To expect today's Sunday Express free Thermos flask to be a) Thermos and b) a flask

[MrsCuldesac]

Bought the Express today in order to get the free Thermos flask advertised on the front page.
Picked up the boxed item from newsagent, went home and decided to test it - looked ideal for DD to take a hot drink to school for morning break.
No sign of Thermos name on the product - an "insulated" plastic cup with screw-on lid.
Filled it with hot water, screwed on lid (with drinking hole clicked shut), turned it upside down over the sink and it spurted out scalding water all over my hand. Gaaaaah! Tried it again - same result. Copious leakage - not just a few drips.
Do I chuck it away or make a fuss?

Sue them

Serves you right for buying the Daily Express.

My mum reads The Express, and so I end up reading it while I'm round there. NEVER believe anything printed in it! Honestly, it would be laughable except that people read it and believe it.

It does say Thermos flask - mug style.

They aren't leak proof, like flasks. They purely keep hot drinks warm and cold drinks cool.

The Express is not as awful as it was in the days of John Gordon, who believed that this country was going to perish in fire and brimstone because we had stopped locking up what he called ?perverts?. After he died somebody wrote an epitaph for him:

Believing that his hate for queers
Proclaimed his love of God
He now (of all strange things, my dears)
Lies under his first sod!

Yes they're crap, they're only designed for taking a cup of coffee to drink in a car's 'special holder' or held mightily carefully on a train on the way to work.

Do you remember the lovely tartan flasks we used to take to school and on picnics, with an inner cup and an outer cup? And the silver lining that shattered when you dropped it and told your mum your friemd had done it ?

The cups are rubbish. I have 2 and they both leak. I use a flask for the train, filled with hot chocolate. Ds dunks brioch in it and has it for breakfast with some fruit.

It's a free gift so you can't sue for it being shit. You may have a case under contract law if you can show that the free gift was an inticement for you to buy the newspaper, that you would not have bought it otherwise. It's really not worth the faf though.

I think the hand-scalding was an accidental bonus.

At least now you know it's crap. It could be worse, you could have put hot soup in it and sent it to school with your child for lunch.

Thanks to posters clarifying difference between flasks and thermal cups. Former are airtight, latter are not, yes?
Only bought the Express for this offer; I have no problem with this.

Aware of the reader profile of the Express and its Sunday edition, comments by Andrewofgg, ladyintheradiator and LineRunner aren't really very helpful. You do sound dreadfully snobby or naive.

Anyone intending to use a product for their child / elderly parent would test it -hence I got my fingers scalded rather than MIL or DD. I've "got over it".

Just miffed that the brand name of Thermos is being used to promote a product which quite plainly is not - and thus tempting consumers to buy the Express under false pretences.

Andrew etc sound fun to me[hgrin]

'Anyone intending to use a product for their child / elderly parent would test it -hence I got my fingers scalded rather than MIL or DD'

Yes. Most people would have enough common sense not to use scalding hot water. When they were testing if it was watertight. And 'thermos' is used as a word to describe a type of flask. Unless it's got the copyright mark next to the word it's not Thermos made.

at the precious attitude towards other posters. The Express is full of shit - not surprising that it's 'gift' is shit.

And calling other people naive when you filled something with 'scalding' water and turned it upside down to test it!

but dont you understand that you can check if it leaks without putting your hand under it? you just have to ohold it over the sink.

do you touch your iron to see if its not enough? or the hob?

Was it stupid Ladyintheradiator?

You would test it, not with boiling water though. That's just silly. Sorry.

It's a fair cop OP, it was stupid.

I would have assumed 'thermos' referred to a brand though, too.

Whoah! Nowhere did I say I put my hand under the outflow from this product - it is so badly made, that as you pour it out, it splashed its contents randomly - including backwards onto the pouring hand. Sounds weird - but that's really what happened.
I'd not have complained if the ruddy thing had been a)airtight and b) delivered the hot drink in a normal manner.
I do not test everyday consumer products every time i use them, Riding in my automobile and ladyinthe radiator - that would be silly - but products I wish to pass on for use by my MIL and DCs, I think it's worthwile testing in real conditions - and hot liquids are a prime example.
In retrospect I agree with benandhollyandgaston that it was ill-advised to test the product under normal conditions, so I bow to those posters who have experience which dictate otherwise.
I can cheerfully say I will continue to but the Daily Express for dear MIL - but will be v cautious over their reader offers.
The Guardian's a different matter - caveat emptor