PETER MULLEN’S plea for help in finding kitchen gadgets that work (HAS, Jan 11) should not be ignored.

Bottle openers are serious gadgets. However, a hardware store is definitely the wrong place to find a decent one.

Any good wine merchant will give you a “waiter’s friend” free of charge, particularly when decent wines are bought from them.

Decent wines usually have decent corks, rather then those plastic stoppers that seem as immovable as the good rector’s political views.

Alternatively, many good wines come nowadays in screwcapped bottles, which actually keep the wine fresher and are more friendly to the environment.

As for the potato peeler and the tin-opener, may I suggest a visit to Defty’s in Crook, County Durham.

Ben Andriessen, Staindrop