An Aldi shopper has warned others after the recent ‘explosion’ of a burning candle.
Cath Lewis-Clugston, a fan of the budget supermarket, was left angry after a candle shattered on the evening of December 13th.
She was left with a mess of hot wax and dangerous shards of glass in her living room.
The 58-year-old from Matlock in Derbyshire bought one of Aldi’s substitutes for Yankee Candles, the Aldi Black Forest Gateau candle.
The candle with a whopping 170 hour burn time is currently on sale on the Aldi website for £3.99, and has proven popular with candle lovers.
Ms Lewis-Clugston said she had several candles burning that evening when all of sudden she heard a loud bang and her cat to sprinting upstairs.
She told the Sheffield Star: “I noticed the candle had gone out.” But on closer inspection she saw that the flame hadn’t just gone out, but that the glass jar had shattered.
She added: “I went over and there were large chunks of glass scattered about on the coffee table, I had the candle on a wicker mat, and there was wax all over the place. I thought, ‘It’s exploded.’
“I am somebody who likes to burn scented candles, and I’ve burned them for years and years, quite often Yankee ones, but other ones as well. Never once has this happened. This is the only time.”
Luckily, neither Ms Lewis-Clugston nor her cat Lizzie was harmed in the incident. She said: “It was just lucky I wasn’t sitting next to it, or there weren’t kids or anyone else around.
“I am a retired police officer. I can say I’ve been to house fires in my job that have been caused by far less than things like that.
“After I realised what it was, I was really quite angry. It clearly isn’t fit for purpose if it can’t withstand the heat from the flame, and it shouldn’t be sold.”
After the incident, Ms Lewis-Clugston took to social media to see if other people had experienced similar issues with Aldi candles.
Last year in December, a mother said her son was ‘nearly blinded’ when the supermarket candle exploded across the room. Emma Landers told the Liverpool Echo that the Aldi Number 3 candle was placed on their fireplace before it became ‘like a bomb’.
Earlier this year in July, Maisie Sutton shared a similar experience warning people not to buy the candle after it had been lit for 10 minutes.
More recently, in October this year, Emily Redfearn posted pictures of her Aldi Coconut Noir Candle in pieces on Twitter. She wrote: “Hey @AldiUK , we’ve just had one of your candles set fire and explode in our bedroom. We lit the candle around 4 hours before this.
“Thankfully we both noticed it, but how has this passed safety tests? The outcome could have been a lot worse than the burn marks on our furniture.”
Aldi has not commented on the issue.
Remember to never leave candles lit in rooms you aren’t in, and also avoid burning them for excessively long periods of time to avoid the glass jar getting too hot. Always be safe!
Commuters could be facing the steepest rise in the cost of train travel in more than a decade just months after prices were already increased.
It has been predicted today that train prices across England and Wales could rise by nearly 5% before the New Year.
The 2021 rise in prices was delayed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic when train travel was at an all-time low, however, tickets still saw a price rise of 2.6% in March.
Abhijit Tembhekar / Flickr
And this morning, the Retail Prices Index for July 2021 was confirmed as 3.8% by the Office for National Statistics, meaning passengers could see fares rise by 4.8% in 2022, which would be the largest hike since 2012.
This means that the cost of rail travel could increase twice within ten months, and would see a Manchester-Glasgow off-peak return rise by £6.30 to £94.90, according to Metro.
Though all hope isn’t yet gone – changes to the fares in 2022 are still yet to be confirmed.
Jon David Houghton / Wikimedia Commons
A Department for Transport spokesperson said: “No decision has been made on national rail fares.
“The government is considering a variety of options and we will announce our decision in due course.”
This news has come as train travel in Manchester and beyond is on the rise – earlier this month, we reported that zero cases of Covid were found in Manchester Piccadilly Train Station, despite thousands of commuters using the station’s services as offices reopen.
Comedian Sean Lock has passed away at the age of fifty-eight after a battle with cancer, his agent has confirmed today.
A statement from his agent from Off The Kerb Productions said: “It is with great sadness that we have to announce the death of Sean Lock. He died at home from cancer, surrounded by his family.
“Sean was one of Britain’s finest comedians, his boundless creativity, lightning wit and the absurdist brilliance of his work, marked him out as a unique voice in British comedy.
“Sean was also a cherished husband and father to three children. Sean will be sorely missed by all that knew him. We kindly request that the privacy of his family and children is respected at this difficult time.”
Fellow comedians have been posting their own tribute messages since the news was announced. Ricky Gervais wrote: “Such sad news. RIP the great Sean Lock. One of the funniest, most influential comedians of a generation. A lovely man.”
John Bishop posted: “I am shocked and saddened at the news of the loss of Sean Lock. He was a brilliant comedian but more importantly he was a great person on so many levels . He will be missed hugely.”
Sean was best known for his role on Channel 4’s comedy panel show, 8 Out of 10 Cats, where he was panel captain. He appeared on the first eighteen series, opposite team captains including Jason Manford and Jon Richardson.
He also appeared on QI, The Last Leg, Have I Got News for You, and The Big Fat Quiz of the Year.
The UK is set to welcome more than 20,000 refugees from Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover of the country.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that 5,000 people will be eligible to be resettled in Britain during the first year of the program, with women and girls given priority status, with the rest to be admitted in the ‘long term’.
Those deemed to be at the highest risk of human rights abuses and dehumanising treatment by the Taliban will also be given priority for settlement.
The Prime Minister, who will address MPs today on the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan, said: “We owe a debt of gratitude to all those who have worked with us to make Afghanistan a better place over the last twenty years.
“Many of them, particularly women, are now in urgent need of our help. I am proud that the UK has been able to put in place this route to help them and their families live safely in the UK.”
Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese added that planes carrying people from Afghanistan are expected to land here in Manchester ‘at any moment.’
He said: “They’re on their way. We’re expecting planes to be landing at any moment. We’re certainly not going to turn our back on those people.
“But what we are going to do is to continue to make the case that actually, if we’re really a caring country, we need to make sure we put the proper resources and systems in to be able to support these people very quickly, get them out of hotels and get them into homes.
“We’re definitely not going to be refusing to take people, but we will continue to make the case for proper support.”
Following the departure of American troops on Sunday, the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, almost two decades after they were initially defeated by the US. The Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, abandoning the presidential palace to Taliban fighters.
Under the Taliban’s rule, Sharia Law, women and girls are stripped of most basic human rights, including the right to have an education, work, and leave the house without a male relative. While the Taliban have promised to take a more modern approach to their ruling, concern for the safety and wellbeing of Afghan women and girls is still rife.
For more information on how you can help the refugees fleeing Afghanistan, visit the following links: