Queen: Ties that bind the generations
The Queen makes one of her most personal broadcasts to the nation and the Commonwealth, reflecting on what different generations can learn from one another.

Queen's speech: Full text
The full text of the Queen's 1998 Christmas Broadcast.

Christmas dinner: the healthy option?
Christmas is synonymous with eating and drinking and making merry. But is all that excess good for you? News Online presents a health analysis of Christmas meals from around the world.

White Christmas washout
White Christmas? Forget it, say forecasters who predict just a sprinkling of snow in Scotland followed by gale-force winds on Boxing Day.

Stars cash in at Christmas
It's Christmas bonus time, not just for overpaid city types, but for the artists whose Christmas records, like leftover turkey, turn up every year.

Santa's sack of software
We look at an unprecedented year of growth for the computer games industry - and why gaming goodies will be under a Christmas tree near you.

Furbies in wilderness at Christmas
Furbies - widely touted as the toy of 1998 - come 66th in a survey of children's desirable Christmas presents.

Ding dong merrily online
'Tis not the season to be stuck in front of a computer, but you can count the days to Christmas and get a direct line to Santa among the festive attractions on the Net.

Movie magic in '98
It was a year in which Hollywood's blockbusters failed to live up to the runaway success of Titanic - Annette Mackenzie looks back at some of the film's that have hit the headlines.