ZR-1 Land

What did airship expeditions to the Arctic expect to find? Why, lost colonies of Vikings thriving in warm fertile volcanic caldera the size of Pennsylvania, of course.

A bit of a reach, but it could be worse. At least they were doing better than their colleagues in the Antarctic.

Bias Served Cold

The BBC files its final report on the idiotic intrepid Catlin arctic expedition to measure the devastating effects of global warming on the polar ice cap. Not surprisingly, the Beeb gives a lot of space to warnings of warmed-up doom and the expeditions "valuable" data, though they do seem reluctant to dwell on little matters such as the measurements Catlin failed to complete being done faster and better by the Germans, who had the good sense to use an aeroplane; that their own support plane had to abandon caches of fuel drums on the ice due to freezing blizzards; that the same cold and wind left the explorers trapped in their tent huddled in wet sleeping bags and suffering from chronic hypothermia; or that their methods weren't exactly of the first water.

But never mind if the Arctic turned out to be like, well, the Arctic. It was all in the service of Blessed Gaia and that's all that counts.

Top Gear G&T

The BBC Trust has wagged a bony finger at Top Gear's polar special for allegedly "glamourising" drink driving by showing a scene of Jeremy Clarkson sipping a gin and tonic while motoring across the arctic wastes to the North Pole. Leaving aside the bizarre notion that Mr. Clarkson could glamourise anything, the producers quite rightly put forward the defence that the North Pole is outside of British jurisdiction and therefore no offence was committed.

Now if they'd had the presence to also point out that since the programme aired there have been remarkably few incidents of drunken British young people tearing around the Pole in SUVs, its impact may be emperically regarded as minimal.

I can't, however, say the same for the scene in another episode where they showed of James May driving an Aston Martin in Italy stark naked because his car was a racer and therefore didn't have air conditioning and couldn't open the windows. It's of such things that eye bleach is made for.

Update: James May responds– and not to the nude Aston Martin bit.

Cooling His Heels

A British yachtsman is circumnavigating the Arctic sea to draw attention to the rapidly disappearing ice cap that has left the arctic looking like a somewhat cooler version of the Mediterranean.

Unfortunately, the ice cap has not only failed to vanish, but it's heavier than usual this year. So far, the only attention he's drawn has been from the Russians, whose nuclear-powered icebreakers he needs to ferry his boat through the impenetrable ice (if they can even manage it themselves!), and of the polar bears, who are a tad more numerous than he thought and regard his skylark as a crunchy treat with a chewy centre.

Moral: Never believe the hype; it makes for poor advance planning.