Ignoring the fact that it's still not even November, Dannii Minogue has switched on the Christmas lights at "top people's shop" Harrods.

The X Factor judge was assisted by a 10-year-old patient from Great Ormond Street hospital as she turned on the illuminations on the front of the store, in London's posh Knightsbridge.

And on the same day her fellow X Factor judge Simon Cowell was paying a visit to Christopher's Children's Hospice in Guildford, Surrey - as he became patron of national charity, Children's Hospices UK.

He was snapped with 19-month-old Summer, and let his stern TV persona slip by admitting that he enjoys spending time with children.

He said: "They're funny, they've always got opinions and you can learn a hell of a lot more from them than you do from grown ups.

"I just like being around them, maybe because I haven't got kids. Maybe because I'm still a kid myself, I don't know."