I get a little bit patriotic sometimes
and sometimes that's for comedy purposes
and sometimes it's genuine and this is
genuine because I really do believe that
the British plug is one of the greatest
designs that has ever hit the world for
lugs of reasons when there's a safety
feature that most folks at least in
Britain love which is that it's really
difficult for a kid to take say a
screwdriver and just poke it into one of
the holes because up here is earth
ground the Americans that's a safety one
these two here are live in neutral where
the actual dangerous but they've got
shutters over them I cannot don't try
this at home I cannot focus screwdriver
in there right now what I have to do is
plug the earth pin or chance is slightly
longer at the ground pin here in first
and when that goes in little shutters
come up unlike the other pins it so I
can show that because this extension
here is really badly designed which
means I can put the plug in upside down
so if you have a look at those shutters
when I put the earth pin there we go and
there's now a contact the other two pins
so you need to have a really inventive
baby to be able to put one in there and
another in there and then get a shot
with us safer that's brilliant
what about to leave the plug halfway out
because American Europeans uppity leave
the plug halfway out you've got live
electricity you can count touch you can
get a finger in there well not here
because on the live and neutral pins on
the bottom NC insulation extends halfway
through them if the plug is far enough
in to make a connection like that all
you can touch is the insulation okay so
that's the obvious safety features what
about on the inside because you can
remember until in 1992 the British
government did not require that
electrical appliances had plugs on them
you bought a toaster or a washing
machine you would get almost always a
bare wire at the end and you'd expected
to why the flood yourself so I got
taught how to wire a plug in school
because that was still have acquired
skill back there here we go if I open
this up first there's a fuse and that's
an artifact of when the standard was
made post-world War two that was a
copper shortage and well it was a lot
cheaper to require a fuse in every plug
and just
build the circuit has one loop of cable
going around the whole house that he
wants to have loads of individual copper
strands going out all over the house the
fewest reach so just made the house one
giant circuit put it to use in each plug
now safer then you've got the three
wires blue is neutral B L L for left
blue goes to the left brown is live
B R R goes to the right live goes to the
right you can also remember that live is
brown because that's the color your
trousers will go if you accidentally hit
yourself with it and find out that this
one the green and yellow
that's the earth or the ground wire now
in normal operation that shouldn't be
used but it's basically a return path if
all else fails if something goes
electrically wrong in the plug or in the
appliance that will ground it and all
the electricity will safely go away from
people if that disconnect and there's a
problem well you could touch the metal
bit of this toaster and the electricity
could ground itself through you and
through your heart which is bad so
instead you have this Y here and this is
the really clever bit this is a bit that
not many people know about you see that
slack in the wire just here in the event
there's a tug on this cable something
goes wrong and all these stop fraying
and coming out the live and the neutral
the ones where the danger is Dale get
Paul to help first and then the earth
wire will come out next so in the event
of damage your frame it's most likely
that the earth wire is gonna the safe
one and no one's gonna get killed
so there you go the British plug
genuinely one of the best bits of design
I've ever come across with one exception
which is that if you just let it fall on
the ground because you know you just
thrown something out the winding it will
almost certainly end up with the points
pointing upwards which means in the
middle of the night when you stand on it
it is really gonna hurt you not remember
up because the live one is brown because
that's the colour your trousers will go
if you accidentally hit yourself with it
and the big yellow okay that no one ever
does