I noted that the Govt have a plan to make normal filament bulbs obsolete in a few years, and encourage us to use low energy fluorescent ones. Is it possible to use a dimmer on these?
Unfortunately you cannot dim a mini compact fluorescent lamp, the only thing you can do is buy a lower wattage lamp, say a 5, 7 or 9 watt as they wont be as bright as an 11 or 13 watt as the 11 is the same as a 60 watt filament lamp and a 21 watt is the same as a 100 watt filament lamp....
So in effect everybody with dimmer switches has got to get the sparks in to change dimmer to on/off, in order to keep HMG happy. So much for economising!