[Herald1360]

'twas olive cones when I were a lad; later on a set of chinese lanterns was acquired. These were both 12 lamp sets. By the time I was 10 or so it was my job to get them working each year. My fault finding technique was to start at the live end and poke a neon screwdriver into the holder to see when it didn't light, then back one...... as often as not though, the set would wake up as a bulb was screwed back in- must have been loose to start with.

A couple of years later with 12 year old disregard for safety, I added a couple of extra holders (the screw terminal batten mount type that Woolworths sold) in series with the neutral end of each string- we never had a bulb failure after that. Same principle as the 180V transformer mentioned above but not so safety conscious!

I do remember the British made olives had a nice crisp sort of geometric cone shape where the made in Hong Kong cheapies were more rounded and sort of blobbier.