The 'Joule Thief'' (Pun on 'Jewel Thief')

[Nick]

Ah yes - I first saw this 10+ year back on Big Clive's site:

Big Clive (Clive Mitchell) is one of the Telsa/HV group that I do some stuff with - he's a bright guy.

The "Joule Thief" is Clive's name (he coined the term) for his variant of a circuit that was published in the November 1999 issue of EPE by Z. Kaparnik.

The circuit appears all over the web now, in various forms - it sort of went viral a few years back...