Andy Wade wrote in
:

mike wrote:

How come the Germans haven't joined in the "unified" colour coding then?

The have so far as flexible cord colours are concerned. TTBOMK that's
been fully harmonised since around 1970. Harmonisation of colours for
fixed wiring has taken much longer and until earlier this year the UK
was odd-man-out in allowing black for neutral.

snip info

Ow - a bit more to it than I'd realised Thanx

mike