Yesterday was the last London Marathon sponsored by Flora.  From 2010 onwards it's going to be sponsored by Virgin.

One of the first changes that they've made is to overhaul the ballot entry process, and instead of sending your entry in via mail in the months running up to the ballot in October, they are asking people to do it online over the next few days.  This is all good, and in the name of progress.  You'd expect them to have the site working though…

They knew it'd be busy, and to claim it's due to unprecedented demand is a bit daft - of course it's unprecedented, it's the first time it's been done this way!

I don't think words are necessary…

Probably the best April Fool's I've seen this year was on the Guardian website, announcing that all their news stories would be published solely via twitter from now on.  This of course would restrict all news articles to 140 characters.

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5×6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Good work and well put together by 'Rio Palof'.

I'm sitting in Rossopomodoro in Covent Garden, enjoying a lovely pizza with two of my cousins, Caroline and Katie, and Katie's fiancé John.  I may have had a few beers and a glass of wine, but I was still coherent.  From my seat I glance up at the counter, and see the mosaic design: 

I pointed out the design to the others, and to be honest, they looked at me as though I was slightly deranged.  They couldn't see anything significant about the design in the mosaic.  Whereas to me, the design was quite obviously modelled on the Ebola virus.  Again, I got some blank looks when I tried to explian, and the conversation went back to whatever we'd been talking about before I'd interrupted on this slight tangent. 

For those who don't know, this is what the Ebola looks like (magnified a fair few times obviously):

 Is it just me then?

Having played a full 70-minutes of hockey the day before, the lack of an early night as I was watching the boxing, and the fact that it was a warm day with glorious sunshine I had my excuses ready for when the adidas half marathon at Silverstone didn't go as planned.

I'm still hoping to be able to run close to 3h 30m for the London Marathon on April 26.  The Silverstone half would provide me with a good indicator of where I am in my training, and if I'm anywhere near running the three and a half hours in the main event.  According to the 'experts', a good indicator of your full marathon time is to double your half marathon time and add on 10 minutes.  How accurate this is I don't know, but it meant that I was aiming for a sub-1h 40m time yesterday.

I was determined not to set off too quickly, but found myself running at 7:14/mile pace for the first mile and this was much too quick when I was planning on running at 7:32/mile.  So I made a concious effort to slow down a touch, and managed to find the right pace - which was a tad quicker than my planned pace, but I felt comfortable.

It was a lovely day yesterday.  I got to Silverstone early to avoid the inevitable congestion and queues, and so had well over an hour to while away.  So after taking on some fluids, making the obligatory trip to the gents, I decided to lie in the sun and relax.  An hour later after drifting off a few times, I was nice and relaxed and rested - and ready for the off.  The weather did mean that I'd have to take on a fair amount of fluid during the race.  With Vittel water stops and Lucozade Sport stations, this wasn't a problem.  Some people didn't seem to heed the advice of taking on fluids before you get thirsty, and there were a few casualties lying by the side of the road being treated by St John's crews.

At the 12 mile mark I know how they felt.  My energy levels were down to almost empty - the orange petrol light was certainly on.  But when I got beyond the 13 mile marker and could see the finishing line, I managed to dig out a sprint finish to help put a polish on my time.

1h 38m 50s.  So nicely inside my target time, and it puts me on course for a 3h 30m run at London - of course that's subject to me getting all the long runs in place before then - and hopefully staying fit and not picking up any injuries during the time between then and now.

Here are my splits (the total distance I ran was 13.3 miles according to my GPS whatsit, rather than the 13.1 miles which I guess is the shortest distance you can run to complete on the course):

Mile - pace

1 - 7:14
2 - 7:24
3 - 7:23
4 - 7:24
5 - 7:26
6 - 7:30
7 - 7:28
8 - 7:24
9 - 7:22
10 - 7:30
11 - 7:14
12 - 7:30
13 - 7:45 (I was hurting)
last .3 of a mile - 6:11

Real Madrid were comprehensively battered by Liverpool team clearly fired up.  Apparently, Fernando Torres pinned up the cover of 'Marca' on the dressing room wall.  The headline read "This is Anfield - So what?"  

After going down in a blaze of hubris, I think they now know what 'This is Anfield' is all about.

Hot on the heels of Rolls-Royce's announcement of the launch of the 'baby Rolls', Bentley are releasing their fastest, most-powerful car ever.  They are selling it as such. 
Look at these figures:

• twin-turbocharged W12 engine
  
• producing 621bhp
• 204mph top speed
• and a 0-60 time in under 4 seconds.

But they're also trying to market it as environmentally friendly as it can run on bio-fuel.  They boast about the reduced carbon emissions:

 At the 2008 Geneva Auto Salon, Bentley announced a far-reaching environmental programme to reduce CO₂ emissions and improve fuel economy across its model range.

An important element of this strategy is by 2012 to make the entire Bentley fleet capable of running on renewable fuel through the introduction of FlexFuel technology, where engines are capable of running seamlessly on bioethanol, petrol or any mix of the two. 

At the same time Bentley declared that this would be achieved without sacrificing its well-known performance and luxury.

This statement of intent has taken shape in the Continental Supersports – a car that balances extreme potency with the pioneering use of biofuel technology in the luxury sector.

The result is a net CO₂ reduction of up to 70 per cent on a well-to-wheel-basis, the measurement of CO₂ release of a fuel from its production (well) to its combustion or deployment (wheel).

Bioethanol can be derived responsibly from crops such as corn, soybeans, sugarcane and switchgrass. Second generation bioethanol uses the non-food fibres of the plant (biomass), as well as agricultural waste and forestry residues. These are collected and refined into cellulose ethanol.

CO₂ is absorbed by plants as part of the photosynthesis process, and cars using biofuel then release that CO₂ back into the atmosphere, thus creating an unbroken energy cycle. In addition, biofuels are not derived from fossil fuels, making them a renewable resource ensuring a secure supply into the future.

Bioethanol is often blended with petrol in a variety of percentages ranging from E10 (10% bioethanol) to the most widely known, E85, blended to a ratio of 85 per cent bioethanol to 15 per cent petrol to ensure cold-start capability.

Bioethanol presents unique engineering challenges compared with petrol, due to its chemical composition and characteristics. E85 biofuel has a very high octane rating of 105 but a lower energy content that requires a 30 per cent increase in the engine fuel flow rate.

It looks like a cracking car.  But environmentally-friendly?  Please.  If it manages 15 miles to the gallon I'd be surprised.

You can read more this 621bhp eco-warrior here.