Forget hard breakfast, where do you stand on Big Light issue? – Kevan Christie

Kevan Christie calls for a public inquiry – or something – into people who leave on main light in the sitting room.

Is your living room for living in or interrogating suspected terrorists like Kevan Christie used to do in his (probably made up) days in the special forces (Picture: iStockphoto/Getty)

Hot on the heels of last week’s ‘fireworks are for eejits’ column, which looks like being adopted as official Scottish Government policy, a new and worrying issue has risen to the top of my busy in-tray.

As the clocks fall back and the dark nights of the winter apocalypse draw in – the time has come to shine a light on the monsters that lurk within our family homes.

The day of reckoning has finally arrived for the hooligan element who hide in plain sight, dear reader, flaunting the boundaries of taste and decency by keeping the Big Light on in their living rooms.

These Big Lighters have gotten away with this ostentatious and frankly crass display of wealth for too long, openly practising their ‘white torture’ techniques of sensory deprivation and isolation that would make the CIA blush.

That’s to say nothing of the environment and the climate which the Big Light harms in a myriad of ways that only a complete lack of knowledge prevents me from expanding on further.

But take it as read folks and you can bet your bottom dollar – Greta T is no lover of the BL.

Now, have a minute to examine the person sitting next to you, be it at work or on the bus, look at your family, those second cousins you only see at funerals – are they sitting of an evening with the Big Light on?

If so, sever all ties immediately before they drag you into their seedy world, watching Eastenders followed by River City, in the harsh glare, under the professionally done pictures of their miracle children.

These criminals, and I make no apology for calling them that, are the antithesis of cozy or ‘coorie’ as fashionable types like to call the ‘new’ craze for lying on the sofa wrapped in a tartan blanket, while watching telly with the wee light on and stuffing Caramel Wafers into your gob.

Mavericks vs real villains

It’s only going to get worse, as Christmas approaches the heathens will have their real trees – and it’s always real trees – shining like distress flares from around the second week in November until mid-January to compound the torture of the Big Light. Throw in a couple of exterior house decorations and your street will quickly come to resemble the Vegas strip.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about Scottish legends like that guy from Ayrshire who festooned his home with 8,500 Christmas lights until neighbours complained about constant sightseers and a court ruling forced him to switch off the festivities. No way – I consider these types, like the pensioner in Fife with his giant cockerel-shaped tree covered in fairy lights, as mavericks. They get a festive pass and a local hero award.

It’s the ten months of the year Big Lighters that I’m after – they’re the real villains.

You’d think Poileas Alba would do something about this, now that they’ve got fancy computers, machine guns, criminal profiling, DNA tests and what not. But no, the Big Lighters remain free to offend, safe in the knowledge that neither the Poileas nor the security services will do anything to deter them. No cozy atmosphere, no making the hoose like the pictures, as you draw the curtains and dim the lights to watch the latest Netflix serial-killer offering, with a hot cup of cocoa and some After Eights. Nope, let’s invite everyone to look into our living room and watch us watching our massive TV.

My time in ‘The Regiment’

I was taken aback by the outpourings of anger the very mention of the Big Light inspires in reasonable people, while doing my in-depth research for this piece.

Sheer hatred was on display and only one person sat on the fence, citing laziness as their excuse for keeping the BL on, but crucially not one of the four people I spoke to defended the fiendish practice. “Eugh, I hate the Big Light” was the common reply.

Think about it – where do you see the Big Light in action? Police stations, the dentist, prisons, schools and at your work – bastions of misery (apart from your work... obviously), where authority figures stalk the corridors of power waiting to inflict pain and suffering.

The Big Light is for ‘the man’, not for the rest of us who like to live our lives in the shadows. There’s a reason it’s used by interrogators around the world with it’s iconic lamp-shadeless image burned into the retinas of the hapless victims.

I experienced this in my time with ‘The Regiment’ back in the 80s but decorum and the Official Secrets Act prevents me from elaborating – maybe some other time.

The Big Light also attracts unannounced visitors, be they rellies who were “just passing” (I live in a cul-de-sac) or worst still political twits wanting to drivel on about elections and a Hard Breakfast.

Nope, I’m no fan of the visitor as anyone who’s been to the Southfork Mansion in Crossgates for a plate of homemade stew will testify. The very thought of guests triggers my Pre Traumatic Stress Disorder but granted it never turns out to be as bad as first feared.

I especially like older visitors as they tend to leave early to avoid driving home in the dark... bless. The low point in all of this hospitality was when my mother popped round and I gave her a bowl of soup I’d already prepared at half-ten in the morning.

Ok, I’m a bad son, destined to spend my twilight years angrier and alone. Big Lighters on the other hand positively welcome the company.

“In you come Mr Jehovah, I’ll just pop the kettle on, you make yourself comfortable – what was that you were saying about an invisible spirit person separate from the Son, Jesus Christ?”

No, it ends here – which is why I’m calling on the Scottish Government on behalf of the people to launch an inquiry or at least set up a hub to investigate the current Big Light crisis.