can you measure the voltage? If its half mains voltage, its because there are 2 capacitors, one from live to earth, one from neutral to earth... If the earth isn't there in the middle, then you can get 110v (half 240) on the neutral line (and the outer of many AC to DC converters) becuase they act as a potential divider... There is little driving current behind the voltage (the capacitors will be at large impedance at such low frequencies) but can be noticeable when working with stripped wires because if one breaks the skin slightly it makes me jump!!!
NEAL
---------- Post added at 16:38 ---------- Previous post was at 16:37 ----------
There wil always be a small ammount of voltage accross neutral and earth because of the volt drop in the wiring for the neutral, but I've not managed to light more than an LED