British Plugs are the best

I will accept that Britain has got plenty of things wrong over the years. The plug is not one of them.

British plugs are ludicrously overengineered for the extremely mundane job of getting electricity from a wall into a toaster. They’re individually fused. The earth pin is longer, so it connects first. On most sockets it physically opens shutters covering the live and neutral contacts. Our sockets generally have switches on them because apparently we don’t even trust electricity when we’re not using it.

They’re chunky, awkward and seemingly designed to land pins-up whenever dropped on a floor, but that’s the price of greatness.

The really interesting bit is that none of this appeared fully formed. The modern BS 1363 plug is tied to Britain’s post-war rebuilding and the adoption of ring circuits, which created some very British engineering requirements and resulted in the tiny fuse inside every plug.

So yes, they’re enormous.

Yes, stepping on one is one of the few experiences that makes LEGO seem merciful.

But they’re still the best plugs.