For those who wish to overcome the problem of speading cold butter on to bread, yet do not wish to go to the expense of buying a heatable butter dish (Argus January 17), I have the solution: Don’t keep it in the fridge.

However, if you must, simply butter frozen slices of bread straight from the freezer. They then butter quite easily.

In the time it takes to boil the kettle and add the sandwich ingredients the bread has defrosted.

For those on a diet it has the added advantage that, due to no resistance, it enables one to spread a much thinner layer of the calorie laden product.

Alternatively, if one keeps it in a covered butter dish, being at room temperature, it again will spread quite easily on to fresh bread.

I do not wish to decry what I think is a largely superfluous gadget because Mr Alfille has obviously put time and effort into a genuine 21st century invention, which may well be the answer to somebody’s dream.

However, it reminds me of the type of marvellous impulse purchase from the Ideal Home Exhibition and, apart from initial use, spends the rest of its life in a cupboard.

Chris Dunford, Woodbourne Avenue, Brighton