the new ones I bought are like that.

Oh, and they’re generally non- dimable unless you spend a fortune meaning you waste energy on creating more light than you need while creating an environment that is completely un-relaxing.

And this shows your complete non understanding of what energy is. The new LED bulbs will use less energy even if you dim the old incandescent bulbs. A 100W is now only 13W (if you buy those 1300 lumens ones). Wattage is the energy used. It's not how bright it is.

And halogen bulbs are dimmable and still widely available.

I say the same every time I have to go and buy a light bulb OP.

Light fitting in one of our bathrooms has 3 bulbs. 2 of them blew at the same time. I knew we had bought the light in Homebase so thought I would go there, look for the light and see which bulbs it said on the box - only they no longer sel this light - which we've had for 2 years max. Fortunately I took one of the old bulbs with me and a member of staff was able to identify the type but........ in a whole aisle of light bulbs they didn't have this particular bulb and I had to go elsewhere and buy it (now armed with the bulb type so Homebase's loss).

We bought some new replacement lights for the kitchen. They are so dim i have to put on the cooker hood light and all the under cabinet lights as well just to cook dinner. So NOT energy efficient at all!