Do you remember in the deep past, if you wanted to extend the flex on your table lamp, you got a 2 pin plug and socket, the same as the one on an electric razor: The UK one, not the continental one with thinner pins?

Recently, my rechargeable razor packed in, no charge in the batteries and a dull foil: Replacing them cost considerably more than a new razor. I only use an electric for a top up shave and would often find the batteries flat, when needed - the Duracell batteries leaked in theone I use for travelling.

So I decided that the best solution was a mains only razor - not easy to find - but I tracked down a Braun in an old fashioned ironmongers for £11.

The only problem is, I needed to extend the flex to my bedside: The 2 pin plug incorporates a step-down transformer; this plugs in to a 2 pin to 3 pin adaptor which plugs in to a 3pin line socket - in total the cumbersome heap, threatens to brain the dog, but more importantly it pulls the little plug out of the bottom of the razor, when I'm shaving.

This would all be resolved if I could locate one of those old UK 2 pin sockets. I would be happy to mail a new style 5 amp adaptor, or the price of one, to anyone who has one knocking about.

To be honest, if bathroom transformer sockets all take the continental size, and adaptors take both, why do the manufacturers not just use the continental size for razors and toothbrushes? The adaptors also seem to all take US flat pins, how many Americans have blown up 110v appliances, not realising the difference?

My research indicates that it is called a BS 4573 plug/socket and is physically similar to the old BS 546 5 amp 2 pin system.

So... this should work? You might need to remove the shutter mechanism though, and technically it shouldn't be wired into a normal circuit....

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/p10080

Thanks for taking the trouble to research it, I wish it were so: Those small 3 pin plugs are used extensively in hotels for switched table lighting circuits, as are the old round pin 15 amp plugs for heavy duty floor polishers etc., as they are for stage lighting.
I had some at home for a circuit switching on four table lights at twilight, so I'm pretty sure that they aren't quite the same spacing. Funny, however, the BS546 spec. says the pins and spacing are the same.
Your research has pointed me in a direction: All I have to do is find someone in India or SA to send me a 2 pin line socket, if no-one here comes up with the goods!

You mean like this?

Ah yes, the 2-pin version has different spacing to the 3-pin version, crazy!

The problem with those are that they have a large isolating/adapting transformer behind them, however it did remind me that you can get single 240v unisolated ones too:

http://www.edwardes.co.uk/externalIndex.jsp?skid=MKEK700WHI

In UK hotels, in my experience, the shaver sockets almost always run at 110V.

What I'm after is the small line socket, dead centre of this picture, you can't miss it, it's the only socket.

Certainly, if you're in a hotel bathroom, you have the wall unit with the isolating/stepdown to 110v transformer, as shewn in Bitt's link, but if you just buy a UK 3 pin to US, European, British 2 pin adaptor like this, you'll be in trouble, I don't know why the adaptors are allowed to offer this facility.

Well I've just got off the phone from an electrical retailer in Jo'berg (That's quite some accent) who says that they no longer have those 2 pin sockets in SA, so it looks like a trip to India, the other place that still uses UK round pins: I've always wanted to go on those three hill railways!

No surprise there