The really boring and totally pointless snippets thread V

[OFSO]

Horrific construction, cheap materials. Smegs local service man is so incompetent I said I'd never have him in the house again.

[Ex-Ascot]

Good afternoon folks. Been in the deep bush for 4 days.

[k3k3]

AEG ovens are just the same, I had to replace the oven thermostat in one and found all the sheet metal inside is made of razor blades. Bloody thing (in both meanings of the word).

[Wodrick]

Good aftermaoning
hit 29c but down to 24c now, just a tad hazy.

There are millions of tourists around, all creeds and colours, added 45mins to my morning routine.

Henry has discovered a snakes pit? we have acquired a rubber snake to discourage him, just how to employ it.

snake.jpg (73.73 KiB) Viewed 475 times

[OFSO]

Tourists here are French, German and Dutch, and they drive down. With restricted fuel supplies in France, few are turning up. Mercadona wasn't busy this morning. Incidently the Financial Times Weekend didn't arrive this morning.

[CharlieOneSix]

Just had a requirement to mix up a very small amount of Polyfilla and I found a large part used bag in the depths of the workshop. There's an offer on the packet for a smoke alarm - the offer expired on 5 July 1989. Sometimes it pays to be a bit of a hoarder, nothing wrong with the Polyfilla - as good as the day I bought it some 34 years ago!

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I am reusing some 100 year old nails in my barn. It's possible, by the size of them, they may in fact be Viking short swords

[OFSO]

Pouring and blowing up a gale tonight. The two Black Cats had forgotten what rain is. Desperately sheltering. I've just been out to get logs for the fire. Well wrapped up. Lunchtime today it was too hot to sit in the sun on our terrace. Forecast for tomorrow at dawn is 2°c.

[4mastacker]

Mrs 4ma asked me to get a packet of Cadbury's Mini Eggs so she could decorate some fairy cakes she is making for the grandsons ( she spoils those boys). Could I find any?? Tried several supermarkets and smaller shops - nothing! T'would appear they are rarer than hen's teeth at the moment.

[Karearea]

Good morning; 16°C, breezy, mostly clear.

Daylight Saving has ended, back to NZST, twelve hours ahead of GMT.

Palm Sunday.

[G~Man]

Overcast at 54F, (12C), chance of showers..... chilling plotting my Greek sailing adventure for May....

[PHXPhlyer]

Factory worker who thought she would burn to death says falling into vat of chocolate saved her life
“When I began to burn, I thought it was the end for me,” said woman who survived the fire at the Pennsylvania factory that killed seven employees.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fa ... -rcna77749

A woman pulled alive from the rubble of a Pennsylvania chocolate factory after an explosion that killed seven co-workers says flames had engulfed the building, and her arm, when the floor gave way beneath her. That might have been the end, if she hadn’t fallen into a vat of liquid chocolate.

The dark liquid extinguished her blazing arm, but Patricia Borges wound up breaking her collarbone and both of her heels. She would spend the next nine hours screaming for help and waiting for rescue as firefighters battled the inferno and choppers thumped overhead at the R.M. Palmer Co. factory.

“When I began to burn, I thought it was the end for me,” Borges, 50, told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview from her hospital bed in West Reading, Pennsylvania, just minutes from the chocolate factory where she worked as a machine operator. Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board interviewed Borges on Friday, according to her family.

Patricia Borges is interviewed at Reading Hospital in West Reading, Pa., on March 25, 2023. Borges was pulled alive from the rubble of the R.M. Palmer Co. factory, a chocolate factory in West Reading, Pa., after an explosion that killed seven co-workers. Borges says her arm caught fire as flames engulfed the ruined building — and then she fell through the floor into a vat of liquid chocolate.

The March 24 blast at R.M. Palmer killed seven of Borges’s co-workers and injured 10. Federal, state and local investigations are underway. A cause has not been determined, but the federal transportation safety agency has characterized it as a natural gas explosion.

Borges said she and others had complained about a gas odor about 30 minutes before the factory blew up. She is angry Palmer didn’t immediately evacuate. She said the deaths of her co-workers — including her close friend, Judith Lopez-Moran — could’ve been prevented.

Others workers have also said they smelled natural gas, according to their relatives. Palmer, a 75-year-old, family-run company with deep roots in the small town 60 miles northwest of Philadelphia, has not responded to questions about the workers’ claims.

Speaking in Spanish over videoconference, her eyes bruised and her burned right arm heavily bandaged, Borges recounted her terrifying brush with death.

The factory was getting ready for a product switch that day, so instead of running a candy-wrapping machine as usual, she was helping to clean.

At 4:30 p.m., Borges told the AP, she smelled natural gas. It was strong and nauseated her. Borges and her co-workers approached their supervisor, asking “what was going to be done, if we were going to be evacuated,” she recalled.

Borges said the supervisor noted someone higher up would have to make that decision. So she got back to work.

Just before 5 p.m., the two-story brick building exploded.

