Bentley Defies Crisis with a 20% Increase in Global Sales

Crisis? What crisis? For you and me, perhaps, but not for Bentley buyers. The VW-owned British luxury carmaker announced today a 20% increase in global sales for the first half of 2011 with 2,978 cars delivered to customers, the best start for the company since 2008.

The luxury marque attributes this surge in sales to the high demand for the new Continental GT as well as the increasing popularity in (least we forget, communist…) China, where Bentley sales have risen by 57% compared to the same period last year, to 680 cars. Thus, it has become the manufacturer’s second best market, behind only the US (George Orwell's "Animal Farm", anyone?).

Not to be outdone by China, the capitalist West has contributed its fair, albeit smaller, share to Bentley’s rise. In Europe, sales have increased by 25% (494 cars) and in the USA by 23% (907 cars). Only in Japan, due to the recent catastrophic natural disasters, and the Middle East, where political unrest rules, have sales declined.

So, well done Bentley - and well done to all the fat cats out there, be they…capitalists or…communists, who are rapidly increasing in numbers each day.

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China Opens World's Longest Sea Bridge

China has unveiled the world’s longest sea bridge, which stretches a massive 26.4 miles – five miles further than the distance between Dover and Calais and longer than a marathon.

The Qingdao Haiwan Bridge, completed earlier this week, links the main urban area of Qingdao city, East China’s Shandong province, with Huangdao district, straddling the Jiaozhou Bay sea areas.

The road bridge, which took four years and cost a cool £5.5billion to build, will be open for use in the New Year and is almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in Louisiana.

Source: dailymail

The Real Iron Man Suit Found in China

After seeing the 2008 blockbuster movie Iron Man, Wang Kang, a 25-year-old office worker from Shanghai, China, had an idea. Kang decided he wanted to be Iron Man.

So, on February 26, 2011, Kang started working on his own Iron Man suit in the living room of his apartment. Three months later, on June 3, Kang showed up at work dressed as Iron Man.

According to various newspaper reports, the costume is mainly made of high density foam, wires and tubes, for which he only paid 3,000 yuan ($460). A small price to pay for this kind of reaction. But this Iron Man Mark I costume is very heavy. It weighs around 100 lbs (45 kg).

Source: wangxiaokang