this is a Kucing Malaysia (Malaysia cat) BTW
@Izbeckistan 701906 wrote:
I think UK plug sockets are ESPECIALLY bad to stand on. Much much worse than lego.
also a problem in Malaysia where they are also widely used; but although kids have as much lego and gadgets ias in the west below teenage years they do not always have their own bedroom so they would not have as many gadgets; plus small appliances there often have a 2 pin Europlug on them rather than the UK one.
This does (or did) get incorrectly jammed into a 13A socket on a 4-way strip by pushing down the earth pin; once known as “Chinaman wiring” (I have been known to do it in the past) but this term is now not PC and inaccurate as the practice was common to all ethnicities (Malays and Indians were just as bad for this is not worse. Today there are safer alternatives such as a mixed BS1363 / CEE7 multiway (although the CEE7s should have separate 6A fuse and usually these multiways do not)
TBH in the UK many appliances are sold with this Europlug but with an special 13A adaptor fitted over it and screwed on (you wouldn’t notice it unless you were looking closely or needed to replace the 3A fuse) but that just reintroduces the hazard of stepping from the plug.
Another thing I remember from the 1970s [both in UK and MY] was multi way sockets home made with any random combination of sockets (BS546 round pin, 2 and 3 pin varieties) just mounted to meter board or random bit of wood; an offcut of flex and hopefully the correct fuse in the plug top (not all plug sockets in UK were fused – the round pin ones which you are very unlikely to see today unless you urbex old buildings or are a theatre lighting tech were still common in old buildings
). Many younger people reading this may not even have seen them These extension boards were often found in junior schools because one half of the school had new wiring and the other old.
these are the old ones; I don’t remember stepping on them being as much of a hazard but I’m not that old 😉 – other than my first junior school when I encountered them they would be used for specialist purposes such as stage lighting or switching a table lamp from the wall switches of a 6A general lighting circuit so leads terminated with such plug tops would be unlikely to be left just lying around…
It was also perfectly normal for kids age 7-13 in the UK to put plugs on their own electric gadgets if they could read and knew the colour code (you got taught it in high school anyway) and use soldering irons and all sorts of dangerous things – usually (but not always) with parental supervision. This must seem horrendously dangerous today but surprisingly few of our generation who were properly taught actually got shocked or electrocuted or set fires with their wiring…..
