SFist saw Christmas Day turn tragic after a Siberian tiger escaped from her pen at the San Francisco Zoo, killing a visitor and mauling two others. Phillyist counted down the top ten items on Philadelphia's New Year's wish list. Gothamist looked at the wooden bikes being offered for NYC's first bike share program on Governors Island. LAist received a Christmas present in the form of a drunk Santa Claus in a g-string. Bostonist launched......

Of course, the best way to do London on the Cheap this week is to visit friends and rellies and plough through their festive supplies of food and drink, play silly games, watch a bit of frothy telly (see Londonist Stays In for top tips) and fall asleep mildly pissed. When you get cabin fever however, here's a few ideas for low level expenditure entertainment that doesn't involve church or carol singing. Christmas Eve:......

32. The Spirit Of Christmas Christmas ghost stories told by a crackling fire are a rare occurrence in the modern age, so let me chill your spine with a few yarns relating to festive phantoms of the wintry city. The first haunting is said to occur on Christmas Day at the Cadogan Hotel, Sloane Street, and concerns the ghost of actress Lillie Langtry, once a mistress of Edward VII. The spook is not a......

It's very easy to get caught up in this city for all of it's music, clubs and big shiny loud stuff. Well, as much as we remain a fan of all that is big and shiny, Londonist occasionally needs some down time. Preferably with trees and tweety birds. And there's nothing more relaxing than a walk through the countryside. This is why The Wildfowl and Wetlands Centre is perfect. It's a short skip and......

Morden’s Good Shoes have spent the past 2 years since their formation in 2005 traipsing around the UK and Europe with their brand of two-and-half-minute guitar pop with a hint of a punk edge. Comprised of lead singer/guitarist Rhys Jones, guitarist Steve Leach, bassist Joel Cox, and drummer Tom Jones, they have already released 3 singles, played at the Reading and Leeds Festivals, and been mentioned in the NME (but then again, who hasn’t).......

During her daily early-morning dog walking expedition through Hyde Park (no, not the Kevin Spacey variety), a Londonist contributor encountered a man wearing a navy blue outfit and cap, with natty red scarf, standing next to a pile of golf balls, practicing his golf swing as if Hyde Park were his personal driving range. He looked oddly like Hugh Hefner. Another regular park-goer, known only as English Sheepdog owner, spotted a similar looking man,......

So apparently a five foot high Paddington Bear was wandering around Paddington Station this morning, on his way to visit Buckingham Palace. a 5ft Paddington joined commuters as he strolled along a platform eating one of his favourite marmalade sandwiches. The children's literature garden party, which commemorates the Queen's 80th this year, also coincides with one of Paddington's birthday. He has two like the Queen - his other birthday is on Christmas Day. Dammit,......

Once a month Londonist sits down with a pile of the months releases that have dropped through our letterbox. Since we're almost at the end of April, we'd better get on with it. The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club - Amateur Man (Single released 3rd April on Fantastic Plastic) A double jab of schizotic art punk on the VEGC's second single. It has all the energy of a rendition of Knees Up Mother Brown in an......

Is there an official term for this genre? An Outbackian perhaps or even a Kangaroo Western... but that suggests something halfcocked and that's one thing that can't be said about John Hillcoat and Nick Cave's The Proposition. It's a hell of a film that plays around with some of the mythic aspects of the traditional Western, but is more concerned with Cormac McCarthy type themes of retribution and salvation. Its overlying motif is that......

The bookies Coral have announced that their current 3-1 odds for it to snow on Christmas Day in London are "the shortest they have ever offered in November." This is mainly due to the rush of bets they're expecting thanks to forecasts predicting the 'coldest winter in years'. Meanwhile Metcheck.com (our new favourite geek weather site) says London has a 60 per cent chance of a white Christmas. Now we did tell you to......

Did you see what we did there? You see, normally it's called Friday Film News, but for today we changed the 'Friday' to 'Festive', because it's all about the films to watch over Xmas on the telly, and we managed to keep the alliteration. Anyway... One note: all these films are on terrestial television. We're not going to do that thing the papers do where we make a big fuss out of one of......

Londoonist can confidently predict a good few feet of snow for Christmas Day this year. How do we know? Because ex-weatherman Michael Fish has bet against it. According to the papers Fish "has put his reputation on the line again – betting £1,000 that it will not snow on Christmas Day" Hmm, not much of a reputation really is it? We are talking about the same Michael Fish who told viewers back in October......

We like The Pipettes, so you should too. Luckily for the uninitiated there's still a chance of seeing them this year and making your Christmas very jolly indeed. To make you so jolly your cheeks will hurt, The Pipettes have even lined up a competition to let you see them for free... The Queens of Noize present The Guilded Musical of Sin, a "Christmas Fancy Dress Extravaganza" on 20th December, 8pm till 4am, which......

And in yet more 'white Christmas' news: Customs & Excise officers have intercepted and impounded some sacks of coconuts imported from Guyana. Far from being an attempt to prevent them being wasted in 'sound-better-than-they-taste' Bounty bars, the fearsome C&E boys actually discovered cocaine in the sacks which were in a lorry parked outside Spitalfields market. What next - heroin in demerara sugar, hash in our oxo cubes, amyl nitrate in vanilla essence, crack in......

The first tentative predictions for a white Christmas in London are starting to come through. The Weather Action website is predicting a 50/50 chance of snow in the capital on Christmas Day...so either it will or it won't then. Great. William Hill are not so sure, they're offering 9/2 on the chance of a flake or two, while Paddy Power are offering 6/1 that snowfall will be "officially registered at Heathrow Airport on Christmas......

If the Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square just isn't "interactive" enough for you, then you could always try Tate Britain's version, which is being unveiled today. It's a bit of a tradition at the Tate to get someone in to decorate the tree - Tracy Emin did it back in 2002, and Londonist particularly liked Catherine Yass's neon tree of four years ago. This year's offering is a four metre-high Norwegian spruce by sculptor Richard......