Oh the miracles of modern science.

No, I don't mean rocket engineering, the wonders of the Internet, nor even the astonishing breakthroughs in transplant surgery.

No, I mean that someone has finally invented a milk container you can open with ease.

I touch wood when I write this, if it is wood, you can't tell these days, just in case it is a fluke; but I swear I've managed to open the little plastic milk bottles from Somerfield on several occasions recently without spilling a drop.

The top has a little flap you pull up and the milk opens. No need to wrench it, stab it with a knife, break your fingernails nor even attack it viciously with a hammer. This is 21st century technology I approve of.

Not that there are improvements elsewhere, quite the contrary.

I know that records are kept of accidents in the home, which is why statistics often point out that these happen more often than on our roads.

But what about accidents caused by trying to break into a packet of cheese? Or trying to force an entry into a pot of prawns? I bet there's many a person who has done themselves damage because they can't find the kitchen scissors and resort to a razor sharp carving knife or, worse still, attempt to rip the packet open with teeth which are, let's face it ,with the state of National Health dentistry, dangerously past their best.

I nearly slit my wrist last week trying to gain entry into a packet of ham which had been sealed more tightly than nuclear waste. Yes, I could have used scissors, but scissors in our house are harder to find than the Holy Grail. No matter how many pairs you buy they mysteriously disappear within a week and are never seen again.

I'm sick of stabbing packets with knives, removing eight layers of wrapping from meat (and that silly little plastic cushion all bits of meat now sit on and which invariably gets cooked). There was a time when the only difficult food to enter was a sardine can when the little key had fallen off. Now even rigid plastic egg boxes can prove a challenge and sardine opening has been 'improved' with ring pulls which are fine for those who can pull the tins open but not for those with any form of arthritis who presumably have to go sardine-less for ever more.

Several people have reminded me that in last week's column I forgot to mention one item which is almost certainly gathering dust in a lot of people's attics. The knitting machine.

Of course, how could I have forgotten. Many a year ago knitting machines were marketed as the answer to everyone's fashion problems. With the flick of a switch and a few hours to spare all of us could have an entire wardrobe of lovely jumpers, cardigans, socks, scarves, hats and every other fashion garment under the sun. In a fraction of the time it took to knit with old fashioned and cumbersome needles we could whip up a waistcoat, furnish a fair isle, trot out a twin set.

Well that was how it went in the ads, which usually pictured immaculate ladies sitting smiling over some form of shuttlecock in the process of finishing an Aran sweater for her lucky husband.

I don't suppose it occurred to anyone who bought a knitting machine that there is only so many woollen garments anyone really needs. Not that it mattered because the machines were so complicated that most people never managed to fashion anything more complicated than a finger stall or a single square of rather grubby knitting.

Now I don't want any bad tempered letters from knitting machine manufacturers, because I expect they still sell them, but I had three friends who bought them and each time I visited the machine was either gathering dust or its owners were sitting in front of it with the instruction book propped up in front of them trying to thread the wool into the right holes. And it can't be a coincidence that almost every newspaper's classified for sale columns carried advertisements for 'knitting machine, hardly used'. Or even 'knitting machine, still boxed'.

Admittedly some people did master them, you knew these because every member of their family was decked out in matching jumpers.

I was once dragged unwillingly to a knitting machine fashion show and watched in a kind of trance as models paraded in home knitted garments which ranged from fairly ordinary sweaters to full evening dress, from tank tops to knitted harem pants.

'The last time I wore knitted pants I had a nappy under them', I hissed to my friend, as the person giving the party bore down on us with information on the cost of knitting machines. We swiftly moved away from her and pretended to admire a full length skirt knitted in pale mauve wool with a gold thread running through it worn by a very thin model with no bosom and no backside. 'If I wore that I'd look like a sack of fighting ferrets', I said to my friend, deliberately to make her laugh, which she did and we were glared at and left under a cloud but thankfully not with a knitting machine.

So I think the knitting machine is probably the hands down winner of things in the attic we shouldn't have bought.

Why oh why, when I've always found the homily 'what the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve' works for me, did I stupidly boast the other morning about cleverness of my ginger cat?

I had come down slightly later than usual and the cat was obviously bursting to go out, because he rushed across the kitchen to be let out of the window (he prefers this to the door, don't ask me why). He then obviously realised he wasn't going to make it so neatly balanced himself over the little half bowl sink (why is it called 'half' when it isn't half the size of the other one, again don't ask me why?) and relieved himself just a little, before jumping out the window. Without spilling a drop.

Now I thought this was pretty clever, but should have kept this to myself, because when I voiced my pride in my pet I was subjected to a hot water, disinfectant, neat bleach and thorough j-clothing interrogation - ie 'did you?' - for the rest of the morning.

Yes, of course I did, honest.

PS By sheer coincidence I received a picture from Peter Lloyd of Pensilva (see below) , a great cat lover and regular reader of this column. The cat in question called Ben is in the habit of sitting in the sink waiting for the tap to be turned for a drink. At least that is what is claimed. I'd watch Ben if I were you, and be ready with the Dettol.