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‘They trap heat in the room’ pro shares 7 ways to winter-proof your bedroom – including a £2 Temu buy you’ll soon want
WITH the weather all over the place and fears over rising energy bills, it’s important we know how to keep our homes warm on a budget.
So if your purse is feeling tighter than ever before and you’re worried about the cost of putting the heating on this winter, then don’t worry, you’ve come to the right place.
It turns out that there’s plenty you can do to winter-proof your bedroom – without needing to turn the heating on.
Thanks to bedroom furnishings experts at Bed Kingdom, there are seven simple ways you can create a warm home without using the heating.
Not only is layering your bedding key, but there’s a cheap buy from Temu that you’ll need to nab if you want a warm and cosy sleep, whatever the weather.
Curtains are key
According to the experts, thermal curtains are perfect for ‘trapping heat’ in your room.
The bedroom pros said: “Opt for insulated thermal curtains to trap heat in the room.
“They act as a barrier, preventing cold drafts from entering and reducing heat loss through windows.”
Love to layer
As well as this, the experts explained that layering your bedding is another way to keep warm at night.
They stressed that layering materials traps body heat effectively, which can be done with weighted blankets, throws or quilts over a duvet.
Materials matter
According to the experts, choosing your materials wisely is extremely important.
They highlighted: “Flannel, fleece and wool are top choices for retaining heat, while down and down-alternative duvets offer lightweight warmth.
“For warm, vegan and eco-friendly options, consider materials like organic cotton, bamboo, recycled polyester, hemp and kapok.”
Plugging in
Not only is layering your bedding key, but an electric blanket should be on your shopping list if you want to keep your bedroom cosy.
If you decide to use electric blankets, opt for one with an automatic shutoff feature to prevent overheating and fires.
5 ways to keep your house warm in winter
Property expert Joshua Houston shared his tips.
1. Curtains
“Windows are a common place for the outside cold to get into your home, this is because of small gaps that can let in air so always close your curtains as soon as it gets dark,” he said.
This simple method gives you an extra layer of warmth as it can provide a kind of “insulation” between your window and curtain.
2. Rugs
“Your floor is another area of your home where heat can be lost and can make your home feel chilly,” he continued. “You might notice on cold days, that your floor is not nice to walk on due to it freezing your feet.
“Add rugs to areas that don’t already have a carpet, this provides a layer of insulation between your bare floor and the room above.”
3. Check your insulation
Check your pipes, loft space, crawlspaces and underneath floorboards.
“Loose-fill insulation is very good for this, and is a more affordable type of insulation, with a big bag being able to be picked up for around £30,” Joshua explained.
4. Keep your internal doors closed
“Household members often gather in one room in the evening, and this is usually either the kitchen or living room,” Joshua said.
“This means you only have to heat a small area of your home, and closing the doors keeps the heat in and the cold out.”
5. Block drafts
Don’t forget to check cat flaps, chimneys and letterboxes, as they can let in cold air if they aren’t secure.
That’s hot
Many of us may already have a hot water bottle in a cupboard somewhere, but according to the pros, these cheap buys, which you can nab from Temu from just £2, are a great winter essential.
The experts advised that a simple hot water bottle placed in your bed before you sleep can warm it up effectively.
It’s important to note that you should make sure to not overfill a hot water bottle with boiling water to avoid spillages and leaks.
Make it draught-proof
As well as layering your bedroom and getting a hot water bottle, the experts recommended installing draft stoppers under doors and sealing window gaps with adhesive strips to keep the cold air out.
Simple actions like layering bedding, using draft excluders, and choosing the right heating devices can make a significant difference
Ashley Hainsworth, from Bed Kingdom
Rugs can also help to insulate the floor and reduce heat loss, which is particularly ideal if you have hardwood or tile flooring.
Be clear with your radiator
In addition to this, the experts stressed that it’s important to ensure that furniture or curtains do not block heat sources like radiators or floor vents.
These will help to distribute warmth more effectively, so it is advised to leave curtains open if possible and move items away from radiators.
What is the Winter Fuel Payment?
Consumer reporter Sam Walker explains all you need to know about the payment.
The Winter Fuel Payment is an annual tax-free benefit designed to help cover the cost of heating through the colder months.