Borges, who’d been on a ladder, was thrown to the ground. She heard screaming. There was fire everywhere, and the flames quickly overtook her. “I asked God why he was giving me such a horrible death,” she said. “I asked him to save me, that I didn’t want to die in the fire.”

She began to run. That’s when the floor gave way, and she could feel herself falling — into a long, horizontal tank of chocolate in the factory’s basement. At 4 feet, 10 inches tall, Borges landed on her feet in chest-high liquid.

The chocolate extinguished the flames, but she believes her fall is what broke her feet.

The vat began filling with water from firefighters’ hoses, eventually forcing Borges to climb out as it reached neck level. She sat on the lip of the tank, then jumped into a pool of water that had formed on the basement floor. Briefly submerged, Borges said she swallowed a mouthful of water before surfacing. She grabbed onto some plastic tubing.

And then she waited.

“Help, help, please help!” she yelled, over and over, for hours. No one came.

The pain grew more intense. The water was frigid. The main supply pipe for the building’s fire suppression system had ruptured — and water was pouring into the basement. She lost track of time but thought she might be there for days.

“The only thing I wanted was to get out of there,” she said.

Finally, in the middle of the night, she saw a light and screamed anew for help.

Search-and-rescue dogs had alerted their handlers that a survivor might be in the rubble. Now, as rescuers carefully worked their way down to the basement, they heard Borges’s cries.

Calling for quiet, the rescuers followed the sound of her voice. They found her in a tight space, in chest-deep water. She made her way to them and was placed in a litter.

“She was severely hypothermic and banged up,” conscious but “absolutely confused,” said Ken Pagurek, who helped lead rescue efforts as program manager of Pennsylvania Task Force 1, an emergency response team that deploys to disaster sites around the country.

“I think had they not gotten to her when they did, there was a very good chance the number of victims was going to be plus one,” said Pagurek, also a captain in the Philadelphia Fire Department.

Her rescue gave hope to first responders who already had pulled two bodies from the rubble in the hours after the blast. Rescuers spent two more days at the pile. They found five more bodies but no additional survivors.

Borges now faces surgery on both feet and a long recovery. Her family has launched a GoFundMe campaign to help her pay the bills.

Borges, who came to the United States 31 years ago from Puebla state in south-central Mexico, has worked at Palmer for four years. She said she’s seeking accountability.

“I wanted to speak so that this will be prevented in the future,” she said. “For my colleague Judy, I want there to be justice.”

PP

[Hydromet]

When I saw "liquid chocolate" I first assumed it was liquid because it was hot, and wondered how she survived it cooling and setting. Presumably, since she was hypothermic, it was some chocolate "syrup" that is liquid at room temperature.

End of daylight saving today. Currently 15c, 20c forecast. Raining, forecast to continue until Thursday.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Palmer, a 75-year-old, family-run company with deep roots in the small town

Sounds more like their roots are in Mexico now.

More on American slave labour

https://fashionunited.com/news/fashion/ ... 3033153110

Last time HSE did a survey of dangerous labour conditions in the UK, they discovered 25% of non-UK born workers had been involved in, or witnessed, an industrial accident. This was an order of magnitude higher than UK-born workers.
When they investigated the delivery of safety training, they found out every box was ticked. Everyone got all the required training, by fully qualified trainers...
...in English.
Even if no one in the room except the trainer spoke English.
And the kicker was that the trainer was required by other government regulations to deliver the training in English. Which is why the government has avoided doing any further surveys.

..and Covid was brought into Europe by Chinese workers in the Italian high fashion houses in Milan, so the companies could put Made In Italy on the label and pay the workers peanuts.
Because the label is not required to say Made In Italy By Plague-Ridden Chinese Slave Labour.

[OFSO]

Clear skies out, 9°c and 30kph wind, peaking over 60kph this afternoon. Yesterday's rain did very little: we are still under forest fire warnings.

Just seen meteo on TV. -13°c up in the mountains last night. Highest wind gust 139kph at Port Bou on the coast.

[Ex-Ascot]

Morning folks. Nice day. Flight back yesterday was a bit of a pain. Three stops before Maun. However it does mean we should get it for free.

[Ibbie]

Morning all.

16c, blue sky with a few clouds and a slight breeze. High of 22c suggested for later.

Granddaughter has first rhythmic gymnastics competition, on the national circuit, at end of the month in Santander. Booked Ryanair flights to get her and her mother there and back yesterday.

[4mastacker]

Roast beef and Yorky pud for dinner today. Mrs 4ma has pointed out that weeds need removing from the garden - that's a job I've been putting off: I was trying to convince her I was re-wilding the garden to encourage flying beasties and pollinators.

[G-CPTN]

Roast beef and Yorky pud for dinner today. Mrs 4ma has pointed out that weeds need removing from the garden -

That's the green veg sorted out.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I'll borrow that 4ma, if I may. No longer will I be "sat on my lazy backside, doing nothing but drinking coffee", I will in fact be "re-wilding the garden". The two activities may look identical to the untrained observer, but the cognoscenti will know.