The ozone "hole" over Antarctica could be increasing the amount of rainfall as far away as the subtropical regions of the southern hemisphere, according to a study that highlights the global nature of climate changes.

Books: I can't read while rehearsing and so all I'm managing at the moment is a page or two of Amanda Vickery's 'Behind Closed Doors' – a vivid and quirky domestic history of Georgian England. I was invited last October to go to the High Arctic with Cape Farewell. For months after I read nothing but books on climate change and the Arctic/Antarctic experience: Tim Flannery's 'The Weather Makers', 'With Scott to the Pole', a wonderful collection of Herbert Pontings photographs of the 1910-1913 expedition, and Stephen J Pyne's 'The Ice: a Journey to Antarctica'.

BP's latest imbroglio reminds me of a horribly messy divorce in which two head-strong partners fight bitterly over who gets the goods.

Former Olympic rower James Cracknell appears on TV so often these days that we must be seeing more of him than his wife and young family do. Hot on the heels of his three endurance challenges on the Discovery Channel – six back-to-back marathons in the Sahara desert, getting across the United States inside 18 days (and almost getting killed in the process) and "ultra-cycling" 430 miles through the Canadian tundra – he popped up again to tell the tale of his hero in Shackleton's South with James Cracknell (Discovery, Thursday). According to JC (not to be confused with someone of the same initials who sacrificed himself for the good of mankind rather than the sheer hell of it), "It's a tale of terrible hardships, bitter cold and exhaustion". You can see why it would appeal to him.

Sorry, adventurer?

The stratospheric ozone layer, which shields the Earth from the Sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, has been damaged to its greatest-ever extent over the Arctic this winter.

As the Daily Sport appeared to have breathed its last yesterday, as its parent company ceased trading and called in administrators, it was still styling itself as "the world's most outrageous newspaper".

Award-winning photographer and wildlife filmmaker Sue Flood is displaying her passion for the North and South Poles in two ways today as her first book - "Cold Places" - is published and a solo exhibition of her pictures opens at the prestigious Getty Images Gallery in London.