Quote:
Originally Posted by G6Tanuki
bayonet lampholder-plugs. I recall seeing a toaster powered this way back in my student-days.
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Back in my student days I had a landlady who was extremely parsimonious. This extended to having no mains sockets in the rooms she rented out to students so that they couldn't use electricity which she would have had to pay for. The only supply in the room was indeed the bayonet lamp socket. Plugging anything in was risky as when I came home she immediately went to look at the electricity meter. If it was still daylight outside and the meter started turning then I immediately got shouted at as it looked as if I had turned the light on unnecessarily. My razor had a bayonet lamp plug on as that was the only way to plug it in. I rented a TV and when they came to install it they had to plug that into the lamp socket as well. They were a bit dubious about doing it but it was either that or lose the rental. The landlady increased the rent by 10p to cover the electricity.
A bit later I moved into a hall of residence. That was pretty much the same. However there was water in the rooms. We physicists had the luxury of a lamp to 13A adapter with a real earth connected to the water tap. Worked fine for electric kettles. By coincidence, my son ended up in the same hall of residence thirty years later. In the meantime they had installed proper mains sockets.