But the REAL question is, why does a UK based poster posting to a uk
newsgroup choose to call his valves "tubes"?

David.

I speak English, French and Norwegian and some Spanish and Russian, so
I have no intrinsic preference for English though I love the language
and have published 5 books in English. I've also lived abroad in
France and Norway.

Language - especially English - is very relative and is constantly
changing in accent and usage. I love idiomatic English and all it's
huge arsenal of slang from many countries. I'm not "attached" to
either RP or English usage, since it constantly changes.

So I'm not going to fly the flag here, guys. There's much more
activity in valves/tubes in the USA than here, and because the rest of
the world tends to get their information from Americans and US
websites, I'm quite happy to use the term which has more international
currency which in this case is "tubes". I'll use the word "valves" as
well, especially to English people who prefer to use it, but generally
speaking I've adapted to the most general usage.

Having said all that I prefer "anode" to "plate" and I still use the
spelling "kathode" because it corresponds to "k".

Could be I'm just contrary!

Andy