As far as kitchen products go, Mr Potato Brush is definitely one of the most fun in terms of appearance if not in purpose. This diminutive but jovial fellow is always willing to lend a helping hand (sprout) in the kitchen. Before you all disappear and call for the men in white coats please hear me out.

Mr Potato Brush is a potato brush (surprisingly enough) and has the unenviable task of scrubbing up your spuds and ridding them of all that unsavoury soil and dirt. With a ceramic body and a scrubbing brush embedded about his rear, he stands at an unimposing 7cm tall. Don't let his lack of presence fool you though; he is more than up to the task of mounting a cleaning assault on the biggest of spuds.

A good baked potato is one of my all-time favourites at mealtimes mostly because of its simplicity but also because of the high nutritional benefits. Potatoes contain a lot of vitamin C and B6 and are a good source of potassium, iron and fibre. They are also low in fat and cholesterol and are generally low in calories (depending what you choose to heap onto them after they are cooked).

Anything to make such a nutritious meal easier to prepare is sure to be onto a winner with me. I still do the pricking and the plating up but Senor Potato Brush now takes up the position of chief scrubber. An ordeal I was most willing to disaffiliate myself with.

I would usually spend minutes with my hands under a freezing cold tap working with whatever I had in reach to get rid of all the soil and muck from the potato's skin. I would end up with cold, sore hands and a badly gouged potato if I wasn't too careful. But Mr Potato Brush has saved my budding piano hands by reducing this chore to 30 seconds at most (per potato). Simply turn him round and use his scrubbing brush to clear away the dirt from your potatoes in double quick time.

The brush side of him is very similar to a fingernail brush in size and has thick rigid white bristles which are ideal for removing dirt without ruining your potato in the process. Large clumps of dirt are broken up very quickly and the bristles are really good at getting into the pits of the potato skin where the most stubborn dirt resides. After a few seconds of light scrubbing you will be left with a clean potato and more importantly the skin will still be intact. A result rarely achieved with a scouring pad or a fish slice, I can tell you.

The bristles are much tougher on this brush than they are on a fingernail brush and are ideally suited to scrubbing spuds. If your home-grown potatoes happen to be plagued by dried on soil then they will need a good scrub before cooking. Store bought potatoes are often too grubby for my liking and I always give them a thorough clean before I cook and eat them. Mr Potato Brush will provide the brawn when this unfavourable chore arises and is a great time saver, especially if you are using a lot of potatoes, say to make chips. There is no legal statute preventing you from using the jolly chap on other vegetables either. He will work just as effectively on carrots for example.

As you can see from the picture, Mr Potato Brush has some rather fetching green boots which allow him to stand up when not in use. He tends to be fairly stable on his own two feet in my cupboard. His googly eyes (which actually move when shaken) are plastic and fit into a recess in his body. Unfortunately, these eyes fell out before I even had chance to use him. I have since had to glue them back into place which was a bit of an inconvenience. They have stayed on since though and it may be that I just got a Monday morning or Friday afternoon model of Mr Potato Brush (although I am unaware that there is a production line mass producing these somewhere).

Cleaning him after use is not a problem. A quick swish through a bowl of water and a run under the tap is more than sufficient. He will be fairly clean anyway if you run the potato under the cold tap whilst scrubbing since most of the dirt will run away with the water rather than stick to the bristles. Let him dry on his own and then back to his resting place he goes until the next dirt-ridden spud enters the fray.

By now you are either convinced of my insanity or would like to know where you can buy one from. For those of you in the latter category you will find Mr Potato Brush on Amazon marketplace for £3.99 plus free shipping. A Google search also tells me he is available from a number of online stores but I have also seen him in some homeware stores such as Dunelm Mill.

I would highly recommend Mr Potato Brush if you find yourself growing tired of scrubbing the living daylights out of your potatoes. He will make the process much simpler and quicker and do it with a smile on his face.

Thanks for reading :)