Anyway I tried the mains panel and it does work fine except what I
didn't realise is that it also detects low power states such as standby.
So everything goes off when I put the TV into standby. Not what I had in
mind, I wanted it to power down everything else when I physically
switched it off before going to bed. Otherwise to record a programme I
would need the TV and/or STB actually on.


Probably because standby draws such a tiny ammount of current that the panel
assumes the TV is off. No easy fix for this. Maybe use an X10 appliance
module(s) to allow you to send an off signal to everything you want off at
night??