A Lake District mountain has been put up for sale as its owner attempts to pay off a hefty tax bill.

Blencathra, a 2,850-feet-high peak that imposes itself across the Northern Fells, has been placed on the market for £1.75 million. The buyer will also obtain grazing rights for 5,471 ewes, 732 hogs, 200 lambs and also be entitled to use the title Lord of the Manor of Threlkeld.

Known as Saddleback due to its distinctive shape, the mountain was dubbed “one of the grandest objects in Lakeland and one of the best known” by Alfred Wainwright. But the Earl of Lonsdale, Hugh Lowther, has been forced to try and sell the 2,676 acre plot to help pay off the reported £9 million tax he owes from his father’s inheritance.

Modern British men are all softies

Mankind has come a long way since the days of hunters and gatherers – but the modern British man’s survival gene could be in danger of becoming extinct, a survey suggests.

Ready meals and toiletries are the luxuries more than a quarter of men could not live without, with 29 per cent of men choosing ready meals as their must-have item on a remote island, above taking a hunting knife or fishing line.

Some 26 per cent said they could not live without their toiletries, while 62 per cent of men said that they would not be able to start a fire without the aid of a lighter, according to the Channel 4 survey of 2,000 British men.

The survey findings come as Channel 4 launches a five-part series, The Island with Bear Grylls, featuring the real-life experiences of a group of men struggling to survive on a remote island.

Bosses work from mobile offices

Many top bosses have admitted to working at the wheel, according to a survey.

Two in five senior managers and business owners have dialled into conference calls while driving, the poll by workspace provider Regus found. And three-quarters of these bosses said they regularly made calls to colleagues or customers while at the wheel.

Of the 1,800 people surveyed, a fifth said they had held important business discussions, tantamount to a meeting requiring concentration and decision making, while driving. Also, more than 10 per cent had recorded verbal notes using their phone at the wheel.

A multi-million-euro ice screen

Experts cast doubt on the feasibility of a plan to tackle the problem of contaminated water at Japan’s tsunami-ravaged plant – with a multimillion-euro wall of ice.

The Game Of Thrones-style proposal at Fukushima Dai-ichi – projected to cost 32 billion yen (€226 million) – aims to surround the plant’s four crippled reactors and their turbine buildings with an underground ice wall to block groundwater from flowing into the basements and mixing with highly radioactive water leaks from the melted cores.

Toyoshi Fuketa, a commissioner with Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority, said the hydrological impact of a frozen wall to the area was unclear, echoing international concerns. “We need to know if a frozen wall is really effective, and more importantly, we need to know whether a frozen wall may cause any trouble,” he said.

NYPD baseball team’s gear stolen

A New York Police Department baseball team was forced to cancel a tournament championship game after its bats, jerseys and gloves were stolen in a raid.

New York’s Finest Baseball Club had been scheduled to take on the Dallas Fire Department when equipment worth about 15,000 US dollars (€10,800) was stolen from a team van.

Team manager Jose Vasquez said officers had to spend the morning filling out their police reports, rather than taking to the field.