a ring main is where your live / neutral / earth starts at the fuse board and goes to the 1st socket.............. then from the 1st to the 2nd and so on till you reach your last socket then you go back to the fuse 
a spur is where you take a 3rd wire ( live / neutral / earth and take it to another socket ( a max of 4 sockets can be spured off a ring ) 
a radial is where you come out of the fuseboard ( like in a ring ) and go upto a max of 4 sockets then stop ! these are normally on a 15 or 20amp fuse 
You really need to go slightly more in depth if you are going to start explaining what's what with the juice.
A very high percentage here don't have a clue, and your "generalisation" isn't going to help IMO.
Hmmm, better have a look behind there then, drag the dishwasher out and get behind the units. :-(
You are less than 20 miles from me Chris.
My working hours are as follows:
Mon - Thur 9am - 3pm
Fri - 9am - 12 noon
Now ignoring the fact that I work according to pub opening hours, if you are seriously that worried about the lx in your home then I am more than happy to give it a full inspect/test while you ply me with lager for the duration (no more than 2 hours).
Full report at the end, and the only charge is a drink if you are REALLY that worried.
Not worried at all in all honesty, but thanks very much for the offer :-). I just dont like not understanding these things. In the course of this thread its clear serious training, or at least a heavy interest, is needed to understand it fully, or to a decent level at least.
Its not something i'm going to pick up in 5 mins. But put something in front of me and i'll usually find whats wrong. I just wont know the correct terminology or the mathematics and symbols.....
Like tiger said earlier about a spur, i knew what it was when he described it, i just didnt know what it was called before hand.
I think maybe i need a little project and learn hands on.... hang on, i'll see if i can find it. :-)