According to this article the demand for used fuel efficient cars is up as people in the US try to cut their fuel costs. Apparently prices of used hybrids and fuel efficient small cars have risen considerably within the last six months with cars that were cheaper last year no selling at a premium. The most fuel efficient vehicle currently on the market is the 2007 Toyota Prius hybrid and because Toyota have capped production of the 2008 model you would expect to pay 9% more or an extra for one of these. I wonder whether we will see something similar happening in the UK. I have been considering upgrading my very old G Reg (1990) Fiesta but when I realised just how many miles it does on one tank of fuel I thought I would hang onto it for a bit longer. 

This is quite interesting, its a revolving skyscraper. It has been created by an Italian architect who wanted to create what he calls dynamic towers. In the towers each of the floors can fully rotate up to once an hours. The rotating floors will be made from prefabricated apartments that spin around a concrete floor and owners who buy an entire floor will be able to activate the rotation with voice commands to change their view. The towers will also generate enough electricity to power themselves and other nearby buildings because they will be fitted with solar panels and wind turbines. Two of the buildings will be built in Dubai and Moscow by the end of 2010. It all sounds very interesting except that the architect has never built a skyscraper before. I wonder whether it will work.

Insects really like to bite me and every time they do I seem to suffers quite bad reactions. I don't know when they got to me this time but today I have at least three insect bites on my thigh. The combination of the three bites has meant that my entire upper leg has swollen to about twice its normal size, and it really is painful and itchy but also numb in places. In fact I think this might be my worst insect bite so far, it looks so hideous that I'm not going to post a picture this time but if you check out the last time I got bitten and imagine this but much redder and four times as big, then you are nearly there. Needless to say I am in a really bad mood today.

I came across this story some time ago about a man who had decided to put his life up for sale. Ian Usher decided to sell his house and its contents his car, his job and his friends in an ebay auction. The auction ended last week and the winning bidder paid £192,000 for their new life. Mr Usher was disappointed that he did not get as much for his life as he expected but he went ahead with the sale and will spend the money travelling.

I tried this Jungle conditioner from Lush this weekend. Its a solid conditioner that contains cocoa butter, bananas, ylang ylang oil and sandalwood oil. You are meant to rub it along your hair and then rinse it out and according to the lush website the comb will then "slide through your former tangles like a hot knife through butter". Not if you have thick hair like mine it won't. It left my hair a mass of tangles and there was no way a comb was going to go through it, so in the end I had to put a double helping of another conditioner through it. I won't be buying this again. Another Lush product which is better suited for people with thin hair.

I had a very unproductive weekend last week because I have been revisiting some of my old computer games that I have never got around to completing. The main reason for doing this is because I am feeling a little poor at the moment so rather than spending money on new movies or box office films I thought I would make use of what I have already. That said, my husband is obviously not feeling poor because another box arrived today with a Playstation 3 inside. I'm not sure where he managed to find it because its one of the 60GB versions which will also play Playstation 2 games (yes I have already tried it, even though I am meant to be working). I expect there will soon be more details on Rory's blog shortly as well as a more technical view of my new laptop. I see another unproductive weekend ahead.

I never knew there was such an event as the World Nettle Eating Championships but according to this article it does exist. The event is held in Dorset and competitors come from all over the world to eat as many nettles as they can. The competitors have one hour to eat the nettles and the winner is the person who eats the most. This years winner was Paul Collins who managed to eat 64 feet of nettles but he fell just short of his record of 76 feet and hopes to beat this next year.

If you like are are married and live in England or Wales, then you might be interested to know that you have just become a minority. That's according to this article which states that most over 16s are now single, divorced or widowed. The figures from the Office for National Statistics also show that in 2006 there were 236,980 weddings in England and Wales. That might seem like a lot but its the lowest number since 1895.

I hate injections and unfortunately have a history of passing out when I have had to have one. A new patch, however, could offer a vaccine without the need for a injection. The patch has been developed by the University of Queensland and tests on animals have shown it can be even more effective than a normal vaccination. It is the size of a 5p piece and contains thousands of tiny projections coated in the vaccine on the underside. Once applied to the skin these projections push through the outer layer of skin. The nanopatches need a fraction of the dose that would be needed for an conventional needle vaccination. They could also be safer, because they would avoid incidents of needle prick and cross contamination. They are also potentially cheaper to produce. All this sounds great, but for me the best part is that there are no needles involved, unfortunately they are not likely to available any time soon.

It was our wedding anniversary a few days ago and I was surprised to receive a parcel from my husband. I was even more surprised to find that it contained a new laptop from Dell. Its a Dell Inspiron and it makes my old laptop look very inferior. I am currently busy installing everything, so am still mainly working on my old machine for now. So far I am very pleased with the new one, its certainly a lot faster and it has the advantage that it doesn't constantly overheat and of course its nice and new and shiny.