James May - Man Lab - How not to wire a plug.

[Huge]

It's an EU standard, so it makes perfect sense that the earth coloured wire is live.

[The Wanderer]

Yup, got to agree with you there. It's as though the BBC have him under contract and were looking for a program they could put together around him.

He's done one or two moderately interesting progs in the past, but this failed dismally. I thought the whole approach was facile, trite.

[Halmyre]

I think there are (or used to be) some easy-wire (hah!) plugs where all three cables were cut to the same length.

-- Halmyre

[Geo]

Yes - I have seen a few traffic lights recently where they have replaced the red bulb with black...

[Peter Scott]

Yep. In China red is a lucky colour. Gifts are usually wrapped in red envelopes or paper. I agree that brown should be earth and blue the colour of live sparks. Since when did good sense enter the minds of the great and good?

In Africa someone with a cloud over his head isn't miserable but lucky. He's going to get rained on. Isn't 13 a lucky number to Jews?

Peter Scott

[Ian Jackson]

The USA use black ('death') for live, white ('neutral colour'?) for neutral, and green for earth.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I'd say 'earth' (topsoil) is more usually a shade of black - unless covered in grass.

What seems logical to you invariably won't to someone else.

[Mark]

Yes, but at least it is a programme encouraging DIY and not like all the over makeover programmes where you have to get a cowboy^^^^^^expert in to do everything.

I did think the concrete sink was particularly crap.

[Bill Taylor]

That's 'cause you live in London and the soot's still in the soil!

Anywhere else soil is generally some sort of brown colour depending mainly on what's underneath.

Bill

[dennis]

I don't, but the way you and geoff claim to know it all I suppose you and geoff do.

It wouldn't matter anyway as the majority of bombs exploded and the ones that remain were either faulty or delayed and faulty. If you want to explain why you needed anti-tamper on a bomb designed to explode on impact you may do so.

[dennis]

Yes I know but most of the bombs were not time delayed.

Agreed. They do/did dangerous jobs as they were defusing time delayed bombs and they did have anti-tamper for a lot of the time.

It still means geoff was wrong with his statement about the majority of bombs having ant-tamper, only the majority of unexploded ones that were defused.

I like the way they used to drill a hole and melt the explosive from the bomb, taking the fuse out was so much more dangerous. I wonder how those "dragon" type de-fusers would cope with a 500lb bomb? Did the old style HE burn without detonating like C4 does?

[Huge]

M3 2. It can be done right (and has been on Grand Designs) but that was a crap example.

[Michael Chare]

Yes, black = death was mentioned on the programme, I wondered where that come from.

[chris French]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Indeed.

Arguing for certain colours because they are more 'logical' seems fairly pointless.

That the colours are clear, and not confused seems to be the important bit

[PeterC]

The trailer was redolent of Top Gear (of which I've seen only snippets and trailers) so I decided that it'd be FU - and so it seems.

[Andy Dingley]

We have one here in Bristol (search under "Dorkbot") and it seems to be fairly successful. Although if anyone could, you'd expect Bristol to be able to.

[dennis]

Yes, but does that mean they fitted the same fuse to all bombs including those that were never intended to be delayed?

Even if the Germans did, did the allies as the allies dropped far more bombs than Germany did, if they didn't it still makes what geoff said wrong even if the Germans fitted them to every bomb.

[The Wanderer]

But TG has only a tenuous connection to serious motoring. It's become a bloke-orientated entertainment programme.

[Clive George]

Though have you seen how hard they try to attract non-blokes? Eg the audience. I know Richard Hammond has a certain following too.

[Tim Streater]

I agree that some people's knowledge of geography may lead them to believe that the UK is in Africa, China, or the USA, but it in fact is not.