A Different Type Of UK Plug

British plugs are large by international standards. The story goes that in an attempt to save on copper wiring in a post World War 2 Britain each plug was wired through new homes in series. This created the problem of a lot of voltage behind each socket. To help prevent people from being electrocuted the BS 1363 Standard was created. In this each plug was given it's own fuse, an earth, a socket on/off switch and a shutter cover inside the socket so that the socket would only accept compatible plugs. The result of all this is was very large large plug.

After spending my life unfortunately standing on these with their prongs pointing upwards as they tend to do I was delighted to see (by way of Engadget) a slimline British plug design.

And the designer is looking to get it into production, so we might be seeing it soon in Ireland, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Yemen, Oman, Jordan, Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar, Botswana, Ghana, Hong Kong, Macau, Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Nigeria, Mauritius, Iraq, Kuwait, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe (yes I just lifted that from wikipedia).