You have that feeling of not quite being in control, that there is a man in a booth starting and stopping it! The display is terribly busy; it is so distracting On the plus side it is so smooth and quiet. A hybrid that is kinder to the environment does appeal, but this is too expensive I am not mad about the looks. I doubt if it will break into the mainstream.”Ethan: “It drives really smoothly and there are lots of little pockets in it. I quite like Toyotas.”Paul Fox, 48, director, from central LondonUsual car: Nissan Primera”It was great fun, very smooth and quiet and manoeuvrable It accelerated much better than I thought it would All in all, much better than I expected. I liked the comfort, particularly all the spaces for cassettes and things. I don’t like the looks, it is not pretty, and it is not even peculiar in an interesting way.

It is a shame that saving the planet should be so expensive, so I think only earnest, sensible people would buy them It is unattractive for young people or anyone remotely cool It is a shame they didn’t make it more interesting. It doesn’t even say ‘I am saving the planet’, all it says is ‘I have got a really dull car’.”Dave Raval, 34, management consultant and Lib Dem parliamentary candidate, from east LondonUsual car: VW Lupo GTi”I would pay the extra for this; it is worth it for the environmental benefits. It looks very good and as with all Toyotas it is very well made. I would guess more women than men will buy them: it is big enough to be a family car It drives just like any normal car I am an engineer so I loved all the gadgets. The only problem was that when I tried the electric vehicle mode it kept cutting back into petrol power after just a couple of minutes — which was a bit annoying Other than that, all cars should be powered this way. The Government should do more to encourage these.”*If you would like to take part, please write to The Verdict, Features Department, Independent House, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS, giving your age, address and contact telephone number, and details of the type of vehicle, if any, you drive.

Organisers of the Fleadh have secured Bob Dylan as the headline act this year in the hope that his box-office appeal will save London’s longest-running outdoor festival. But it was cancelled last year because the organisers could not find an act famous enough to top the bill. Dylan, 62, will play at the festival in Finsbury Park on 20 June as part of an 18-date tour of Britain, Germany and Spain. However, his appearance, though likely to safeguard the event, prompted claims that the Irish flavour of the festival was being diluted.The line-up at London’s first Fleadh in 1990, which included Van Morrison, the Pogues, the Dubliners and Christy Moore, read like a who’s who of Irish folk music. Later Fleadhs coincided with the Nineties boom in Irish music andfeatured acts such as the Corrs, the Cranberries and Sinead O’Connor.Recently, however, the Fleadh has taken on a more international flavour, with Sting and Crowded House among the main attractions.

In 2002, Neil Young headlined and the main support act at this year’s festival will be Counting Crows, the US band best known for their 1993 hit “Mr Jones”.The announcement that Dylan, a Jewish-American born-again Christian, is to headline the festival left music fans scratching their heads. A spokesperson for Mean Fiddler, the festival’s promoters, said yesterday that the Fleadh was now “a singer-songwriter event with an Irish flavour”. But the other acts confirmed yesterday ­ which included the Delays (from Southampton), Laura Viers (from Seattle), Laura Cantrell (from Nashville) and Kathryn Williams (from Yorkshire) ­ had a distinctly transatlantic taste.Mich? Coughlan, editor of R??a music newspaper for Irish expatriates in London, said the Irish element had been gradually “watered down”. He said: “In the early days, Christy Moore and the Pogues were in their heyday and they would attract big crowds.