Today (Friday 17 Dec) Christmas news

The British Traditional Pantomime

Come Christmas time the British flock to their local theatres to watch that spectacle that is pantomime. Many famous actors and famous non actors love to get cross dress for the purpose of getting a laugh.

Here are the 8 most common pantomimes you will see at Christmas time.

Alladin, Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Jack and the Beanstalk, Peter Pan, Puss In Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White.

Then of course there is a myriad of amateur groups that put on pantomime written with the local area in mind.

Christmas Travel Chaos in Ireland.

As the salt stocks dwindle and more wintery weather is forecast for today and over the weekend, the roads in Ireland will become blocked as only the highest of priority roads will be gritted. This will throw the travel plans for thousands of people into chaos. Things are better in the UK for the moment, but should these weather continue for any length of time then it will also be affected by blocked roads.

Will Santa get through this Christmas

In Britain there is already a backlog of over 4 million parcels waiting to be delivered and with the freeze set to continue there is little prospect of that improving. And many online stores have already stopped taking orders for Christmas delivery. In some parts people are having to wait up to four weeks for delivery of heating oil and there have been allegations of price fixing and profiteering as the price has risen from 40p per litre to 70 per litre in the last month.

Assange for Christmas dinner?

Julian Assange is too be a guest at the Suffolk estate of Vaughan Smith a former British soldier and club owner. This is one of the bail conditions placed on the founder of wikileaks, he will also be under curfew, electronically tagged and have to report to police every evening.