Stephen wrote:
Hello,

We've had two thunderstorms inn the last three days. I realise I am
not sure what are sensible precautions to take and what are old wives'
tales: unplug the tv and don't use the phone seem plausible but keep
away from radiators, windows, and don't have a bath? Are they good
ideas or just mad?

Our tv equipment is plugged into one of those Belkin surge protector
extension leads, as is the computer but they look untidy on the floor.

I don't believe these surge protectors do much except for con people out of
a few extra quid for a 4-gang extention lead. I bet if you took one apart
there would be little more than a couple of capacitors and an inductor or
two to act as dampers, which would cost pence.

They're a bit like the revolutionary "soft eject" of tape decks twenty years
or so ago which consisted of a gob of rocol snotty grease on the mechanism
to load it and has been used on tuning inductors since the 60's Everyone
thought they were really innovative!

The switched mode PSU found in PC's will smooth out any voltage surges
anyway, so the surge protecting sockets are moot! I've never heard of
anyone's PC from crashing because of a voltage spike.