Thanks for your replies folks.
From watching the tutorial again, and examining a plug more closely, I have established that the left plug hole is the neutral and the right is the live on a UK three plug socket.
I decided to have a go at measuring the AC voltage across a multigang extension plug socket. Gotta learn sometime. So, I checked the probes were connected to the correct sockets of my multimeter, switched the dial to AC voltage (max 500V), and very carefully inserted the probes, black one into neutral and red into live.
Imagine my disappointment, when I got a reading of 0.00V.
Yes the plug socket was switched on.
Does anyone have any idea what I was doing wrong?
I have the option of switching to a more sensitive voltage measurement on the multimeter, but I didn't think this would be a good idea, as it says 200V max and I am expecting the mains voltage to be around 230-240V.
Is it possible that my plug socket has some kind of safety guard inside to prevent accidents happening due to things being inserted into it?
I am sure that the zero reading is not due to the plug socket being dead, as it seems to work fine otherwise, and I tried two of the four sockets on the extension multigang.
Any ideas?
Thanks
Richard