Bayonet lightbulb bases

[Frank Erskine]

Don't the Yanks use decimal currency?

[Andrew Gabriel]

Dunno about patented (probably), but there are improved safety versions of both BC and ES lampholders available. For the ES lampholder, the common improvement is that the side contact is actually made only deep in the lampholder, so the thread isn't connected until the lamp is screwed right in. This is sometimes combined with something which looks a bit like our HO (Home Office) skirt lampholders, and together, these measures make it harder to touch the live side.

However, in the US where ES predominates, electrical fittings sell only on price. No one will pay any extra for safer or better-made fittings, which is quite different from the UK where safety sells, so much so that safety features are used as competitive advantage between manufacturers, and that competition has generated decades of continuous safety improvements in wiring accessories. If you walk through the electrical section of Home Depot (like B&Q), it's like going back to our 1930's wiring accessories.

[Graham.]

That's interesting. I've never been to the US but I've noticed though watching decades worth of TV and films that their light switches tend to be larger and more clunky than ours, even allowing for double current carrying requirement.

Also the convention of up=off down=on appears to be reversed over there, I wonder how that happened?

[John Williamson]

wonder how that happened?

My experience is that we're the odd ones out, with a lot of the hotels in Germany and France I visit using up=on for light switches. Unless it's just dodgy wiring....

[Andy Dingley]

I think (vaguely) that there are, but they were caused directly by falls from ladders when bulb changing, rather than from the shock itself. Wasn't it this risk that gave rise to the HO skirt?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

wonder how that happened?

IMHO, slightly safer since it's likely to be knocked off, rather than on.

But it's more likely pushing something up would increase things, down decrease. Up for more, down for less.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Andy Dingley saying something like:

I agree. More short skirt-wearing young women should be encouraged to get up ladders.

[Graham.]

wonder how that happened?

You, of all people would know it wasn't always that way round at the beeb.

[Graham.]

I think (vaguely) that there are, but they were caused directly by falls from ladders when bulb changing, rather than from the shock itself. Wasn't it this risk that gave rise to the HO skirt?

What is Home Office in this context? Is it the government department or akin to the term SOHO

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you're referring to audio faders, the BBC was different to the rest of the world because, at the outset, those who were to use them were given the choice. And there are good reasons why it was chosen.

Vision faders at the BBC were the industry norm.