Most who are eligible receive the payment automatically.
Those who qualify are usually told via a letter sent in October or November each year.
If you do meet the criteria but don’t automatically get the Winter Fuel Payment, you will have to apply on the government’s website.
You’ll qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment this winter if:
- you were born on or before September 23, 1958
- you lived in the UK for at least one day during the week of September 16 to 22, 2024, known as the “qualifying week”
- you receive Pension Credit, Universal Credit, ESA, JSA, Income Support, Child Tax Credit or Working Tax Credit
If you did not live in the UK during the qualifying week, you might still get the payment if both the following apply:
- you live in Switzerland or a EEA country
- you have a “genuine and sufficient” link with the UK social security system, such as having lived or worked in the UK and having a family in the UK
But there are exclusions – you can’t get the payment if you live in Cyprus, France, Gibraltar, Greece, Malta, Portugal or Spain.
This is because the average winter temperature is higher than the warmest region of the UK.
You will also not qualify if you:
- are in hospital getting free treatment for more than a year
- need permission to enter the UK and your granted leave states that you can not claim public funds
- were in prison for the whole “qualifying week”
- lived in a care home for the whole time between 26 June to 24 September 2023, and got Pension Credit, Income Support, income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance or income-related Employment and Support Allowance
Payments are usually made between November and December, with some made up until the end of January the following year.
Staying warm safety
Ashley Hainsworth, a spokesperson for the company, commented: “Staying warm in your bedroom during colder months is essential, but it’s important to do so safely.
“Many people are unaware of the fire hazards that can come from improper heating methods or over-reliance on certain appliances.
“Simple actions like layering bedding, using draft excluders, and choosing the right heating devices can make a significant difference. It’s all about finding that balance between comfort and safety.
“We always recommend taking a proactive approach by regularly inspecting your heating equipment, avoiding overloading sockets, and being mindful of fire risks.
“Following these easy steps can help ensure that you stay warm throughout the winter months without compromising your home’s safety.”
Aldi finally restocks its sold-out cult £2.49 beauty dupes and you can nab them for FREE – here’s how
ALDI has restocked its beauty shelves following mammoth demand from customers – and you can even nab the goodies for free.
The budget supermarket’s Lacura range is famed for its dupes of high-end products, including copycat Olaplex shampoos, Kylie Lip Kits and TikTok’s viral “marshmallow sponges”.
Aldi tops up its make-up and skincare Specialbuys in the middle aisle every Thursday and Sunday.
But with Specialbuys being limited edition and notoriously hard to nab, beauty buffs are often left begging for restocks.
Fans of the Lacura range race to their nearest middle aisle to snap up the deals on the bi-weekly drops.
Saly, not everyone gets so lucky.
A quick glimpse at Aldi’s Instagram pages will show shoppers begging supermarket bosses to top up shelves with more beauty products.
But despair no more, Lacura lovers.
The Aldi Gods have finally acted.
Taking to Instagram, the store revealed that you can “find the full Lacura collection in stores now from £2.49”.
Not only that, but they’re giving a full restock away for FREE to some lucky customers.
“To enter and win a Lacura Beauty Restock, like this post, follow us @aldispecialbuysuk, and tag your beauty obsessed bestie,” the post read.
Among the restock is the £4.99 Lacura Dramatic Lash Mascara.
A blurb on this reads: “Achieve a showstopping look with this Dramatic Lash Mascara.
“This voluminous and precise mascara is great for creating your desired eyelash look.
“Long lasting, this mascara will keep looking good throughout the day and night.”
What are the best Aldi beauty dupes?
ALDI has become well-known for its affordable beauty dupes that often rival high-end brands in terms of quality and effectiveness.
Here are some of the best Aldi beauty dupes that have garnered rave reviews:
Lacura Healthy Glow Exfoliating Tonic
Dupe for: Pixi Glow Tonic
Price: £3.99 (compared to Pixi’s £18)
Description: This exfoliating tonic contains glycolic acid and works to gently exfoliate and brighten the skin. It’s a fantastic, budget-friendly alternative to the popular Pixi Glow Tonic.
