

They are also weirdly patriotic about their plugs. Suggesting that BS1363 was driven by necessity of poor wiring standards rather than being a gift from God to her chosen people is tantamount to standing in the street and pissing on the Union Jack.
(Source: Am British. Well, was. BS1363 plugs are very nice. But honestly, Schuko is fine as well. They’re just plugs.)





Easier, but more expensive. The driver for the ringmain system was to save money (& copper) by using less & cheaper cable in the walls than an equivalent radial layout (as used everywhere else in the world.) It has half as many fuses and uses less wire than radials, with the only downsides being risk of fire and some horrible undetectable failure modes - what’s not to love?
(e.g. Undetectable failure: if there is a break in the cable in the wall (bad DIY, say,) everything still works - because although you broke the ring, the other end of each half is still connected, and all your appliances still work. So now you have two 24A radials in your walls, connected to a 32A breaker, and nothing stopping one of those cables being overloaded (if the break is nearer one end than the middle, it’s practically guaranteed that the longer half is overloaded.) Horrible design.)