This is more of a rant than anything else. Does anyone else have problems with these lights?

We've got them in the kitchen (and the living room, but we never use them in there) and they keep failing. It was costing me enough before, but now the energy saving, long life ones are costing more and failing even more quickly. Whereas I might have got about 3-4 months out of a bulb and it would cost me a couple of quid, it's now costing more like four quid and only lasting a couple of weeks. I have taken six back to Robert Dyas, and have another three to go back, but I'm thinking they'll refuse to take them back soon.

Is this normal or should I get an electrician in as I'm tempted to do?

It's not normal!

Can you check your voltage? If it's significantly over 240V then that would dramatically shorten the bulb life.

If it is, you'll have to report it. It can't be caused by faulty house wiring, but in areas with very old and overloaded distribution the generators are sometimes ramped-up to compensate for the transmission loss. That can lead to very high voltages off-peak. It's also possible that you're on a standby generator, or that something has been replaced recently, or maybe it's a conspiracy. My parents recently had a fault were the voltage was over 330V because of a crossed phase.

Otherwise, I'd start buying your bulbs somewhere else.

I'll get an electrician to check it. It's a recently refurbished (5 years ago) Sawmill, so the electrics are completely new. That said, there is an old water wheel which is hooked up to 3 phase, that is supposed to turn round, but doesn't – shouldn't have anything to do with it though, I would have thought.

Definitely get it checked out. I haven't seen one of those fail inside about 4-5 years daily use... I would expect an energy saver to last even longer.