Lacura Q10 Renew Anti-Wrinkle Day Cream
Dupe for: Nivea Q10 Plus Anti-Wrinkle Day Cream
Price: £1.45 (compared to Nivea’s £10)
Lacura Caviar Illumination Day Cream
Dupe for: La Prairie Skin Caviar Luxe Cream
Price: £6.99 (compared to La Prairie’s £292)
Lacura Hot Cloth Cleanser
Dupe for: Liz Earle Cleanse & Polish Hot Cloth Cleanser
Price: £3.99 (compared to Liz Earle’s £17.50)
Lacura Snapshot Ready Foundation Primer
Dupe for: Smashbox Photo Finish Foundation Primer
Price: £5.99 (compared to Smashbox’s £26)
Lacura Miracle Cream
Dupe for: Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream
Price: £3.99 (compared to Elizabeth Arden’s £28)
Lacura Ebony Rose Face Mask
Dupe for: Fresh Rose Face Mask
Price: £6.99 (compared to Fresh’s £52)
Lacura Charcoal Clearing Mudmask
Dupe for: GlamGlow Supermud Clearing Treatment
Price: £5.99 (compared to GlamGlow’s £42)
Lacura Velvet Touch Foundation
Dupe for: Estée Lauder Double Wear Foundation
Price: £5.99 (compared to Estée Lauder’s £34)
Lacura Tinted Lip Oils
Dupe for: Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Tinted Oil
Price: £3.99 (compared to Rare Beauty’s £20)
There’s also Lacura Perfect Skin Tints being dropped for £4.99, which is a dupe for Fenty Beauty’s £24 Eaze Drops.
With six shades to choose from, you can build a flawless base with just a few droplets of products.
You’ll also find the Lacura Collagen Lip Oil for £2.99, which is a Charlotte Tilbury dupe for a whopping £25 cheaper.
The £2.49 2 Pack Blending Sponge Set is a dupe for the £10 Clomana Beauty Marshmallow Sponge sets.
Chilling first video of doomed Titan submarine wreck shows mangled craft on ocean floor after devastating implosion
CHILLING footage shows the wreckage of the doomed Titan sub nestled on the ocean floor after suffering a deadly implosion.
The mangled tail cone, with OceanGate‘s logo emblazoned on the side, can be seen pointing up with dozens of cables poking out.
It is the first time footage of the underwater debris has been released since five passengers were killed when the sub imploded last June.
The haunting clip was taken by a remotely operated vehicle during a search of the ocean floor days after the horror dive shocked the world.
But it has only now been shared by the US Coast Guard as part of a two week hearing into the tragedy.
Titan – which was steered with a gaming controller – vanished from radars on June 18, 2023, and failed to resurface from the £195,000-a-head voyage 12,500ft down to the Titanic wreckage.
Hopes of a miracle faded by the hour, and then the day, as desperate rescue crews worked around the clock to find any signs of life.
Five days after the sub was supposed to return, debris was found on the ocean floor.
OceanGate’s CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, French Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman, 19, all died on board.
Now, more than a year on, former employees and experts have been called to Charlestown, South Carolina, to give testimonies over what lead to the deadly implosion.
The hearing – which began on Monday – is investigating alleged negligence of OceanGate before the tragic dive and the reasons behind the failings in the search.
Heartbreaking details have already come to light – including the final words of the Titan passengers.
They told support ship Polar Prince “all good here” before audio became more spotty as it descended.
Crew on the Polar Prince then asked if the Titan could see the Titanic on its display.
Titan passengers were still able to send one message when the submersible was 3,341m deep – an hour-and-a-half after it began its journey.
The message read: “dropped two wts” and was sent at 10.47am.
Six seconds after the message was sent the Titan was pinged for the final time at a depth of 3,346m.
There was no communications between it and the Polar Prince mother ship the indicated any trouble or emergency on board the sub.
The Polar Prince began to there was a major issue when it sent a message to the Titan at 10.49am saying it had “lost tracking”.
They continued to message the doomed sub every two to three minutes, but by 11.15am they told the Polar Prince’s master there had been a loss of communication.
US authorities said a “catastrophic implosion” occurred, killing all on board instantly.
The coast guard was eventually called at 6.27pm after the Polar Prince had spent three hours searching.
