• Forget the silicon chip, real chips might well be
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the raw material of the future which helps power the Knights of Britain's roads.
According to the latest Department of Energy report, it is possible to produce a synthetic liquid fuel called binethanol from a range of agricultural products including potatoes, wheat and sugarbeet.
Our surplus wheat and barley, it says, could produce bioethenol equivalent of 5% of the UK's petrol requirement without adversely affecting agricultural markets.
Is the day coming when television soap operas will be showing the opulent lifestyles of rich wheat barons, instad of oil tycoons?
Well, no. The report concludes that high production costs, especially the cost of raw materials such as potatoes, would represent a "misallocation of resources". What really takes the biscuit, however, is that having reached such a gloomy conclusion in the introduction, the report then continues for a further 144 pages. Misallocation of resources, indeed.
• A late tale of seasonal cheer comes from Glass Glover Distribution, which supplied Jimmy Saville with a 13m reefer to make a toddler's dream come true.
Three-year-old Norwich lass, Polly Robinson wrote to the TV Mr Fix-it asking for a Christmas snowman. Only problem: no snow.
That's where Glass Glover came in. It sent its reefer up to Shropshire to collect snow from a ski slope, and the subsequent bodybuilding exercise was screened in Jim'll Fix It on Boxing Day. Result: one happy infant and a garden-full of sludge.
There's no business like snow business. • More on Romania. BRS Swindon and James Nicolas International Haulage, a contract-hire customer, joined forces to aid the call for international help.
On 9 January three truck-loads of food, bedding, clothing and toys were despatched after an appeal to local firms and caring citizens. A reefer semi was supplied by BRS to transport dairy perishables and fruit on the 31/2-day journey.
What's Romanian for three cheers? Answers on a postcard to your avian adjudicator.