The Continental Flying Spur was demonstrated in two varieties: The "regular" Flying Spur, which has 19" tires and a 48-valve, 552bhp W12 engine, and the "Speed," which put the Flying Spur on 20" rims, and a 600bhp version of that W12and outfits it with Bentley's carbon/silicon carbide brakes.
While the Naim for Bentley system has a six-disc changer, I found its glove-box mounted iPod cradle awfully useful. It has the MFI (made for iPod) authentication chip, so all of your iPod's playlists, titles, and other metadata are displayed on the GPS touchscreen in the center of the console. All iPod functions can be controlled through the touchscreen, including scrolling though all selections or leaving a playlist for shuffle.
Adjusting the EQ for every 1km change in speed, the Dynamic EQ has over 300 settings. Other fun tricks include various EQ "modes," allowing the system to be voiced for the driver's position or for the rear right passenger's seat. ("Home James, and give me the sweet spot!")
In July, I received an invitation from Bentley to participate in a "driving event" involving the 2009 model Continental Flying Spur and Continental Flying Spur Speed. How come? Because the 2009 Bentleys have the Naim For Bentley music system and, in addition to debuting it for the automotive press, Bentley wanted some hi-fi writers along for the, umm, ride.
A hand-written cookbook of 58 dishes, meticulously hand-written and illustrated by Corporal James Abraham Harrison will be auctioned next month. The gimmick to this cookbook? Harrison was one of Montgomery's Desert Rats and served as mess chef in the North African desert.
You'd think I would have learned to trust Matthew Polk by now, but I attended an NYC demonstration for his new SurroundBar 360 with relatively low expectations. That's because there's a current vogue for low profile, multichannel "bars" that give flatscreen monitor viewers a low profile, single-mount solution to the "problem" of all those extra speakers a multichannel A/V system requires.
As it has for the last 12 years, The Cable Company, along with many of its vendors, is dedicating August to help some of "the poorest people in the most ravaged regions of the world."