Mikhail Gorbachev

The “Songs for Raisa” CD has been recorded by Mr. Gorbachev with the help of famous Russian pop singer Andrei Makarevich — a product of his ‘Perestroika’ reforms. “The CD lists seven of Raisa’s favorite love songs,” Mr. Gorbachev was quoted as saying by Interfax. “I sang them myself. The CD will be on sale at our London charity auction,” he said, adding that the album will not go on public sale in music stores.

Speaking of that London bash, it was thrown last week by Alexander Lebedev, the Evening Standard owner, and attended by celebs such as JK Rowling, Vanessa Redgrave and Boris Johnson. Gorbachev did a live performance of one of the songs, “Old Letters”, and received a standing ovation from the 300-plus guests when finished. “He has got the most wonderful voice,” guest Rachel Giffin told UTV News. “It’s very polished, with a great tone to it. It’s definitely not man-in-the-pub singing. It was completely unexpected.”

While the winning price for Gorbachev’s album of love songs was not revealed, all of the money raised went to the leukemia cancer foundation he started in memory of his wife.

If the prospect of your cruise ship hitting an iceberg is too frightening for you to consider taking a journey to Antarctica, why not go for the next best thing? Antarctica: The Global Warning is a book of sumptuous photography by Sebastian Copeland (above, left), a big-wig at Global Green and (as it happens) the cousin of Orlando Bloom (above, right). With a foreword by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev and a preface by green-supporter extraordinaire Leonardo DiCaprio, the coffee-table book provides proof positive (as if any such thing were needed) of the importance of preserving the sanctity of the seventh continent.

Copeland’s junior by thirteen years, Bloom (a.k.a. “Orly,”—to his cousin, anyway) accompanied the photographer-filmmaker on a journey to Antarctica last February aboard the Ice Lady Patagonia. Regal as the ship might sound, it’s actually a research vessel with few amenities. Nonetheless, the actor was overtaken by what he saw there, telling Elle magazine a few months later: “Those icebergs are so majestic, but they felt like dinosaurs to me, like a dying breed. I can imagine coming back to Antarctica next year or ten years from now and seeing the difference.”

Copeland says that his primary reason for his publishing the book was to raise consciousness and in so doing, pay back his debt to future generations. “You take one step at a time and before you know it, you start to rethink everything.” He’s also the first to admit that celebrities (such as his cousin as well as boldfaced names like Salma Hayek and Jake Gyllenhaal, both of whom accompanied him to the other of Earth’s extremities, the Arctic—see below) have an even greater ability than the rest of us to bring important attention to the cause, sounding the global warning for Antarctica and the other continents as well.