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.

I've got a new laptop.  It's very nice.  A Dell Vostro - with a beautiful WUXGA screen with a 1920 x 1200 resolution.  With a fast hard drive, 4GB of RAM and a duo core processor and dedicated graphics card it's a joy to use.  Unlike on my old IBM laptop which was over 2 years old, this new one makes light work of Photoshop and anything else I throw at it.  As a bonus the screen resolution is ideal for multi-tabling on blondepoker - something that's difficult to do without resizeable tables or a resolution of 1600×1200 or greater.

The Vostro is a work-machine, and less 'pretty' than many other laptops.  But I quite like that, and it's more about what it can do rather than how pretty the box looks.

One thing that makes me laugh though is the on-screen notices that the Dell software pops up from time to time. 

The most useful one is the one that tells me that I've either plugged in or unplugged my headphones into the computer. 

This is something I'm quite aware of, having just plugged the headphones into the computer. 

I'd have to have extreme short-term memory loss to forget what I've just done.  Helpfully, it also tells me when I've unplugged the headphones as well.  Most useful.

Information - you have just read this post.

To be launched in 2010, a Rolls Royce for the common man.  Rolls Royce is revealing its 'entry-level' model at the Geneva Motor Show in March.

It's comforting to know that the uber-rich will still be able to buy themselves a Roller, even if the value of their apartment in Monaco has dropped and their house in Dubai is no longer appreciating at the same rate.

How much for the baby Rolls when it's launched?  A mere snip at £170,000.

I think I'll get two.

This was posted on a forum, so I thought I'd share it.  Not much needed to be said really.

I had to look twice at this banner on the BuyYourCar.co.uk website.  I thought maybe O2 were diversifying their product offering.

 Not sure if it's a very clever marketing idea, or just an innocent mistake - or maybe I just get too much viagra spam?

We've had the insensitive caption on the BBC site.  We've had the slightly incongruous sponsorship on Channel 4.

We now have some media-buying that hasn't been too well thought out.  Posters have been put up all over the place for the new De Niro/Pacino film called Righteous Kill.

The poster bears the strap line:   There's nothing wrong with shooting so long as the right people get shot.  Which is fine as strap lines for films go, but probably not here…

(Thanks to Caroline for bringing this to my attention, obviously whilst she was busy at work)