Start your Christmas shopping now

A London department store has opened its Christmas shop. Selfridges on Oxford Street is already very busy selling tree decorations, toy robins and all sorts of other festive items.

Russian novel in six hours on TV

War and Peace is a big, fat Russian novel set over 200 years ago. The last time it was made for British television, in 1972, it was 20 episodes long. Now the UK's public service broadcaster is making a TV version of the book again - in just six episodes.

The series will be on TV this winter and is intended to appeal to younger viewers, full of questions affecting modern teenagers.

More exports for UK drink

Gin, a favourite alcoholic spirit in the UK, is about to become one of our biggest exports. The Government is starting to serve the drink (which we traditionally like served with tonic, a bitter sparkling soda) at embassy functions around the world. The Government has also cut export taxes on gin, and hopes it will soon rival our whisky exports.

The UK is already the world's leading gin exporter, with sales worth over GBP 390m last year. Whisky exports are worth GBP 4bn.

200 years ago, gin was known as a cheap drink popular with poor people. Now there are many new producers as well as established brands.

Men turn mountain into hill

Three men who like to measure mountains for fun have found that a Welsh mountain is not big enough. In the UK a mountain is defined as being more than 2,000 feet high and 50 foot higher than land connecting it to the next hill or mountain. 

The three men are working their way through all the mountains that are close to this height to see if they really are mountains - or if they should be called hills.

This summer they have measured a mountain in North Wales called Moelwyn Mawr North Ridge Top. They found that it missed the mountain requirements by just 23 millimetres.