Former OceanGate operations director David Lochridge yesterday branded the sub an “abomination”.
Lochridge was fired from the company after raising concerns about the sub, including over the materials it was made of.
He told investigators on Tuesday it was “inevitable” something would eventually go wrong and that OceanGate “bypassed” standardised rules and regulations.
Lochridge also recalled how Rush threw a Playstation controller at him during a heated disagreement after a sub crash.
Speaking at the hearing, Lochridge claimed that Rush had insisted on piloting an earlier vessel dubbed Cyclops 1 down to the Andrea Doria shipwreck in 2016.
Lochridge said he watched warily as Rush deployed the submersible and ignored his warnings to keep his distance from the deteriorating shipwreck about 250 feet under the Atlantic Ocean.
According to Lochridge, Rush drove the sub “full speed into the port side” of the wreck’s bow and refused to listen to guidance.
He said: “It was an absolute mess.”
Lochridge added that he repeatedly tried to retrieve the controls from Rush, who refused until a paying client shouted at him.
Rush then threw the PlayStation controller at Lochridge’s head.
Lochridge later told the hearing that he compiled a report on the “abomination” Titan sub after he first inspected the Titan hull.
He said: “For me, this was my opportunity, being asked to do it prior to the sub being handed over, an abomination of a sub, this was my opportunity to raise everything that I had seen during the build and the final build of Titan.”
He said the viewport and elements of the dome ceilings deviated from standard design processes.
Lochridge claimed said he was “appalled” by the O-ring – a type of seal.
He continued: “There was so many laminations, so many voids. The imperfections were incredible. There was glue runs everywhere. And that’s a red flag.”
The former employee described the hull as “porous paper. It was disgusting”.
He added: “Everything was reused.
“They reused these domes. They reused these ceiling faces. They reused the acrylic. They reused the interior. Everything was reused. It’s all cost.”
The hearing is set to continue on Thursday.
How did the Titan tragedy unfolded?
by Katie Davis, Chief Foreign Reporter (Digital)
FIVE men plunged beneath the surface of the North Atlantic in a homemade sub in the hopes of exploring the Titanic wreckage last year.
Four passengers paid £195,000 to go on the sub, with the fifth member of the trip being a crew member.
But what was supposed to be a short trip spiralled into days of agony as the doomed Titan vanished without a trace on June 18, 2023.
The daring mission had been months in the making – and almost didn’t happen at the hands of harsh weather conditions in Newfoundland, Canada.
In a now chilling Facebook post, passenger Hamish Harding wrote: “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023.
“A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
It would be his final Facebook post.
The following morning, he and four others – led by Stockton Rush – began the 12,5000ft descent towards the bottom of the Atlantic.
But as it made its way down into the depths, the vessel lost all contact with its mother ship of the surface, the Polar Prince.
It sparked a frantic four day search for signs of life, with the hunt gripping the entire world.
There was hope that by some miracle, the crew was alive and desperately waiting to be saved.
But that sparked fears rescue teams were in a race against time as the sub only had a 96-hour oxygen supply when they set out, which would be quickly dwindling.
Then, when audio of banging sounds were detected under the water, it inspired hope that the victims were trapped and signalling to be rescued.
It heartbreakingly turned out that the banging noises were likely either ocean noises or from other search ships, the US Navy determined.
Countries around the world deployed their resources to aid the search, and within days the Odysseus remote-operated vehicle (ROV) was sent down to where the ghostly wreck of the Titanic sits.
The plan was for the ROV to hook onto the sub and bring it up 10,000ft, where it would meet another ROV before heading to the surface.
But any hopes of a phenomenal rescue were dashed when Odysseus came across a piece of debris from the sub around 1,600ft from the Titanic.
The rescue mission tragically then became a salvage task, and the heartbroken families of those on board were told the devastating news.
It was confirmed by the US Coast Guard that the sub has suffered a “catastrophic implosion”.
CBN constitutes new board for Keystone Bank, appoints additional Executive Directors
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has constituted a new board of directors for Keystone Bank Limited (the bank) as part of the strategy to strengthen the bank’s operations for sustained business growth. The apex bank also appointed two additional executive directors for the lender. In a statement by the financial institution on Wednesday, the […]
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